Montreal Canadiens vs Boston Bruins Preview

Added on Apr 09, 2009 by sbworld in

NHL

The best hockey matchup for Thursday night pits the Boston Bruins (51-18-4-6) against the Montreal Canadiens (41-29-3-7) and this one is a tough one to figure out who will leave the ice with the victory. Boston currently leads the Eastern Conference by 6 points over Washington while Montreal is holding down the 7th spot in the playoff standings and is 2nd behind Boston in the Northeast Division despite trailing the Bruins by 20 points.

These teams have met up 5 times this season with the Bruins winning the last 4 at odds of -102, -157, +152, and +120 while Montreal took an early-season meeting at a line of -172. The first 2 meetings went over the total but the last 3 have all gone under with every single game this season between these teams being lined at 5.5.

Boston has won 6 of their last 7 games and their goaltending recently has been incredible. Allowing just 1.60 goals per game on 33.6 shots over the course of their last 6 games, it’s really defense that is getting the Bruins victories at this point. Goalies Tim Thomas (2.07 GAA) and Manny Fernandez (2.46 GAA) have been incredible this entire season and are going to make it extremely hard for the Canadiens to put up goals in this one.

Montreal has taken 5 of their last 8 games and has shown an excellent mix of offense and defense. Scoring 3.60 goals per game on 29.4 shots while allowing just 2.00 goals on 31.8 shots over their last 5 games has some out there thinking the underdog Canadiens have the right mix to upset this Boston team on Thursday night.

The hockey betting lines have seen a good deal of movement since they came out and most of the big money seems to be on the road-team Canadiens. BetOnline and most offshore sportsbooks opened this line with Boston favored at roughly -180 but the line was steamed down to where it currently sits at -160 with the total once again being a predictable 5.5.

Montreal has won 28 of the last 39 matchups between these teams and the favorite has won in 23 of the last 35 meetings. We here at Sports Betting World expect a playoff atmosphere and a game that could go either way with Montreal playing so well lately. Whether or not they can finally beat this Boston team remains to be seen but this matchup should be entertaining regardless.