Larry Ness
Anaheim vs. Dallas
Pick: Anaheim
Both the Ducks and Stars are coming off a year in which they were not able to parlay strong regular season performances into postseason success. Anaheim won the Pacific Division title last season with 103 points but lost in the first round of the playoffs to Nashville, a defeat which cost head coach Bruce Boudreau his job. Meanwhile, Dallas won the Central Division last season with 109 points, a total which gave them the West’s top-seed. Yes, the Stars did eliminate the Wild in six games in the opening round but they then lost to the Blues, getting embarrassed in Game 7 at home, falling 6-1!
Head Coach Randy Carlyle, who led the Ducks to the Stanley Cup in 2007 during his previous stint in Anaheim, returns for a second go-around. The Ducks have made lots of changes to their roster since the end of last season, not the least of which was trading goaltender Frederik Andersen (22-9-7, 2.30 GAA & .919 save percentage) to Toronto. John Gibson (21-13-4, 2.07 GGA & .920 save percentage) will open the season as the team’s No. 1 goaltender. In contrast, the Stars retained their coach and made only a handful of changes to their roster from last season. The Stars owned the league's top-ranked offense last season (league-leading 267 goals) but the team’s blue-line defense was exposed when the team allowed 20 goals in its four losses to the Blues in the postseason.
The Stars owned a strong home-ice advantage last year (28-11-2-0) but I look for the Ducks to steal one on the road Thursday night.
SPORTS WAGERS
Los Angeles +136 over WASHINGTON
It comes down to one game for all the marbles and a seven-game date with the Cubs. Washington turns to its $210 million ace and former Cy Young winner Max Scherzer. Los Angeles turns to Rich Hill.
That's not entirely fair, of course. Hill has been amazing since returning to the majors in mid-2015 following a stint playing independent ball--seriously, his path to stardom at age 36 is an incredible story--and his 2.12 ERA this season ranks second among all pitchers with at least 100 innings. He trailed only rotation-mate Clayton Kershaw, whom the Dodgers started in Game 4 on short rest, setting up Hill and his 2.56 xERA to take the mound opposite Scherzer and his 3.01 xERA tonight.
Hill failed to make it out of the fifth inning in his Game 2 start, yielding four runs in a 5-2 loss in Washington, but he did strike out seven of the 22 batters he faced while generating 10 swinging strikes on 82 total pitches. At no point this season has he allowed more than two runs in back-to-back starts. Scherzer also allowed four runs in his previous start this series, taking the Game 1 loss in a matchup against Kershaw while serving up homers to Corey Seager and Justin Turner. This has the potential to be a strikeout-filled pitchers' duel, but as we've seen already this postseason, counting on those to materialize doesn't always work out.
Wednesday's off day means nearly everyone should be available, save for Game 4 starters Kershaw and Joe Ross. Dodgers’ manager Dave Roberts chose Hill over rookie Julio Urias to start Game 5, but the 20-year-old phenom figures to play a prominent role out of the bullpen and could be tasked with a starter-like workload if Hill looks shaky early. Kenley Jansen threw just 13 pitches in Game 4, so a multi-inning save isn't out of the question.
Nationals’ manager Dusty Baker is less likely to have Scherzer on a short leash, but once he does decide to involve the bullpen, expect a parade of southpaws in an attempt to neutralize the Dodgers' many left-handed bats. Marc Rzepcynski, Oliver Perez, and Sammy Solis will be doing some heavy lifting by bridging the gap from Scherzer to closer Mark Melancon. Jose Lobaton, who homered off Hill in Game 2, figures to draw the start at catcher over rookie Pedro Severino.
