NHL Betting – Take This Home Dog and Bring Home the Bacon

We think you should know that BetOnline is one destination where you can get the sharpest odds on NHL hockey – all the way through the finish of the Stanley Cup Finals.

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And speaking of the Cup, we’ve got one of its recent winners in action on Tuesday night, a little short-handed and a dog to an opponent that hardly scores at all.

By all means, let’s explore…..

New York Islanders at Washington Capitals ML Pick

Islanders vs. Capitals Betting Preview

When: 7:05 PM ET

Money Line: Islanders -135, Capitals +115

Total: 5.5 (Under -125, Over +105)

You might be able to make the argument that the Washington Capitals could be 6-0 right now. Certainly they’ve been scoring enough. And they have not trailed at the end of regulation time yet. But they have just been doing silly things. Things like giving up goals to Pittsburgh when they have the two-man advantage,in order to blow a lead. You know, those kinds of things. The kinds of things that can drive Peter Laviolette up a wall.

But there is no denying that they are demonstrating some firepower, with 22 goals in six games thus far. Granted, all three wins have come at the expense of the Buffalo Sabres, who won’t likely be a playoff team. But take these Caps lightly at your own risk.

This is a veteran team – with eleven players at 30 years of age or more – and they are just a season removed from being a champion. They have won a division title five straight times. They haven’t ventured a thousand miles away from that either; they may have gotten a little sloppy, though.

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And as a result, they are facing the absence of people like Alex Ovechkin, Evegny Kuznetzov and a couple of others to the COVID list. Apparently they couldn’t follow protocols when they were in Pittsburgh recently, although it would have been easy enough to do so.

Ovechkin, the nine-time Richard Trophy winner who is on a quest to catch Wayne Gretzky for the most career goals, only has one thus far. So the offense is not likely to collapse without him – or Kuznetsov, for that matter. We’re not sure about the status of winger Tom Wilson, who may be sidelined the old-fashioned way – with an injury.

The defense obviously has not been what Laviolette had hoped. There is just a +1 goal differential here, because they can’t seem to keep the puck out of the net. At least they are scheduled to have the better of their two netminders, Vitek Vanecek (2.97 GAA) in there tonight.

On the other side, you may have noticed that the New York Islanders seem to have the opposite problem. Semyon Varlamov has been sensational, allowing just one goal in three games (the easy math tells us that’s a 0.33 GAA), with a .988 save percentage.You can’t ask for more than that.

As if to keep things fair, coach Barry Trotz inserts Ilya Sorokin every so often. And the team has not scored YET with the 25-year-old Russian rookie in goal. He could sue them for non-support; Trotz can only shake his head.

Well, for the sake of accuracy, these Isles haven’t been able to put together much offense, period. Nine goals in five games should tell some of the story. They are poor in just about every offensive category. They average less than 23 shots on goal.

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They are terrible on the power play, converting on just four of 22 chances. And their shooting percentage in even strength situations is 4.7%, which is higher than only Dallas, which has played just two games, which is a whole other story.

Meanwhile, when Washington is playing in five-on-five situations, their shooting percentage is 11.5%, which is the highest in the NHL. So don’t expect that they are going to fall apart just because they’re missing Ovechkin and a couple of others.

You have to marvel at what Varlamov has done, but listen – he’s had a career in the NHL, and is no mystery, so you know he is going to regress back to the mean at some point. When a team puts forth little or no offensive effort, that is invariably going to put more and more pressure on the defense.

And hello?? Could this game possibly carry any more incentive for a team that was dispatched in the first round of the playoffs by these Islanders and their old coach, Trotz, who might have still been in the nation’s capital (but clear of the Capitol, mind you) if the management had been willing to meet his slaary requests after they won the Stanley Cup.

If this game doesn’t have Washington’s interest as much as any on the schedule so far, nothing does.

Three cheers for the home team!

The Play: WASHINGTON +115

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