NHL Hockey Best Bets for March 6, 2016
Six games on Sunday’s NHL board. Here is our best bet:
DALLAS STARS AT OTTAWA SENATORS:
Matchup between teams that are good offensively but not so much on defense. The Dallas Stars were the team to beat early in the season but they’ve fallen off a bit while the rest of the Central Division has caught up. The Stars are still tied for first place with the Chicago Blackhawks but that could change quickly as both teams have losing records over their last ten–Chicago is 4-5-1 while Dallas is 3-5-2 L10. Behind them are third place St. Louis (7-3-0), fourth place Nashville who are the hottest team in the division (7-0-3) and fifth place Minnesota (7-3-0). If the middle of the pack teams continue to win and Dallas and Chicago keep struggling everything is going to bunch up real fast.
Ottawa is Canada’s best chance to make the playoffs They’re just five points out of the final wild card spot (held by Pittsburgh) but a bigger issue is that they’re tied with two teams (Carolina and New Jersey each have 69 points) and one team is ahead of them (Philadelphia with 71 points). The Flyers are playing reasonably well (6-3-1 L10) but New Jersey is 3-7-0 in their last 10 games. Carolina is 4-5-1 in their last ten games meaning the Senators have a great opportunity to pick up some ground if they can grind out some wins.
Could the stage be set for another playoff run backstopped by Andrew Hammond aka ‘The Hamburglar’? Could be. Starting goalie Craig Anderson is injured (knee) though he’s getting close to a return (day to day). Hammond had a very good game at Toronto last night (41 saves) and everyone remembers last year when Ottawa fans took to throwing hamburgers on the ice at the Canadian Tire Centre. But the problem could be buried in that 41 save performance–the Senators gave up 43 shots to the Maple Leafs. To be fair, Toronto takes a lot of shots (#5 in the NHL 31.3 per game) but Dallas takes more (32.4 per game). More importantly, more of Dallas’ shots end up in the net–they’re #2 in goals scored per game at 3.20, just fractions behind the Washington Capitals 3.22 goals per game.
But it’s easy to fixate on Dallas’ offense and their star studded lineup of scorers. The Senators are pretty good at putting ‘the biscuit in the basket‘ as well. Ottawa has the #5 (tie) goals per game average at 2.82. And neither team is much on defense The Stars have the #22 scoring defense in the NHL (2.86) while the Senators are #26 (3.05). Ottawa is a maddeningly inconsistent team but they’re in decent form and are underrated on their home ice.
BET OTTAWA SENATORS +150 OVER DALLAS STARS