NHL Betting Picks: New Jersey Devils at Carolina Hurricanes

Added on Feb 19, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NHL

While most of the action at your favorite online sportsbook will be centered around basketball on Saturday there’s plenty of NHL betting action as well. In this post we’ll take a look at an Eastern Conference matchup between the Carolina Hurricanes and the New Jersey Devils. Carolina is coming off a victory over Philadelphia on Friday night and currently lead Buffalo by 4 points for the eighth and final playoff spot in the conference. The Devils beat the Rangers 1-0 on Friday and while they’re still a dozen points back of the Hurricanes the notion that they could qualify for the postseason is no longer a bad punchline.

New Jersey Devils at Carolina Hurricanes
February 19, 2011 4:05 PM Pacific

Whether or not the New Jersey Devils do end up qualifying for the NHL playoffs the turnaround they’ve pulled in the second half of the season under interim head coach Jacques Lemaire is truly remarkable. Left for dead as the worst team in the league at the end of 2010, the Devils have tightened up their defense dramatically and started to play like a team possessed. Since January 9th they’ve only lost three games, with only one of those in regulation. In that stretch they’ve compiled a record of 14-1-2 which is made even more amazing considering that prior to 1/9/11 they’d *won* only two of their previous 17 games.

In theory, what Lemaire has done isn’t brain surgery–the Devils still rank dead last in team offense and when your team can’t score you need to keep your opponents from scoring if you’re going to win hockey games. Easier said that done, of course, but Lemaire deserves ‘Coach of the Year’ honors for getting a Devils team that had grown accustomed to losing every night to reinvent themselves as the nastiest defensive team in the NHL. No one will say that they’ve got their sights set on a playoff berth, but left winger Brian Rolston gives a good explanation of his team’s mindset with this quote: “At this point, every game is a playoff game for us.”

That’s not just a pithy sound bite–in their past 17 games they’ve only allowed more than 3 goals once and have given up a total of 30 in that stretch. Last night’s shutout dropped their team goals against average to 1.76 for the last 17 games. To understand just how good that is, consider the fact that Vancouver and Nashville are currently tied for the NHL lead in scoring defense at 2.29 goals against per game. New Jersey was near the bottom of this category for much of the season but their ungodly performance in the past six weeks have them up to #14. After playing worse than most AHL teams for most of the season the Devils are now a speeding freight train and until they give us reason to do otherwise we’d rather be *on* the freight train than standing in front of it.

Carolina’s not a bad team but they’re one of the most erratic in the league. They’ve lost 6 of their last 9 and have already dropped 2 of 3 to New Jersey. The ‘canes are also a team vulnerable to being outworked by opponents and that’s a problem against this borderlined possessed New Jersey side. We’ll back the Devils as small road dogs here.

Bet New Jersey Devils +110 over Carolina Hurricanes