NHL Hockey Betting: Vancouver Canucks at Arizona Coyotes

The Vancouver Canucks are something of a question mark at this point in the NHL season. They’ve played reasonably well and in fact are tied with the Los Angeles Kings for first place in the Pacific Division. This notwithstanding, there’s a lot of obvious problems in Vancouver. The Sedin twins aren’t getting any younger and while they’re still extremely talented hockey players they’re not as fast or elusive as they once were. In fact, the Canucks are a team with pedestrian speed in a league where ‘speed kills’. When Vancouver gets in against a team with good speed–for example, Edmonton and their young snipers on 10/18–they look downright lead footed. Ryan Miller has played reasonably well in net but he’s now started all 10 of the Canucks games this year. He’s getting his first rest tonight as Richard Bachman will make his season debut. The Canucks are 4-2-4 but despite the fact that they earned a point in those four OT losses they’re still losses.

The Arizona Coyotes are a huge enigma. There have been times when they’ve looked downright intimidated to be playing in the National Hockey League. There have been other times when youngsters like Anthony Duclair and Max Domi have looked like future superstars. The Coyotes are playing their first game home after a long road trip that started poorly (two losses) but ended well (two wins). We’re not counting the 6-0 loss to Boston that was obviously ‘phoned in’. Oddly enough, both of these teams have played better on the road this year than at home. Arizona is 4-2-1 on the road but just 1-2-0 at home. Vancouver has yet to suffer a regulation loss on the road at 3-0-1 but are just 1-2-3 at the Rogers Arena. Mike Smith will get the start for Arizona here. He’s 4-3-1 on the season and has been playing pretty well given the uneven effort of the rest of the team.

Just not sold on Vancouver and if the ‘good’ Coyotes show up this could be a game where the Canucks look old and slow. They might still be patting themselves on the back for ending Montreal’s season opening winning streak. Arizona has won four of the last five meetings at home.

BET ARIZONA COYOTES -110 OVER VANCOUVER CANUCKS