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The Washington Capitals may not have the *hottest* ice girls in the NHL but they’ve got the best name:  the Red Rockers.  While it probably wasn’t intended as an homage to former Montrose and Van Halen lead singer/tequila entrepreneur Sammy Hagar, its still a cool name.  Anyway, we don’t have much to choose from on the NHL betting slate tonight with only two games scheduled.  We will take a shot on a totals play in the Toronto Maple Leafs/Washington Capitals game and hope the Red Rockers have a lot to cheer about.

TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS VS. WASHINGTON CAPITALS:

Something I was taught as a young sports handicapper was that you could do a lot worse to go ‘over’ the highest total on the board and ‘under’ the lowest total.  That may very well be the case on tonight’s NHL board.  For a sportsbook to post an NHL total at 6′ OV something must be up, and in this case what’s “up” is the Washington Capitals scoring offense.  Basically, you’ve got a matchup here of the Caps #1 ranked scoring offense in the NHL (3.63 PPG) against the worst scoring defense in the league (3.38 PPG).  Just knowing this information you don’t have to be a genius like Norman Einstein to see how this should work out.

Washington has gone ‘over’ in four straight and 7 of 11 (2 UN, 2 push).  They’ve averaged 5.2 PPG in their last five contests.  They’ve gone over in 11 of 20 at home (one push).  Toronto has gone ‘over’ in 14 of 24 on the road.  Toronto has played a lot of ‘unders’ lately, but the YTD games between the two sides are always a good metric.  The 11/21 game won 2-1 by Toronto is somewhat of an anomaly,  but the other two teams between the Caps and Leafs this year have averaged 9.5 goals per game.  Look for the Caps to put at least five on the board and the Leafs should be able to pick up enough scraps for this game to go ‘over’ the total.

PLAY TORONTO/WASHINGTON OVER 6′ -115