NHL Betting Previews: Florida Panthers at Vancouver Canucks

Added on Oct 10, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

NHL

We got our NHL betting plays for the 2010-2011 season off to a good start on Sunday with a victory on the Calgary Flames, and we’ll stay out West for a Monday game between the Florida Panthers and Vancouver Canucks. Both teams are 0-1 on the season, with Vancouver losing a 2-1 game against Los Angeles in their home opener and Florida dropping a 3-2 verdict at Edmonton on Sunday.

Florida Panthers at Vancouver Canucks
October 11, 2010 7:00 PM Pacific

Sports betting enthusiasts are always talking about their ‘bad beats’–games that for whatever reason they’re convinced they *should* have won but didn’t. We can’t blame the Florida Panthers if they’re not grousing about their ‘bad beat’ in Edmonton last night where they dropped a 3-2 decision despite thoroughly outplaying the home team. Despite the loss, there’s a lot of positives about this Panthers team that we took away from watching the game and that’s something that you might have missed if you just looked at the scoreline (the NHL Centre Ice package is well worth the investment).

Usually when a team loses a game despite dominating in most statistical categories it was because of a breakdown in some phase of the game–usually goaltending. That wasn’t really the case here–Tomas Vokun gave up 3 goals in a 5:27 span in the second period, but none were what I’d label ‘soft’ goals. He got beat on two deflections followed by a goal that sure looked to have been kicked into the net on the replay. The ref upheld Shawn Horcoff’s footwork and the Panthers found themselves down 3-0 despite having played a very solid hockey game to that point. We were also impressed at the Panthers’ response–they continued to fight, cut the deficit to 3-2 but were unable to tie the game thanks to another excellent effort from Nikolai Khabibulin.

The Panthers aren’t a team that opponents–and particularly elite level opponents–get ‘up’ to play but they give a credible effort on most nights and we look for their pesky ways to continue as they head to Vancouver. The Canucks are loaded with talent and are the pick of many hockey pundits to win the Stanley Cup, but they’ve got a history of starting the season slowly. They’ll be a handful by the end of the year, but they’ve had a tendency to underachieve early. Last year their scoring sputtered early on, and their defense was porous–they also had a bad habit of standing around and making Roberto Luongo do all of the work.

Ultimately, we’re taking a huge price with a plucky Panthers team that won’t provide any special motivation for Vancouver. The Canucks have as much talent as any team in the league, but they could be repeating their habit of starting out slowly. At any case, they’re not worth laying -240 on at this point and the value is clearly with the other side.

Bet Florida Panthers +200 over Vancouver Canucks