Another NHL winner last night as Phoenix and Minnesota played under the total.  That’s a nice 2-0 start to our NHL free plays here at SportsUntapped and we’ll try to keep the winning run going tonight with a side play on the Pittsburgh/Ottawa game.  ’Mr. Crosby’s Penguins’ is an allusion to a book called ‘Mr. Popper’s Penguins‘ that was a favorite of mine as a kid.  Yep, even I was a kid once and didn’t start reading ‘The Gold Sheet’ until I was 8 or 9.

Anyway, I’m glad that we’ve gotten off to a good start with NHL plays because hopefully it’ll encourage  you to pay attention.  You’re getting better handicapping here than you’ll find just about anywhere else no matter how much you pay.  That’s what I hate the most about the sports handicapping game:  sports touts make the most noise for the least reason.  Now I’m not telling you anything you don’t know when I reveal that those guys yelling on scorephones or waving their arms around on early morning cable TV infomercials are crooks.  What might surprise you is just how few good handicappers are actually in the business of providing sports information for a price.  Now there are some, but I’d hazard a guess that over 90% of the sports information industry are a) crooked, b) incompetent or c) both.  Here’s the reality:  if you wanted to illustrate how bleak the industry is draw yourself a Venn diagram.  If you don’t know what it is Google it.  Draw one circle and then draw another circle so that *maybe* 1/10 of the circles overlap.  Now get out your Crayolas and label the circle on the left ‘sharp handicappers’.  Label the circle on the right ‘professional sports touts’.  And color in the overlapping area in the middle.  That, my friends, is the reality of the sports handicapping business.  Serious sports handicapping is a very time consuming pursuit, but having a speed dial full of guys that make bookmakers physically ill at their mere sight I can tell you that the reason more good handicappers don’t go into business providing sports information is that they don’t want or need the hassle.

I could rant about this forever and I’ll do more of it in the future.  What’s never ceased to amaze me is that the Internet, with its free exchange of information between users, hasn’t made things better its made the problem worse.  Now any moron with a spam list and a cheap suit from Sears (tip:  real wise guys don’t wear suits) can claim to be part of the ‘New Jersey Matzo Boys’ or some other non-existent syndicate and that every bookmaker from Las Vegas to Costa Rica cowers in fear at the mere mention of their name.  I got a spam the other day from some pinhead that asked ‘How would you like to win 97% of your sports plays’.  I wrote him back saying, sure I would. I’d also like to wake up between Christina Ricci and Scarlett Johansson but that’s at least a theoretically possible dream.  The bottom line is that I’m not here to sell anything or hype a sports service or otherwise try and make a buck off of you.  I’m here to try to teach you something and to win you a little money along the way.  So let’s get to tonight’s hockey action and see if we can go three for three in pucks for the week.

PITTSBURGH PENGUINS AT OTTAWA SENATORS:

In the coming weeks I’ll go over the various types of hockey side bets, but for now we’ve got a straight moneyline play. A painfully simple concept here.  We’re taking a good team who has recently hit a rough patch with injuries and a few losses against a mediocre team.  Pittsburgh has suffered through a ton of injuries lately, particularly to their defensemen which anyone who knows anything about the NHL will tell you is the real position where hockey games are won and lost.  It’s like the offensive and defensive line in football.  The good news for the Pens is that they’re starting to get healthy in the backline, and the guy whom I feel is the linchpin of the Pittsburgh defense Sergei Gonchar will return for this game.  Pittsburgh lost four straight earlier this month as their injuries mounted up, but they’ve rebounded to win two straight against quality opposition in Boston and Anaheim.  They’re 7-3 on the road this year despite their injuries.  Ottawa, meanwhile, is the personification of mediocre.  They’re 9-9 overall and only 6-6 at home.  So we’re getting one of the best road teams in the NHL against a team that doesn’t even have a winning record on their own rink.  The Penguins have actually had more trouble with the Senators at home than in Ottawa:  they’re 7-6 against the Senators over the past three seasons, but 4-2 at Scotiabank place.  And here’s the best part of the whole thing:  Pittsburgh is a small underdog here, currently priced at +105 at Bookmaker.com.  As always, shop it around.  Successful handicapping isn’t about ‘picking winners’ its about finding value.  And getting a good team at an underdog price against a mediocre team is the classic example of value.

PLAY PITTSBURGH +105 OVER OTTAWA