NHL Hockey Betting: Anaheim Ducks at Winnipeg Jets

The Winnipeg Jets have played the Western Conference champion Anaheim Ducks very tough in this series–particularly in the last two games which the Ducks won in the waning seconds of regulation (Game Two) and in overtime (Game Three). Despite this decent showing all they have to show for it is an 0-3 deficit facing elimination as they contest Game Four at the MTS Center in downtown Winnipeg.

We’ve talked throughout this series about the Ducks less than impressive statistical profile–and we’ll do so again in just a minute. For this reason they confound handicappers (myself included) who can’t find any quantitative basis a) why they’re not a mediocre team and b) why they win all the time. At any rate, they haven’t had any problem handling Winnipeg winning all four regular season meetings and the first three games of this series. One thing that can be statistically quantified–that’s a seven game winning streak against the Jets The last time the Jets beat Anaheim was at the MTS Center 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. As was the case in Game Three, both teams are relatively speaking injury free. And now we’ll talk about the Ducks’ bizarre statistical profile. Playoff teams usually do something especially well–play defense well, have good special teams, score goals, get good goaltending, etc. The Ducks are statistically underwhelming in every one of these areas. Regular season stats: 11th in goals for, 20th in goals against, 28th on the power play and 15th on the penalty kill. Somehow that translates to 51 wins, 109 points and a Western Conference title. They ran away with the Pacific Division in the process. The only teams with more points are Montreal (top ten in two categories) and the New York Rangers (top ten in three). St. Louis also had 109 points and the Blues are top ten team in all four major categories, not to mention a top five in three of them. For that matter, even 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).

Teams down 3-0 in the NHL don’t just roll over and quit like the do in the NBA but hard to see how the Jets bounce back after two straight disappointments.

BET ANAHEIM DUCKS +115 OVER WINNIPEG JETS