NHL Hockey Betting: Detroit Red Wings at Montreal Canadiens
The Detroit Red Wings are trying to get back into the postseason picture. They’re currently tied with Philadelphia for the final wild card spot in the Eastern Conference but due to tiebreakers are on the outside looking in. They’ll try to climb ahead of the Flyers (for now–Philly plays tomorrow night) as they take on the Montreal Canadiens at the Bell Centre. The story of the Habs’ 2015-2016 season is well known by now. They started the year in unbeatable form setting franchise records for their early season performance (and when you’re the Montreal Canadiens ‘franchise records’ are no joke). After that, however, the wheels came off due in large part to what now looks like a season ending injury to goaltender Cary Price. They had other injury issues (defenseman/emotional leader P.K. Subban remains out with a neck injury, Brendan Gallagher is also out indefinitely among countless others) but to their credit they’ve continued to scrap even though they really had nothing to play for and now have AHL level talent at some positions.
The Detroit Red Wings aren’t as good of a team as people seem to think they are. They’re in the bottom half of the table in every significant statistical category including goals per game (#22), goals against per game (#18), power play (#17) and penalty kill (#16). They’ve been a decent road team this year (18-14-5) but despite all of the Canadiens’ issues–issues that would have caused many teams to quit–they’ve put up a winning record at home (20-15-3). Wings playing in the second of back to back games coming off a 3-2 win over Buffalo last night. It was an emotional game due to the birthday celebration of hockey god Gordie Howe and even without this type of angle the Wings are 4-10 in the second of back to back games this season. Montreal is rested, not having played since Saturday night.
The Wings are favored here simply because of the urgency that they win this game. By now, you should all know about the danger of betting teams in ‘must win’ situations. A lot of things to not like about Detroit here and Montreal is better than the linesmakers and public are giving them credit for.
BET MONTREAL CANADIENS +125 OVER DETROIT RED WINGS
