NHL Betting Picks: Pittsburgh Penguins at New York Rangers

Added on Feb 01, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NHL

The sports betting menu will get back to normal tonight as the NHL resumes play following the All Star Break. We’ll take a look at a Eastern Conference matchup between the Pittsburgh Penguins and New York Rangers. Pens have been playing fairly well in the absence of Sidney Crosby, who remains out with a concussion, and starts the second half of the season 5 points behind division leading Philadelphia. The Rangers are 5 points back of Pittsburgh and 10 back of Philadelphia.

Pittsburgh Penguins at New York Rangers
February 1, 2011 4:35 PM Pacific

The Rangers are what hockey fans call a ‘pesky team’ that no one likes to play. Of course that’s also how the Penguins have been forced to compete with captain Sidney Crosby out of the lineup. Pens are in good form even without Crosby’s considerable talents and enter this contest having won 5 of their last 6 as they appear to be getting used to playing without him for the time being. Rangers were just 3-4 in the 7 games preceding the break and their ‘grinding’ style isn’t really the type of thing that you can just jump back into after a layoff.

Here’s another thing interesting about this series–the Rangers have been fairly competitive in recent years even with the Penguins superior play and have won 6 of the L15 meetings. Oddly enough, however, in the past two years its become a series dominated by the *road* team. The visiting team has won the last 7 meetings in the series, most recently a 4-1 Rangers win at Pittsburgh on December 15. That’s also significant since the Penguins have been a great team in revenge spots this year–they’re 16-6 avenging a loss to an opponent in the previous meeting. Overall, we like the Penguins due to the dynamics of the series and their superior pedigree and will gladly take a NHL betting position on them as short priced road dogs.

Bet Pittsburgh Penguins +105 over New York Rangers