NHL Hockey Betting: Anaheim Ducks at Winnipeg Jets
The Anaheim Ducks continue to confound with their mediocre statistical profile (more about that in a moment). Their numbers don’t suggest that they’re a dominant team but they keep winning hockey games and head to Winnipeg with a 2-0 lead in the series following a 4-2 win in Game One and a 2-1 victory in Game Two. Anaheim certainly hasn’t had trouble with Winnipeg this season–the Ducks won all four regular season meetings. The last time the Jets beat Anaheim was at home on January 21, 2014.
Both teams are reasonably healthy heading into Game Three and the goaltending matchups will be the same with Ondrej Pavalec in net for the Jets and Frederik Andersen between the pipes for Anaheim. The Ducks are such a strange team due to their mediocre statistical profile. Most playoff level teams have at least one phase of the game in which they excel. Statistically speaking, that should give them at least one top ten ranking in one of the major statistical areas. The Ducks have a grand total of zero. They finished the regular season 11th in goals for, 20th in goals against, 28th on the power play and 15th on the penalty kill. Of course they were near the top in the statistic that matters–they had the third most points in the NHL and won the Western Conference. The two teams that finished in more points were Montreal (top ten in two categories) and the New York Rangers (top ten in three). They finished tied with St. Louis who is a top ten team in all four major categories, not to mention a top five in three of them. Winnipeg has a better statistical profile, posting higher rankings in three of the four major categories (not surprisingly, the Ducks have a better goals per game average).
But they don’t award the Stanley Cup to the team with the best statistics. The Ducks just keep winning but this is the toughest game of the series for them. The Jets don’t want to go down 3-0 and a victory gets them right back in the series. We’ll take a shot on the home team.
BET WINNIPEG JETS -125 OVER ANAHEIM DUCKS
