NHL Hockey Betting: Toronto Maple Leafs at Ottawa Senators

It’ll be the battle of Ontario tonight as the Ottawa Senators host their provincial rivals the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Canadian Tire Centre. The Senators are playing well at the moment with a 6-3-1 record in their last ten games and find themselves in third place in the Atlantic Division 3 points back of second place Boston and 2 points ahead of tonights opponent and the Florida Panthers who are tied for fourth. Toronto has been playing exceptional hockey of late with a 7-2-1 record in their last ten games.

The Senators’ biggest problem at the moment is goaltending. Their starting goalie, Craig Anderson, is on an indefinite leave of absence as his wife struggles with cancer. Backup goalie Andrew Hammond is injured which means that Mike Condon–you’ll remember him from Montreal last year–is the team’s #1 goalie for now. Condon played well in Montreal last year when Carey Price went out but eventually wore down. He’s in danger of doing that here–this will be his fifteenth straight start and 17th in 18 games. The only other option that Ottawa has in net is 6’6″ prospect Matt O’Connor and he’s more of an ’emergency’ option than anything else.

Toronto will start Curtis McElhinney, recently acquired from Columbus after he became expendable with Joonas Korpisalo’s return from injury. McElhinney is 2-1-2 on the year with a 2.39 goals against average and a 0.924 save percentage. He’s always been a decent goaltender and could likely benefit from a change of scenery. Ottawa has a decent home record (13-6-4) but faces a Toronto team that is impressively solid on the road for such a young roster (9-6-6).

Ottawa won the only meeting between the teams this year, winning 5-4 in overtime on 10/12/16. It’s been a while since the Maple Leafs have won in this series–Ottawa swept all four games last season and are 7-3-0 over the last three years including 5-1 at home. That makes this a bigger game for the leafs than it would be already and with three days off until they begin a four game home stand they’ve got no excuse not to bring their best game. We’ll look for the improving Maple Leafs to get a much needed win in this series.

BET TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS +110 OVER OTTAWA SENATORS