NHL Betting Free Picks: Boston @ Philadelphia
Added on May 07, 2010 by Jack Thurman in
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Two NHL betting opportunities on sportsbooks boards tonight and we’ll go to the Eastern Conference where the Boston Bruins will be in Philadelphia trying to close out their series with the Flyers. After two close games in Beantown, the Bruins romped in Game 3 and will be looking for the sweep tonight. This game will be televised on the Versus cable network in the US.
Boston Bruins at Philadelphia Flyers
May7, 4:05 PM Pacific
Everyone knows that teams down 0-3 in a 7 game series are essentially ‘dead men walking’. In all of the major US sports there are only three teams that have *ever* come back from an 0-3 deficit to win a 7 game series. That two of the three are in hockey is more a testament to the toughness and heart of NHL players than anything else. That notwithstanding, teams with a 3-0 NHL series lead go on to win the series over 98% of the time. The difficulty in surmounting the 0-3 deficit is underscored by the fact that throughout all sports right around 65% of these series end up in sweeps. In the NHL, the team with a 3-0 is a 64.8% winning play in game 4 overall and a 65.6% play when they have home ice advantage.
We played Philadelphia to win their series against Buffalo, and cashed a couple of tickets on them in the individual games. At the time, we thought that the Flyers may have been peaking at the right time of the year but its now apparent that they just lucked in to a perfect matchup. They’d dominated Buffalo during the season, got better than expected goaltending from Brian Boucher and faced a Sabres team that had suffered some key injuries to crucial personnel. Everything lined up perfectly for a Flyers win, but this series has been just the opposite. The Bruins have struggled to score goals this season, but their offense has received a huge boost from the return of Marc Savard. They’ve got a huge edge defensively, and particular in net where Tuukka Rask has quickly become one of the best netminders in the game. The Bruins have lost center David Krejci to injury, but as long as playmaker Savard stays healthy they should be able to manage. We look for the Bruins to complete the sweep and we’ll gladly take them as small dogs in Game 4.
Bet Boston +105 over Philadelphia
