NHL Betting Odds: Pittsburgh Penguins at Ottawa Senators

Added on Mar 15, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NHL

The Pittsburgh Penguins have scrapped to hang on to a top tier playoff spot in the Eastern Conference despite injuries to their captain Sidney Crosby and another valuable offensive weapon in Evgeni Malkin, among numerous other players. They’ll face a tough test on Tuesday against an Ottawa Senators team that is playing much better than their last place ranking in the conference would suggest.

Pittsburgh Penguins at Ottawa Senators
March 15, 2011 4:35 PM Pacific

The Senators have been a different team since acquiring goaltender Craig Andersson from the hapless Colorado Avalanche. Andersson is playing some of the best hockey of his career and the Senators have started to win games. Ottawa is 7-4 since Andersson was acquired and prior to a bad game against Buffalo in his last outing he’d allowed only 14 goals in 10 starts. Edmonton is still ranked #29 in scoring defense, but their recent form is substantially better than that. They’re still a bad offensive team ranked #28 in scoring offense.

The Penguins have only won 4 of their last 11 games and they’re not getting much offense either with the exception of 5+ goal games against Toronto and Edmonton. Those are the only games where Pittsburgh has scored more than 3 during the 11 game stretch. Throw out the results against the notoriously porous defenses of the Leafs and Oilers and Pittsburgh is averaging 1.7 goals per game in their last 10 contests.

We’re not getting the risk/reward balance we’d like to play on the Sens as home underdogs, so we’ll look instead at the total. Penguins have gone Over in only 23 of 70 games this season (43 UN, 4 push) and only 9 of 32 games against opponents with losing records (21 UN, 2 push). The two games Pittsburgh played against Toronto and Edmonton discussed above are the Penguins’ only Over verdicts in their last 12 games (8 UN, 2 push). Edmonton’s OV/UN numbers on the year are right around breakeven but since they acquired Andersson they’ve gone Under in 7 of 11 games with 3 OV and 1 push. Pittsburgh ripped Ottawa 5-2 at home in the first meeting of the year, but in two games since then the teams have split wins and losses with both going Under with totals of 3 and 4 goals.

Bet Pittsburgh/Ottawa Under 5 +115