Winning a Stanley Cup often means needing to overcome some sort of adversity along the way. Injuries are a big part of the game, and it’s the team that can steer clear of them that often makes it all the way to the promised land. The Pittsburgh Penguins are the defending champions, and they have already had to face some adversity before the first puck was dropped in their series.
Click Here to Bet on the 2017 NHL Playoffs
During warm-ups for Game 1, Penguins goalie Matt Murray went down with an injury, forcing Marc-Andre Fleury to step in and take over the starting role. In fairness, having Fleury as a back-up is not a bad option, and he proved that by backstopping the defense and helping the Penguins jump out to a 3-1 win. This series is far from over, though, as these two teams split their 4-game regular season series, although it was the home team that came up with the win in each of those games. The Blue Jackets are going to need to find a way to get a road win if they are to pull this series out.Columbus Blue Jackets at Pittsburgh Penguins Game 2 Info:
When: Friday, April 14 at 7 PM EST Where: PPG Paints Arena, Pittsburgh TV: NHL Network Radio: 97.1 The Fan and CD102.5 NHL Odds: Penguins -1½+185Why bet on the Columbus Blue Jackets
The Blue Jackets were the top scoring team in the NHL during the regular season, so I must be a little disappointing that they were only able to score once against a back-up goalie and a defense that can be a little suspect at times. This may well be a sign of things to come, though, especially given that the Blue Jackets were a rather miserable 3-5-2 in their last 10 games of the regular season. Columbus did have some serious success on the road in the regular season, going 22-12-7 away from home. There are a lot of goals in this team, too, so expect them to break out of their goal scoring funk at some point in this series.Why bet on the Pittsburgh Penguins
There is no word yet on whether Murray will be ready to go for Game 2, but it might not matter of Fleury continues to play as well as he did in Game 1, stopping 31 of 32 shots. There was some concern about the Penguins defense coming into the playoffs, but they did a very good job of withstanding some early pressure from the Blue Jackets. Pittsburgh got all the scoring they needed from their big guns, with Phil Kessel in particular looking very sharp. The Penguins also got a nice boost with the return of Evgeni Malkin from injury, and he played his part, assisting on 2 of the 3 goals. Betting Trends- The total has gone UNDER in 6 of Columbus’s last 7 games on the road
- The total has gone UNDER in 8 of Columbus’s last 11 games
- Pittsburgh is 5-1 SU in its last 6 games when playing at home against Columbus
- Pittsburgh is 4-1 ATS in its last 5 games
