NHL Hockey Betting: Ottawa Senators at Montreal Canadiens

The Ottawa Senators managed to stave off elimination in Game Four of this series, winning 1-0 on their home ice. Now the series shifts back to the Bell Centre in Montreal where the Habs will try to close out the pesky upstarts from Ottawa. Montreal is in complete control of this series but they definitely haven’t dominated the Senators. Every game in the series has been decided by a single goal with two of Montreal’s wins coming in overtime. Had a few pucks bounced in a different direction we might be talking about a Senators’ sweep right now.

The Canadiens had the best scoring defense in hockey during the regular season but that was all due to the phenomenal goaltending of Carey Price and not the team’s defense that allowed 30+ shots on goal per game. Price has been superb during the playoffs allowing 7 goals in 4 games but his teammates haven’t raised their game on offense. Montreal was the #20 goals per game scoring team during the regular season (2.61 goals per game) and have 9 through four games in the postseason (2.25 goals per game). While it’s definitely possible for teams to ride a ‘hot goalie’ deep into the playoffs it’s more common for a ‘garden variety’ goalie to get hot at the right time. It’s less common for a goalie that carried the load all season long to carry his team deep into the postseason. Price is arguably the best goaltender on the planet, but he needs help from the rest of the team on both ends of the ice. So far, he’s not getting it.

Ottawa is in a strange place as a team. They got to the postseason due to the excellent play of Andrew Hammond aka ‘The Hamburglar’ but he’s been human in the playoffs and for now has surrendered the starting job back to Craig Anderson. The Senators won three of four meetings during the regular season so they’re confident that they can beat this team. Carey Price could win this game on his own–he’s capable of pulling off a great performance on any given night. At the price, however, I’d rather have the plucky young Senators.

BET OTTAWA SENATORS +150 OVER MONTREAL CANADIENS