Hill is seen as less of a sure thing than Scherzer to come through with a strong outing, both because of his arduous path to ace-domination and his Game 2 struggles. However, while Scherzer has a lengthy track record of dominance that includes league-highs in wins (20), innings (228), and strikeouts (284) this season, his extreme splits present a potential issue against the Dodgers. Scherzer was death on righties this year, holding them to a .156 batting average, but lefties hit .242 with 17 homers and a .442 slugging percentage off him. Los Angeles' starting lineup will feature just one right-handed hitter and plenty of left-handed power. No question that the Nats deserve to be favored here but there is no question that they do not deserve to be favored in this range in what has to be considered damn close to a 50/50 proposition. We must play the value here.
Pass NFL
SPORTS WAGERS
Minnesota +111 over ST. LOUIS
The Blues opened the season with a big 5-2 win in Chicago last night but we are not going to let one game stop us from our attack on this team. St. Louis will have to rely on Jake Allen to carry them and this will be his first big test, as they will roll him out for the second night in a row. Last season, the Blues had two quality goaltenders to rely on but their “safety net” Brian Elliot is in Calgary. The Blackhawks are a big rivalry game for the Blues and after beating them in the playoffs last season, St. Louis has to be feeling good about one upping Chicago again last night. Don’t let the Blues win last night fool you, as Chicago looks like a team in trouble this year and we’re suggesting the Blue Notes might be too.
Minnesota is an interesting team this season and it all starts behind the bench. Bruce Boudreau comes over from Anaheim and he's the first big time coach they've had in Minnesota since Jacques Lemaire way back in their expansion days. The Wild have gotten by with young bench bosses preaching defense but Boudreau will allow these speedy and talented players to open it up, which has to be motivating for guys like Zach Parise, Jason Zucker and Mikko Koivu among others. The Wild have some nice puck moving defensemen on the back end that should enjoy joining the rush as well in Jared Spurgeon and Matt Dumba. Boudreau is a fantastic regular season coach and has had success everywhere he's been. We'll be looking to see if he can light a fire under a Wild team that should provide us with great value when priced in this range and we’re betting that Boudreau lights that fire right out of the gate.
Carolina +109 over WINNIPEG
It would be redundant to go over the Hurricanes again when we discussed all we needed to in our Futures Bet posted on our website. We’ll simply run most of that again here. What we didn’t discuss in that piece is that the Hurricanes will open with a six-game road trip and will be the last team in the NHL to play its home opener, which will occur on the 28th of this month. A heavy emphasis will be placed on this early season road trip.
Last year, the Hurricanes finished with 35 victories and 86 points and missed the playoffs by seven points. This year’s posted numbers say the Hurricanes are going to regress and we could not disagree more. The reason they missed the playoffs was because they lost a league high 16 games in OT. One could blame their goaltending and that would be accurate, as both Cam Ward and Eddie Lack finished with identical save percentages of .901. That has to improve and we trust it will because Lack has settled into his new surroundings and will be counted on more frequently. Ward signed a two-year deal in the off-season for much less money so he’s likely the backup with little to no pressure on him. Lack was tremendous in his years with the Canucks and he’s not past his prime. Give him the starting job and his confidence back and it could make a world of difference. The management group in Carolina is too sharp to allow goaltending to be the same issue as it was last year so we have to believe that they believe Lack is very capable of having a great year. Coach Bill Peters is in his third year in Carolina. The ‘Canes have missed the playoffs for seven straight years so the rebuild and all the work that has gone into it has to start paying off and we absolutely trust that this is the year it starts coming together. No question that Carolina is a better team this year than last.
Additions: Lee Stempniak, Teuvo Teravainen, Bryan Bickell, Viktor Stalberg,
Departures: James Wisniewski, Riley Nash, Nathan Gerbe, Brad Malone.
We don’t see the departures being better than the arrivals, especially when you consider the ‘Canes added three Blackhawks that know a thing or two about winning hockey games. Lee Stempniak is another veteran presence that has played everywhere including some pretty decent teams in Pittsburgh, St. Louis and New York. Dude can produce too.
Carolina was a top-7 puck possession team last year and we cannot overstate enough the importance of that metric. In other words, the ‘Canes have the puck almost always more than the team that they are playing. The teams that ranked above them last year in puck possession numbers were Pittsburgh, Dallas, San Jose, Los Angeles, Anaheim and Tampa Bay. That’s not bad company.
