NHL Betting Free Picks: Chicago @ San Jose
Added on May 18, 2010 by Jack Thurman in
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Sportsbooks will be offering two NHL betting opportunities for Tuesday night, and we’ll focus on the Western Conference Final series between the Chicago Blackhawks and San Jose Sharks. Blackhawks took a narrow victory in Game 1, and the series will shift to Chicago for Games 3 and 4.
Chicago Blackhawks at San Jose Sharks
May 18, 7:00 PM Pacific
We expected this to be a hard fought series, and we like the Blackhawks to emerge victorious. We think San Jose will strike back in Game 2 however. Blackhawks have now won 4 of the last 5 head to head, though every game except one has been decided by a single goal. Dating back a couple of years, San Jose has a narrow 7-6 advantage in the last 13 games played. That’s kind of the way its been, with two evenly matched teams that matchup well offensively and defensively going at it. This will be tough one for online sports betting fans.
There’s quite a bit of technical precedent to boost the case for a San Jose win in Game 2. It’s a difficult spot for any team in any sport to win back to back games on their opponent’s home floor. In all of the ‘stick and ball’ sports that use 7 game playoff series, teams that win Game 1 on the road are only a 32.6% SU winner in Game 2. In the NHL, they fare a little better overall but are still just a 35.7% Game 2 winner. In the Conference Finals, the performance of a road team that wins Game 1 is the same in Game 2 as in all sports–32.6%. The psychological dynamic here is obvious, as the road team has a tendency to ‘let up’ in the second game knowing they’ve got an advantage while the home team doesn’t want to run the risk of going down 0-3 with the next two games on enemy ice. In an otherwise even series, we’ll back the technical data in this Game 2 spot and back the Sharks.
Bet San Jose -140 over Chicago
