NHL Hockey Betting for November 30, 2015

Just four games on the NHL betting board for Monday. Here are our best bets:

COLORADO AVALANCHE AT NEW YORK ISLANDERS:

There are four teams in the NHL right now with fewer than twenty wins. The Colorado Avalanche are one of them. They’re a tough team to figure–and they might already be done for the year playing in the NHL’s toughest division. They’ve shown signs of a turnaround at various points this season but they’ve all been false alarms. They’ve been treading water over the past couple of weeks but enter this contest on an upswing off a solid win against the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday night. One of Colorado’s major problems has been very poor play on home ice. The Avs are just 3-6-1 at home this season. There are signs of hope in Denver–they have arguably the best line in hockey at the moment. Matt Duchene, Gabriel Landeskog and Nate MacKinnon are in excellent form.

The Islanders are still in the middle of the pack in the Metro Division but well off the pace set by Washington and the New York Rangers. Currently, they’re six points back of the second place Rangers and seven back of the division leading Capitals. The Islanders are 5-4-1 in their last ten games. That’s not going to get it done in the pressure packed media market of New York. There’s already rants in the press about the Islanders underachieving and needing a ‘wake up call’. That’s a pretty fair assessment and we think it might take a few more losses before the get the 4-1-1.

BET COLORADO AVALANCHE +150 OVER NEW YORK ISLANDERS

CAROLINA HURRICANES AT NEW YORK RANGERS:

The Rangers are another team that needs to get their mojo back. The New York media has started in on the Rangers as well, suggesting that they’ve ‘lost focus’ and are taking too many careless penalties. More distressing is the timing of their swoon–it happened after the Montreal Canadiens routed them at home. It’s almost as if their manhood got took–for most of the season the Habs and Rangers have been 1 and 1A in the Eastern Conference but now its clear that there’s separation between these teams. Even without Carey Price. Now the Rangers have been caught in the Metro Division by the Washington Capitals. They should get the win here–they’re on a 9-1 run against the Hurricanes including six straight wins at Madison Square Garden.

BET NEW YORK RANGERS -175 OVER CAROLINA HURRICANES

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.