Led by 24-year-old Justin Faulk, the defensive group has three other d-men coming into their sophomore seasons in Jacob Slavin, Noah Hanifin and Brett Pesce. They’re building one hell of a core in Carolina that is on the verge of being scary good and might already be there. Incidentally, Faulk is a big-minute, franchise defenseman and the appreciation for his game league wide is about to explode. The Hurricanes will sport a young, revamped forward core this season. That, coupled with one of the league's best two-way blue-lines, makes this is a team that could be very dangerous when it comes to putting pucks in the net, which was another weakness last season.
Hurricanes general manager Ron Francis went out this offseason and added size, skill and speed. The ‘Canes are going to roll out three scoring lines this year with Jordan Staal (huge second half last year) and Victor Rask centering two of the lines. One of a number of others will center the third line. The addition of Teuvo Teravainen and Lee Stempniak and the expected emergence of Sebastian Aho give the ‘Canes so many more scoring options than they had a year ago. The so-called experts will try and get you to believe that the ‘Canes will be offensively handicapped but don’t buy it. Between Staal, Rask, Elias Lindholm, Aho, Faulk, Jeff Skinner, Andrej Nestrasil, Teravainen, Stempniak, and perhaps the best group of puck moving defensemen in the league, there is plenty of offense to go around.
The Hurricanes had a PDO of 98.2 last year, which ranked 29th in the NHL.PDO is the sum of a team's 5v5 shooting percentage (the number of goals they score divided by the number of shots on goal they generate) and their 5v5 save percentage (the number of shots their goalies stop divided by the number of shots on goal they allow). PDO is a luck driven stat that reveals that Carolina was unlucky in converting their significant territorial advantage into results. A low shooting percentage combined with a low save percentage and Carolina still had 86 points last season. There is no regression here. The ‘Canes are being hugely underestimated, which is likely going to provide us with a plenty of opportunities to cash in with them early in the year.
Winnipeg starts this season with Andrej Pavelec and his massive contract in the minors. Management has decided that they’ll eat his contract and go with the group that gives them the best chance of winning. Therefore, Michael Hutchison gets this start and aside from a handful of games two seasons ago, Hutchison has proved nothing. That doesn’t mean the Jets are going to lose. Winnipeg is loaded with talent up and down the lineup and we consider them to be very dangerous if they play to their capabilities. The problem is that they rarely do. This same group of players have a history of playing undisciplined hockey (taking dumb penalties every game), and not paying attention to details. This is a case of the parts being better than the sum and until we see something different, Winnipeg is not to be trusted spotting a tag.
Anaheim +109 over DALLAS
OT included. Let’s assume that both these clubs are in the upper echelon of the league. Now let’s hypothesize that goaltending, be it good or bad, has the biggest impact on the outcome of evenly matched games. Well, in that regard, we are going to take the superior goaltending plus a tag every single time. In this case, it’ll be Antti Niemi for the Stars, who is a well-below average goaltender. For Anaheim, it’ll be the steady hand of John Gibson. Give a huge edge to the Ducks in net and that alone makes them worthy of a play here. The Ducks had 103 points last year and added some missing pieces in the off-season (Antoine Vermette, Mason Raymond and Jared Boll). With star power, a lethal combination of size, speed and skill, it would be unreasonable to expect regression.
There are more reasons to play the Ducks too. First, they’ll play their first game for their new Coach, Randy Carlyle. Some Ducks are familiar with Carlyle and even though he’s a Bozo, that isn’t likely to affect the team in its first game. Secondly, the Stars top guns, Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn missed most of training camp and preseason. In fact, Seguin did not suit up once in the preseason while Benn played just two games. Aside from that, several other Stars are out, which includes, Mattias Janmark, Cody Eakin and Ales Hemsky. The Stars stars may need a game or two to get up to speed but at the end of the day, it still comes down to taking the superior goaltending and defense plus a tag.
