NHL hockey betting free picks: Pittsburgh @ Calgary
Added on Jan 13, 2010 by Jack Thurman in
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The defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins have hit a rough patch of late, with only 3 wins in their last 10 games. They’re still in decent shape in the weaker Eastern Conference, currently in fourth place 6 points ahead of fifth place Boston and with the top three teams still within reach. They’ll try to get something going on the road Wednesday night as they head to Canada’s ‘Cow Town’ to take on the Calgary Flames at the Pengrowth Saddledome. The Flames lost a tough 3-2 verdict to Colorado the last time out but Calgary still leads the Northwest Division. We’ll take a NHL hockey betting position on the total in this game.
Pittsburgh Penguins at Calgary Flames
January 13, 6:35 PM Pacific
Everyone knows that the Flames need to play a certain way to be effective. They won’t outscore anyone, and to win games they need to play good defense and minimize opponent scoring chances. They’ve done that fairly well recently, but their offensive struggles have become so acute that they’ve lost three of four despite having the games at their preferred tempo. They’ve also gone ‘Over’ only once in their last eleven games and not at all in their past ten games (7 UN, 3 push). And we’ve learned that the Flames are a team that can maintain this sort of low scoring style–they’ve gone ‘Under’ in 11 of 14 games this season after playing three or more ‘Unders’ in previous games.
Despite the perception that Pittsburgh is a high scoring team, they’ve also played more ‘Unders’ than ‘Overs’ this season with only 20 ‘Overs’ in 47 games (25 UN, 2 push). Their biggest problem recently has been defense and goaltending and they’ve gone ‘Over’ in 4 of 5 and 7 of 10. Really, the best thing for them at this point is to play Calgary’s type of game and let their superior offensive skill players try to steal a road victory. Getting some value here as 6 of the last 8 meetings in Calgary have gone ‘Over’, but the last two between the Flames and Pens have gone ‘Under’. We look for this one to go ‘Under’ as well.
Bet Pittsburgh/Calgary Under 5′ -120
