Tuesday NHL Free Pick
(The Spread) – This is it, for all the marbles. The Blackhawks and Canucks will meet tonight in Vancouver for the seventh and deciding Game 7.
View Current 2011 NHL Playoff Odds
Oddsmakers from online sports book SBGGLOBAL.com have made the Canucks –163 money line favorites over the Blackhawks, who are +150 on the ML. The over/under total for this game is currently 5.5 goals.
This has arguably been the wildest first round matchup of this year’s playoffs. The Canucks took the first two games of the series in Vancouver, then won Game 3 in Chicago, 4-3. But things turned drastically for the Cancuks from that point, as the wheels started to come off.
The Hawks took Game 4 in Chicago 7-2, and then shut the Canucks out 5-0 in Vancouver to win Game 5. Back in Chicago, the Hawks again topped the Cancuks to stave off elimination, as Ben Smith scored at the 15:30 mark in overtime to lift the defending champs, 4-3. Now tonight, everything will be on the line at 10:00PM ET.
NHL Free Pick: I mistakenly wrote off the Hawks in Game 4 of this series, although who could blame anyone who had similar thoughts. The Canucks were rolling and it looked as if the defending champs would go quietly into the night. Whoops. Now I see nothing but value in a Chicago team that has all the momentum and to borrow a clichéd phrase, is “playing with house money.” According to latest NHL trends, the underdog is 21-10 in the last 31 meetings between these two teams. At +150 on the money line, how could you not go with a team that is getting so much value? All the pressure is on the Canucks not to choke away a 3-0 series lead, so take Chicago.
TUESDAY NHL FREE PICK: CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS +150
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