NHL Betting Preview: Vancouver Canucks at Los Angeles Kings

Added on Oct 15, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

NHL

NHL betting on Friday night takes us out west for a Western Conference matchup between the Los Angeles Kings and Vancouver Canucks. In a strange scheduling quirk, this will be the second meeting of the teams this season with the Kings stealing a shootout victory at Vancouver in the previous meeting. LA is currently in second place in the Pacific Division trailing Dallas by 2 points, while Vancouver is tied for third place in the Northwest Division with Minnesota.

Vancouver Canucks at Los Angeles Kings
October 15, 2010 7:35 PM Pacific

We’ll be playing against Vancouver a lot in the early going–not because we don’t think they have a good team. Quite the contrary, they’re loaded with talent at both ends of the ice and have arguably the best goaltender in hockey–Roberto Luongo–between the pipes. They’re a team that will definitely be contending for the Western Conference crown this spring. As we’ve discussed before, however, they’ve shown a marked tendency in recent years to start the season slowly. In some games their ridiculous level of talent allows them to get away with poor team hockey but we’re not sure that’ll be the case against a vastly improved Los Angeles team. The Kings know they can compete with Vancouver–even when the Canucks were ‘clicking on all cylinders’ in last year’s playoffs Los Angeles took them to six games. Early in the season with Vancouver slow to round into form they’ve got every opportunity to pull off a win here.

We’re not sure whether its a function of Alain Vigneualt’s coaching (and he’s a coach we generally like), the personnel on hand or what but Vancouver struggles early in the season to get everyone involved and ‘on the same page’. On offense, there’s been a tendency so far to expect the Sedin twins to do all of the work. They’re definitely more than capable of leading an offense–Daniel leads the team with 3 goals and Henrick has a team best 4 assists–but so far their line has been the only one doing anything. Aside from 1 goal for Raffi Torres, Daniel Sedin is the only Canucks’ forward to put the puck in the net this season. They sorely miss LW Alex Burrows, who led the team with 35 goals last year and usually plays on the top line with the Sedins. The Canucks have been outshot in two of their three games this season and were upset by lowly Anaheim in their last game.

A bigger problem is on the defensive end. As was the case last season, the Canucks’ defense has been ridiculously porous considering the talent they have on hand. Sami Salo is on the shelf following off season Achilles’ tendon surgery but that can’t be used as an excuse for poor work on the defensive end. The Canucks have a tendency to stand around on defense and expect goaltender Luongo to do all the work. The good news is that he may be better able to do that than any netminder in hockey, but that’s a very dangerous habit for a team to develop. The Canucks are allowing an average of 35 shots on goal per game–only 6 teams have allowed more. Vancouver has the talent to win uptempo hockey games, but not if they’re not scoring goals.

The Kings lack playmakers on offense but play excellent defense and have a pair of brutally talented young goaltenders in 24 year old Jonathan Quick and 22 year old Jonathan Bernier. LA currently has the #4 scoring defense in the NHL and have a great chance of forcing the Canucks to play their preferred tempo here. Vancouver’s offense may continue to struggle until Burrows returns, and with their lax defense so far they’ll have a hard time winning the way the Kings will make them play. Look for the home team to grind out a win in a low scoring contest–4 of the last 5 regular season meetings have gone Under the total.

Bet Los Angeles Kings -125 over Vancouver
Bet Los Angeles/Vancouver Under 5′ -125