NHL Hockey Betting: Montreal Canadiens at Columbus Blue Jackets
These are tough times for the Montreal Canadiens as they’ve recently found out they’ll be without starting goalie Carey Price for at least another month. There’s been some speculation that the team will write off 2015-2016 as a ‘lost season’ and shut down Price for the rest of the year. At any rate, the Habs are currently below playoff qualification which is especially dire considering the team won their first 9 games in regulation to start the year. All is not lost–the Habs are just three points out of the final wild card spot and just four points out of Atlantic Division qualification but they need to start winning some games and that’s something they haven’t been able to do of late. Montreal is 3-6-1 in their last ten games though they are coming off a win over arch nemesis Toronto on Saturday night.
The dysfunctional Columbus Blue Jackets are 3-5-2 in their last ten games and coming off of an overtime loss to Boston. They’ll be without head coach John Tortorella until after the All Star break as he recovers from broken ribs suffered in a freak injury during a recent practice. They’re also without their top two goaltenders as Sergei Bobrovsky and Curtis McElhinney are both sidelined indefinitely. That’ll give 21 year old Joonas Korpisalo the start once again tonight–Korpisalo’s numbers may not look like much but he’s shown a lot of poise and occasional flashes of brilliance despite getting little help from the Jackets’ porous defense. Korpisalo is 3-5-2 with a 2.91 goals against average and a 0.910 save percentage. The Habs will counter with rookie Mike Condon who is 13-12-4 with a 2.40 goals against average and a 0.907 save percentage. Condon has been playing erratic since his early success and recently it seems whenever he has a good game his teammates don’t score any goals in support. These two teams will rematch at the Bell Centre tomorrow in their last action prior to the All Star Break.
This game is a ‘toss up’ and we’ll back the home team as underdogs. Most likely, we’ll look to play the losers of this game in the rematch in Montreal tomorrow night.
BET COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS +115 OVER MONTREAL CANADIENS
