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Welcome all! It’s the first weekend of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and with many series getting to the middle of things, I am trying to make sense of the betting side. The Lightning let me down last night at home but like anything in the postseason, nothing is going to be easy. There are four games on today’s NHL slate, with a game dropping puck at 1PM eastern, so let’s dive right in!
Postseason Records to Date:
Record: 1-3
Units -2.00
New York Rangers @ Pittsburgh Penguins, 7:00 PM ET, ESPN
This series has seemed like the NHL version of the wild west through two games. Tons of odd man rushes and bodies not being cleared out of the blue paint is not how I imagined the series would go. Both the Rangers and Penguins were known for their defensive prowess almost all season long and seeing 14 goals in the opening games was a little suspiring to me. The Rangers have spent all season leaning on goaltender Igor Shesterkin as he appears set to win the Vezina trophy. He led the league in GAA at 2.07 and in SV% at .935 while collecting six shutouts in the process. This led to a team goals against per game average of 2.49, the 2nd lowest mark in the entire league. From the betting side the defense was also evident as the Rangers had an under record of 47-33-2 on the campaign which was a hit rate of nearly 59%. These stats tell me that the offensive explosions of the first couple of games could be out of character and we could be in for a long overdue Under in tonight’s game.
On the Penguins side, they weren’t as good defensively as New York, but they were no slouches either. Pittsburgh allowed 2.71 goals per game this season, which was the 5th lowest margin in the NHL in the regular season. The key factor for tonight, though, is that third-stringer Louis Domingue will start again for the Penguins in net. Domingue has played about as good as he can through about four periods to this point while making timely saves. He allowed five goals in Game 2 but you could hardly pin that on the goaltender. Tired legs from the triple OT Game 1 surely made for some mental errors in front of him. Look for Mike Sullivan and the boys to lock it up a bit tonight to help their inexperienced goalie behind them. Two teams known for defense-first play surely can’t go Over the total in three straight games, right? Get me a ticket on the Under for tonight’s game please and cut out the sloppy play, guys.
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The Pick
Rangers & Penguins Under 6 Goals (-120 on PointsBet)
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