NHL Hockey Betting: Stanley Cup Playoffs for May 18, 2016

Game Three of the Eastern Conference Finals is set for Wednesday night in the ‘Cigar City‘ aka Tampa, Florida. The Tampa Bay Lightning and Pittsburgh Penguins are tied at one game apiece with the next two games on the Bolts’ home ice.

PITTSBURGH PENGUINS AT TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING:

Two games in the books and we’re back where we started. The best of seven series is now a best of five series. Before we get to the Game Three handicap let’s hit on some of the big stories surrounding this matchup:

–BEN BISHOP LIVES!: Lindy Ruff blamed bad ‘puck luck’ for the Dallas Stars’ misfortunes in the series with St. Louis. If the Stars got bad ‘puck luck’ the Lightning got some fortuitous ‘puck luck’ at least as it relates to the status of Ben Bishop. If there’s a ‘best case scenario’ for watching your Vezina Trophy nominated starting goaltender stretchered off the ice this is it. The first reaction when the stretcher comes out is that the injured player has torn or broken something and will be gone indefinitely. But Bishop was immediately x-rayed and given a MRI which showed no structural damage to bone or tissue. Bishop himself has said that he thought his leg was broken. Wrong. As is their nature hockey teams are secretive about the true nature of injuries–for example, we *still* don’t exactly know what was wrong with Montreal goalie Carey Price that sidelined him for most of the season. All we know is that it’s a ‘lower body injury’ involving the leg area. My first guess after I heard that X-rays were negative was that Bishop had suffered a knee sprain like Nashville’s Pekka Rinne did last season. Rinne missed several weeks but according to Lightning head coach John Cooper there’s a very good chance that Bishop will be back before the end of this series. Cooper (wisely) wants Bishop to practice or at least skate before returning to game action and the team’s schedule has been such that he hasn’t been able to do that. Based on this somewhat cryptic comment a) Bishop is at or close to 100% and b) since he hasn’t practiced we’ll see Andrei Vasilevskiy again in Game Three:

“I think, when you’re playing every other day, it’s tough for anybody to come back,” Cooper said. “That’s where those three-day breaks are big in that regard. That’s helped us out in a few of these series, just trying to help get guys back. But ultimately, whether it’s one day, two days, three days, if he’s ready to go, he’s ready to go. I don’t think an extra day is going to help out. But he’s making progress every day. So hopefully, we’ll see him soon.”

Cooper also addressed the status of Ryan Callahan who missed Game Two with the flu. Hockey players are the toughest athletes in sports. When a NHL player can’t get out of bed to play in the Conference Finals you know he’s in bad shape: “I felt awful for him. The ultimate gamer is Ryan Callahan, and you know when he couldn’t get himself out of bed, that’s an unfortunate loss for us at a time when we need him.”

Callahan is listed as ‘questionable’ for Game Three.

–SIDNEY CROSBY LIVES! EVGENI MALKIN, NOT SO MUCH: There’s no question that Sidney Crosby is playing like you’d expect a superstar to play during the Stanley Cup playoffs. He’s been all over the place on both ends of the ice. But until the Game Two overtime he’d gone eight games without scoring a goal. Simply put, the Penguins don’t have the scoring depth of Tampa Bay. For that reason they need Crosby and Evgeni Malkin to score goals. A ton of credit to the pariah of Toronto aka Phil Kessel. He’s been a monster during the playoffs and leads the team in goals with six including one scored in Game Two. But back to Crosby and Malkin–while Crosby has been working his ass off Malkin has completely disappeared. He did get seven shots on goal in Game One but hasn’t picked up a point since early in the Washington series. To be fair, some of the Penguins unsung heroes have picked up some of the slack but it’s not a good sign when Nick Bonino and Carl Hagelin have been more of a factor than Malkin.

–THOSE YOUNG GOALIES ARE GOOD: By now, everyone knows the deal with Pittsburgh’s 21 year old rookie Matt Murray. But credit to Tampa’s 21 year old backup Andrei Vasilevskiy as well. The Lightning lost Game Two but it sure wasn’t due to Bishop’s absence or Vasilevskiy’s presence. The second year goalie played a great game with 38 saves on 41 shots including this highway robbery of Crosby in the second period. The mainstream sports media was chortling that Tampa Bay’s goose was cooked after Bishop’s injury. Guess again. The majority of NHL backup goalies circa 2016 would have been All Stars just a decade or two ago. Overall play at the position is better, conditioning is better, equipment is better and today’s goalies combine insane size and athleticism. Plus there’s plenty of precedent for young goalies performing well in the playoffs from Patrick Roy to Ron Hextall to Cam Ward to Matt Murray and Andrei Vasilevskiy. The only ‘sports media’ types that went OMG TAMPA IS SCREWED!! are know nothings like the cretins on ESPN that obviously don’t know anything about hockey.

–HOW TO BET GAME THREE: Nothing has changed. This series is a ‘coin flip’ at worst. Yet Pittsburgh is once again a near 2-1 favorite to win the series and are *road favorites* for Game Three. The Lightning have won 30 of 47 home games this season and postseason yet they’re not even favored in their own rink. Once again, this isn’t to say that Pittsburgh doesn’t have an excellent team. They do–they have the ability to win Game Three and this series. What they don’t have is a probability in excess of 70% but that’s what the series prices suggest. At -200 and above the implied probability is at or above 67%. If this series was played 100 times the Penguins would have to win 70 times just to eke out a small profit. The value is on Tampa and finding value is the way to make money over the long haul in sports betting.

BET TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING +110 OVER PITTSBURGH PENGUINS (GAME THREE)
BET TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING +175 OVER PITTSBURGH PENGUINS (SERIES)

About the Author: Jim Murphy

For more than 25 years, Jim Murphy has written extensively on sports betting as well as handicapping theory and practice. Jim Murphy has been quoted in media from the Wall Street Journal to REASON Magazine. Murphy worked as a radio and podcasting host broadcasting to an international audience that depended on his expertise and advice. Murphy is an odds making consultant for sports and 'non-sport novelty bets' focused on the entertainment business, politics, technology, financial markets and more.