NHL Hockey Betting: Calgary Flames at Anaheim Ducks
Western Conference action is featured on the nightcap of a very short NHL card for Tuesday night (2 games) as the Calgary Flames travel to Southern California to take on the Anaheim Ducks at the Honda Center. Neither team is happy with their performance to date this season and particularly after last year’s exceptional campaign. The Ducks might be without starting goaltender Frederik Anderson, at least in the short term. He’s sick with an undisclosed illness and won’t play tonight. Anaheim will go with Anton Khudobin and have recalled John Gibson from the minors to back him up. The Ducks’ defense hasn’t been that bad this season–they’re currently the #14 scoring defense in the NHL. Their problem has been scoring goals–they’re tied with the Philadelphia Flyers for dead last in the NHL averaging just 1.76 goals per game. They’re the only two teams in the league averaging less than two goals per game. They haven’t done much better on the power play hitting 15% of the time, #25 in the NHL. Unlike most struggling teams, however, they do have one phase of the game to build around–they have the best penalty kill in the league at 88.2%.
Things have improved marginally for the Ducks since their horrific 1-7-2 start to the season–they’re 6-5 in their last 11 games but are coming off a pitiful performance in a 5-0 loss at Tampa Bay. Miraculously, the Ducks are just six points out of playoff qualification despite losing 9 of their first 10 games of the season. The Calgary Flames have significantly more modest goals at the moment–they just want to stay out of last place. The Flames are 8-12-1 for 17 points. That makes them the second worst team in the Western Conference (tied with Colorado and 2 points ahead of Edmonton) and third worst in the league (one point ahead of Columbus). The Flames’ struggles are somewhat inexplicable–how can such a talented team do so little in any phase of the game? One component is obvious–their goaltending has been awful which is why they’re dead last in scoring defense allowing 3.52 goals per game.
The Flames’ revolving door in net has been downright bizarre. Karri Ramo gets the start tonight and is now the team’s de facto #1 goalie but it wasn’t that long ago that he was the odd man out and on his way back to the minors. He’s played better than the Flames’ other two goalies–veteran Jonas Hiller (now listed as ‘out indefinitely’ with a lower body injury) and prospect Joni Ortio.
We could go on and on about the soap opera storylines involving these teams but the handicap is pretty simple–the Ducks don’t deserve to be a -150 favorite against anyone. Sure, they’ve won 20 straight regular season games against Calgary at the Honda Center and 22 straight games overall. That might explain why the price is what it is but that’s not relevant to the handicap. This game is a ‘toss up’ and we’ll take the price.
BET CALGARY FLAMES +140 OVER ANAHEIM DUCKS