NHL Hockey Best Bets For January 27, 2016
The last day of NHL hockey action before the All Star Break features four games on the card. Action resumes next Tuesday, February 2 with a whopping 13 games on the board:
TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS AT TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING:
It’s tough to lay a big price in the NHL but this looks like a spot where it’s justified. The Toronto Maple Leafs are in the first year of a rebuilding process under new head coach Mike Babcock and he wasn’t brought in for a ‘quick fix’. The expectation is for him to gut the franchise and rebuild it in his image–the same image that has made the Detroit Red Wings a perennial Stanley Cup contender. This is an interesting game because much of the talk in Toronto at the moment concerns the prospect of Tampa Bay forward Steven Stamkos signing with the Maple Leafs. Stamkos is in the final year of his contract with Tampa Bay and there’s a ton of speculation that he’ll test the free agent market and ultimately sign with his home town team. The hope of Toronto fans has been bolstered by reports of the Lightning’s first offer on an extensition to Stamkos which has been dismissed by the hockey intelligentsia as ‘a little low‘. At the same time, there are those who dismiss suggestions that Stamkos should be making $10 million plus which would put him in the Jonathan Toews/Patrick Kane salary level. Simply put, Kane and Toews have a fistful of Stanley Cup rings, Stamkos doesn’t. For their part, the Tampa Bay players and coaching staff say that the Stamkos coaching situation isn’t a distraction but with a huge media presence in town for the game tonight it is a bit of a circus.
For now, however, this shouldn’t be much of a game. Tampa Bay recently had a 7 game winning streak broken by their in-state rivals the Florida Panthers. They’ve roared back to life after a horrible start to the season and they should make short work of a Toronto team that hasn’t beaten a divisional rival all season long.
BET TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING -225 OVER TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS
PHILADELPHIA FLYERS AT WASHINGTON CAPITALS:
The Capitals are the best team in the NHL at the moment and will get even better tonight with the return of defenseman John Carlson. That’s a frightening prospect for the rest of the league as the Caps have the best scoring offense, best scoring defense and best power play (and are #4 in penalty kill) without their top playmaking defenseman.
The Caps enter the All Star Break having won 7 of 8 but this is a tough spot for Washington. Due to the quirks of scheduling and bad weather in the Northeast they haven’t played for over a week, beating Columbus 6-3 on January 19th in their last action. It’ll be tough to ramp back up the competitive fire for one night. The Flyers have lost 4 of 5 and want to go into the break with a victory. They’ve done well against Washington in recent years winning 4 of the last 6 head to head including a 2-2 split in the last four in DC. We’ll take the huge price with the road team.
BET PHILADELPHIA FLYERS +210 OVER WASHINGTON CAPITALS