TAMPA BAY -½ +101 over Detroit
Regulation only. Big contrast here in terms of talent and direction, as the Lightning are perhaps the least flawed team in the NHL with a definite chance of hoisting the Stanley Cup in June while the Red Wings are going to likely have big issues all season long. Detroit will compete with mid-tier and lower-tier teams but they are not going to compete with the upper echelon teams like the Lightning.
Remember at the NHL Draft when everyone thought the Detroit Red Wings were going to snag Steven Stamkos after clearing the decks in salary space? Well, they not only didn’t get him, they didn’t even get a meeting with him. Then they give five years to Darren Helm, sign Steve Ott and give Thomas Vanek – who might have reached Jonathan Cheechoo status as a goal-scorer who lost it – a one-year show-me contract at $2.6 million. This is your friendly reminder that Steve Yzerman would be the Red Wings’ general manager if Ken Holland had agreed to move upstairs. The Red Wings still have plenty of speedy and talented forwards but what they don’t have is enough defensemen to get the forwards the puck. Mike Green is capable but he’s also a big defensive liability. Petr Mrazek is being handed the #1 goaltending duties and when he was handed those same reigns a year ago, he completely cracked. In fact, it was so bad that the Red Wings were forced to go right back to Jimmy Howard. In any event, the Red Wings will be bombarded with shots this entire year and it begins here.
Tyler Johnson and Andrej Palat missed a lot of time last year due to injuries. Jonathan Drouin was NHL ready physically last year but played only a handful of games while the Lightning turned him from a boy into a man. Drouin is incredibly talented and that talent was on full display in the playoffs when the Bolts took the Penguins to seven games. Incidentally, TB was the only team in the post-season that gave the Penguins trouble in te playoffs. Now Drouin is on a line with Stamkos and Palat. The second line features Tyler Johnson, Nikita Kucherov and Alex Killorn. That is not a second line. That’s two #1 lines and the third and fourth lines can hold their own too. On the blueline, the Lightning have a rock-solid top-pair in Victor Hedman and Anton Stralman. Opening night is one of those nights in which we do not have to consider motivation or situational handicapping. Every team is jacked up to get going so when all things are equal, the Bolts are the vastly superior team here playing at home and we'll play it accordingly.
New Jersey +138 over FLORIDA
OT included. If you watched any of the openers last night then you may have seen Calgary outshoot Edmonton 41-27 and lose 7-4 or Toronto outshoot Ottawa 38-30 and lose 5-4. Once again we’ll point to goaltending as being the major difference in so many of these games and so when we can grab Cory Schneider at this price against a team that the Devils can compete with, you can pencil is in almost every time.
The Panthers had a tremendous season a year ago but we do not see improvement with the departures of Eric Gudbranson, Dmitry Kulikov, Brian Campbell, Jiri Hudler and Brandon Pirri. Furthermore, the Panthers will be withoutJonathan Huberdeau and Nick Bjugstad to begin the year. To compensate for the loss of all those players, Florida’s only significant pickup was Keith Yandle. Roberto Luongo is a goaltender that we do not trust for a minute. He’s a year older and year slower. The Panthers are going to have to prove that last year was no fluke but they’re not the same team. They’re worse and they’re not going to sneak up on anyone anymore. Florida’s loss to the Islanders in last year’s first round exposed some major holes in its system which they have not corrected.
It may surprise you to learn that the Devils allowed just 15 more goals last year than the Capitals. They traded away defense for offense when they picked up Taylor Hall for Adam Larsson but let’s get real here. Larsson is not irreplaceable. He’s good but he’s not a franchise defenseman that one can build around. It is more than possible that another Larsson-type player emerges because that’s the Devils way. Taylor Hall gives the Devils more production. He joins a top-six group that is going to score goals for sure. With Schneider in net and more goal scorers, selling these Devils short would be a mistake.
