Thursday NHL card

[TexasBC6]

NHL Season: 1-0 (+1.4 units)

For Thursday, I believe I have dug up a couple of dogs that have good shots at winning. I will wait to play these in hopes of getting a higher price, but I will go ahead and list the lines I have for right now.

1) Chicago (+175) over Vancouver

Vancouver has some bright spots on both offense and defense, but they are by no means a very deep squad. I am amazed that an NHL team would enter the season with Dan Cloutier in net. Granted he has been with Tampa Bay and the NY Rangers for the past four years, but this guy has a 3.10 GAA and an .894 save percentage in 126 games. Chicago, on the other hand, is fairly talented on the offensive end while lacking in defensive depth. New head coach Brian Sutter is a no BS kind of guy that can show this team that they can win and elicit a solid effort out of his guys night in and night out. Jocelyn Thibault got close to no support from his defensemen last year and his numbers suffered as a result of it. If their defense can show some semblance of determination, they should be able to pull this one out.

2) Anaheim (+190) over Boston

Jean-Sebastien Giguere turned out to be one of the better goaltenders in the NHL at the end of last season. Anaheim has added Jason York and Keith Carney to their thin defense corps, giving them two more solid players to use in the rotation. This will mitigate some of the pressure on Oleg Tverdovsky and Ruslan Salei. Boston's Dafoe is about as good as they come when on his game, but he is often left out to dry by his defensemen. The additions of Sean O'Donnell and Richard Jackman will help, but will not do much to shore up a shoddy group on D. With Allison still holding out, Thornton moves up to #1 centerman with hardly anyone behind him to center the remaining three lines. I'll take a shot and bet that Anaheim can keep this one close and get a low scoring victory. It's too early in the season for me to bet totals, but Anaheim looks like they fit the "UNDERdog" theory of betting, for those of you that bet that way.

GL and be smart out there!

[This message has been edited by TexasBC6 (edited 10-04-2001).]

 

[wigs]

good writeups, good luck with your dogs...taking kings and blues tonight

 

[Sports Junkie]

Good luck with your plays tonight, guys.

3-0 +1.5 units on the year.

Tough card in the early going. Have not had much time today but I do like a couple games tonight with 3 plays:

DET/SJ +5 ( +100) .5 to win .5 Units
Sure they have Hasek now and SJ has Nabokov in net, but DET is a potent offensive club (Four 30 goal scorers). I think SJ will be fired up for the opener, and they have plenty of offensive firepower too, especially with Selanne healthy. Also, if last night and the preseason are any indication, there should be several PP opportunities for both teams.
I also like DET ML (-110) .55 to win .5 Units. I think they win a close, exciting game. OT perhaps?

STL -.5 (-155) .77 to win .5
STL added Weight and his 90 points, but lost Turgeon, so they still look pretty good on offense and defense, which might be their strength. They got a lot of depth and a decent goalie in the Turek trade. They are the superior team and should handle the Blue Jackets easily. A lot of vig this early on the ML so I took the puck line instead.

Good luck everyone.

 

[Nolan Dalla]

Good write-ups everybody. I appreciate the information you all are posting here on the games. Just a note of thanks.

Nolan

 

[TexasBC6]

I'm disgusted with myself. The injury report I checked listed no injuries at all for Anaheim. I thought Giguere would be in there tonight, he wasn't, Shields had a bad game, and I lost. This is why I want to find the best place to get goaltender information. Where do you all check for the starters between the pipes?

Chicago tried to give the game away late, but held on to earn me a split for the day. I saw many MJ'ers made some good money today, let's keep it going!

 

[Kronheim]

Originally posted by TexasBC6:
Where do you all check for the starters between the pipes?

Last season, USAToday.com would post the starting linups about 15 mins prior to gametime in the Scores section of their website. Just click on the individual game links. Not sure if this will continue this season but it came in handy a few times last year.

Local media are always good for this kind of thing too.

HTH

Kron

 

[TexasBC6]

Thanks Kron. USA today has been the only place outside of local media that seems to have the starters. The problem is that it is only about 15 minutes before game time like you said. With the way these totals move, it's tough to wait that late. I appreciate the response, if anyone else has any suggestions on where to look I would appreciate it. Thanks.

 

[Investment Executive]

usa today, yahoo, sportsnetwork, excite, dbs, etc.,all use generally the same wires going out for starting refs and goalies which as a rule has been 10-15 minutes before gametime...other than following the indidvidual team media info(radio/print/tv) that is about all your going to get.