NHL Hockey Free Picks

Big hockey betting matchup in the Windy City as the NHL’s top ranked team, the Washington Capitals, heads in to the United Center to take on the #2 team in the West the Chicago Blackhawks.  The Caps are running away with the Eastern Conference, leading second place Pittsburgh by 14 points.  At this juncture, the only real goal before the playoffs begin is the Presidents’ Trophy for the NHL’s best record.  The importance of this to a hockey team is debatable.  In theory, its important because it guarantees home ice advantage throughout the playoffs.  In practice, however, its not exactly been an express route to the Stanley Cup–since the league started awarding the Presidents’ Trophy after the 1985-86 season only 7 of the 23 winners have won the Cup (there’s only 23 due to no winner during the lockout year). Since the San Jose Sharks won the trophy last year and got bumped in the first round by Anaheim, they may be happy to concede it to the Caps as long as they win the West.

NHL betting takes us down south to the Philips Arena in Atlanta as a couple of teams trying to get in the backdoor of the Eastern Conference playoffs tangle.  The Atlanta Thrashers are currently tied with Tampa Bay for 10th place with 66 points and tonight they’ll host the 9th place New York Rangers who have 65 points.  Neither team have looked too anxious to make a run–both have gone 4-4-2 in their last 10 games.  In any case, the game does present a good value opportunity on the total.  Since the Rangers don’t have ice girls these lovely girls from the Islanders’ ice girls graciously volunteered to fill in.

ATLANTA THRASHERS VS. NEW YORK RANGERS:

While basketball action is dominating the menu at sportsbooks there’s still plenty of NHL betting action out there.  We’ll take a look at an Eastern Conference game between the Carolina Hurricanes and Pittsburgh Penguins.  The Penguins have the 2nd best record in the East, three points ahead of New Jersey and Buffalo.  The Hurricanes are still mired in 13th place but have been one of the hottest teams in the NHL of late winning 8 of their L10 games with only one loss in regulation.  They dug a huge hole for themselves earlier in the campaign and are still 8 points behind Boston for the final playoff spot in the conference.

PITTSBURGH PENGUINS VS. CAROLINA HURRICANES:

Back with more NHL betting for Tuesday.  We’ll take a look at tonight’s game between a couple of playoff bound teams in the Western Conference as the Vancouver Canucks head east to play the Colorado Avalanche.  Canucks are currently third in the West while the Avalanche are in 6th but that doesn’t really do justice to how evenly matched these teams are.  Only three points separate the third through sixth teams so obviously this is an important game.

VANCOUVER CANUCKS VS. COLORADO AVALANCHE

Both teams started the season playing very good defense–or in Vancouver’s case getting one insane goaltending performance after another from Roberto Luongo–but somewhere along the way their offenses caught up to the level that they were playing at defensively.  Now both teams can score and keep the other team from scoring, which is a deadly combination in hockey.  Vancouver is ranked third in goals per game, just .02 behind second place Chicago.  The Blackhawks are one of six teams in the NHL averaging more than three goals per game.  Colorado is ninth in goals per game at 2.88.