Harry Bondi
Denver / San Diego Under 45
The last two meetings on this field between these two teams have gone under the total, averaging just 31 points per game and we expect a similar result here tonight. With injury problems at the QB position, look for the Broncos to come in with a conservative game plan and try to run the ball and lean on its top-notch defense. The Chargers come in averaging 30.4 points per game but this is, BY FAR, the best defense they have seen all season. In fact, three of the teams San Diego has faced this year — Oakland, Indianapolis and New Orleans — are the three worst defenses in the NFL right now. Quite a difference tonight when they face the Broncos and their ferocious pass rush.
Bob Balfe
Nationals -1.5 +150
It all comes down to one game to see who takes on the Cubs. Both pitchers had fine seasons, but Rich Hill is a guy that doesn’t typically go deep into ball games and this Dodgers Bullpen has been less than stellar on the road this season. The time is now for the Nationals to take that next big step. You play 162 games to get the home crowd behind you for one most important baseball game. Max Scherzer should have his best fast ball tonight and I expect the Nationals to bust this one open around the 5th inning.
Brad Wilton
Gave you San Jose in the NHL last night as my comp play, tonight I hand you the Boston Bruins as your Thursday night comp play.
The Bruins may no longer be the yearly threat they once were to win Lord Stanley's Cup, but after missing the playoffs the past 2 seasons, there is a real sense of urgency surrounding this year's squad.
Tonight Boston opens on the road, but they open against a team that they have been able to handle for the most part in the past few years.
Columbus didn't exactly light up the league last season, finishing 8th in the Metropolitan Division, and they are just 3-7 the last 10 times they have skated against Boston.
The Bruins did compile a very good road mark last season, going 25-13-3, so let's take that road mark out for a spin tonight in this near-pick spot.
Boston the call.
3* BOSTON
Jeff Benton
Your Thursday freebie is the Dallas Stars to make it a winning home opener against the visiting Anaheim Ducks.
Both teams won their divisions last season, but both were eliminated rather early in the playoffs, with Anaheim falling to Nashville in the opening round, and Dallas getting eliminated by St. Louis in the second round.
The Ducks playoff flop got veteran coach Bruce Boudreau fired, and now it is Randy Carlyle's team. Carlyle has his work cut out for him in Big D tonight, as the Stars are 27-13-1 the past 41 series meetings in Dallas.
Not only that, but Anaheim started slow last season with a 1-7-2 mark in the month of October!
With Jamie Benn set to defend his scoring title, and Tyler Seguin near his full health, look for the Stars to shine at home tonight.
Play Dallas.
3* DALLAS
OC Dooley
Wild +100
At most offshore locations St. Louis opened as a sizeable home favorite (-135) but due in part to the team playing just last night that price tag has taken a nosedive for which I am reacting. Not only did St. Louis open a brand new campaign last night it was an emotional road game against one of the league's premier franchises (Chicago) who has traditionally been a bitter geographic rival. Not only did the Blues win last night they held the Blackhawks to less than 20 shots on goal (at Chicago) for the first time since 2007. It is hard to imagine St. Louis bringing the same intensity to the ice this evening and they will be facing a Minnesota contingent debuting Bruce Boudreau at head coach. Not only does Boudreau have unbridled passion for hockey he has a successful track record that includes the past five years with Anaheim who qualified for the playoffs each time. In SEASON OPENERS like this the Minnesota Wild franchise has a 9-4-2 record which just happens to be the highest win percentage (.667) in the HISTORY of the NHL
Bruce Marshall
Devils +139
We're taking a lead with the Devils, who seem to have upgraded an anemic offense that ranked near the bottom of NHL scoring last season. Adding left winger Taylor Hall from the Oilers in the offseason , as well as vet F P..A. Parenteau. Meanwhile the Panthers have endured a bumpy preseason with injuries already a concern, with right winger Jonathan Huberdeau's foot injury on top of C Nick Bjugstad's broken hand, which disrupts Florida's top two lines.