NHL Betting Picks: New York Rangers at Montreal Canadiens

Added on Jan 15, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NHL

Saturday’s NHL betting card features an Eastern Conference matchup at the Bell Centre as the Montreal Canadiens host the New York Rangers. Both teams are currently in the conference playoff mix, with the Rangers tied with the slumping Caps in 5th place while the Habs are tied with Atlanta for 7th.

New York Rangers at Montreal Canadiens
January 15, 2011 4:05 PM Pacific

If you’re a fan of high scoring, wide open hockey action you might want to look elsewhere because you’re very unlikely to find it in this matchup. Rangers and Canadiens are both ranked near the top of the league’s scoring defense rankings–in fact, they’re in a statistical ‘dead heat’ with Montreal ranked #5 with 2.39 goals per game against and the Rangers #6 with 2.40 goals per game against. New York’s recent form has been even better–they’ve allowed a total of 14 goals against in their last 9 games for a stingy 1.55 goals against per game during that stretch. Now the bad news–both teams struggle to score goals. The Rangers are #15 with 2.78 goals per game but in their last 8 games have only scored 13 goals for a per game average of 1.62. Montreal is the #27 scoring offense, averaging 2.46 goals per game.

For the purposes of handicapping NHL totals few things are as helpful as what we call ‘in season matchup form’–basically, how teams have played each other in games this season. In this case, we’ve got some very recent data to work with as the Habs played the Rangers at Madison Square Garden on January 11, with Montreal winning 2-1. We don’t expect things to be any different this time around. Montreal has played only 12 OV in 44 games this year (28 UN, 4 push) and the Rangers have only 16 OV in 45 games (27 UN, 2 push). Rangers have gone UN in 8 straight and we expect that to be 9 straight after this game.

Bet New York Rangers/Montreal Canadiens Under 5 -105