NHL Betting Preview: Colorado Avalanche at New York Rangers

Added on Oct 18, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

NHL

Several attractive NHL betting opportunities on Monday night’s card and in this preview we’ll take a look at a non-conference game between the Colorado Avalanche and New York Rangers. The Avs are 3-2 on the year and this is the final game of a 5 game road trip where they’ve already picked up wins at New Jersey and Detroit. The Rangers beat Buffalo on opening night and have lost two games since for a 1-2 record.

Colorado Avalanche at New York Rangers
October 18, 2010 4:00 PM Pacific

Somewhat surprised to see the Rangers favored in this matchup given their play this season and injury situation. New York has done a decent job scoring goals–they’ve got 13 in 3 games for a 4.33 goals per game average. The problem is that they’ve also allowed 13 goals in 3 games. This gives them the dubious distinction of having the best goals scored per game average in the NHL and the worst scoring defense in the league. Even their offense isn’t quite as good as it seems–6 of their 13 goals came opening night against Buffalo so they’ve only scored 7 in the two games since. The Rangers are also 24th in shots on goal against at 35.3 per game. Their injury situation is pretty bad at the moment, especially in terms of their offense–Vaclav Prospal was already on the shelf and over the weekend they lost forwards Marian Gabornik and Chris Drury to injury. The Rangers did catch a break, however, as pesky Sean Avery won’t be suspended for a nasty slashing incident against Toronto on Friday night.

New York has had a very favorable schedule in the early going having played only three games but this may have hurt their continuity on offense, particularly in light of their injury situation. With the Rangers’ injuries and their leaky defense we just can’t make a case for playing on them at this time. The Avs are in a position to make this long road trip a winning one with a victory here and they’ve dominated New York at the Garden in recent meetings with a 6-3-1 record. Just think the Avs are the better, healthier team and we’ll gladly take them as a small underdog.

Bet Colorado Avalanche +105 over New York Rangers