Friday

Colu/la

Like the Blues pick.  Nice hit with Colorado last night.  Keep up the great work.

amd

im loading another horse in the trailer this afternoon, just let me know when you want it delivered

BOL Brother

Good luck AMD 

Keep up the great work amd

Good luck tonight amd. I agree on the Blues. I have been riding the Ducks but with Detroit playing quite a bit better of late and Anaheim in the midst of a long road trib...I was leaning Wings even with their injury bug. That big win in Chi-town could leave them a little flat IMHO. I may stay away from that one altogether.

BTW...great start to the season.

 

 

Good Luck today

GL amd, if there is one game I feel like playing tonight, it's the ANA pick. Great value for that 'dog'. I felt very comfortable betting the Ducks to score o2.5...

Good Luck tonight....

Wow look at this stat....

meh... I personally don't put too much stock in trends.

OG...Thanks for your post, I'm happy to respond.

I'm a nurse and my work/family is a bit unconventional as I Iive 2 hours north of Ann Arbor, MI but I work in San Jose. I work 12-16 hour shifts for a consecutive 7-10 days then I return home for a few weeks.....simply economics as to why I choose to work in the bay area. A few of the perks include being able to watch the west coast teams play at the HP Pavillion as well as heading down to the Joe every once in awhle when I'm home. I'm really not as busy as it might seem, in fact, my two young boys take up the majority of my time.

Regarding my analysis of the teams and, overall, the sport of hockey, there's nothing more valuable than having a "sixth sense" regarding the sport that is being wagered. It's one thing for an avid fan to gamble on games they watch along with being provided the wealth of statistical information but when you've actually played the game, it's easier to make wagers from a players perspective than by actually playing with just numbers. I was fortunate to be able to play a couple of years in the Blackhawks organization on a team equivelant to AA baseball....I played in the ECHL and the Fort Wayne Comets were our top tier minor league team back when Dominik Hasek, Ray LeBlanc and Jimmy Waite were our goaltenders and Eddie Belfour was in Chicago. I played a short time in the ECHL and was invited to Fort Wayne for a brief stint only to be completely undersized and outclassed. At 5'10, 185, my wheels werent good enough. Great experience, however, but I knew I was playing on borrowed time....this was 20 years ago. I never lost my passion for the game which is why I love the brudders in the Covers NHL forum because everyone has passion and a love for the NHL and most of everyone is very intelligent regarding the game. Hockey is a complex game and you have to understand the game to make money at it. Football, for example, is America's pasttime and even if you dont know anything about the X's and O's, the sport is marketed to the point where everyone who talks football may sound like a genious. With hockey, I know in the first 60 seconds whether someone knows the game or whether they're full of shitt.

So, while looking at boxscores or following stats or statistical trends, I try and cap the game on just as much intuition than the time I put in studying a teams recent success/trends in a variety of categories. Hope I've answered your questions...Good luck

I'm not a fan of the trends Thriver mentioned either but I've noticed that he's still a pretty good capper and I appreciate his post.

Bol tonight Fuzz

Hey amd,

Great thread so far...love debates like this from people who know/watch the game and aren't just paying attention to trends. Wanted to continue them from an ex-ECHLer to an ex-AAHLer. (I also was brought up to try out for Ft. Wayne, but was eventually cut before playing a regular season game)

I haven't had as good of a record as you this year betting, so I am probably wrong on all of this, but this is my two cents.

As my avatar on this site would suggest, I am a Red Wing's hater, but am on the opposite side of this Detroit/Anaheim game tonight.

 Anaheim is on game 5 of a 6 game road trip. My guess, is a lot of their attention was put towards that Chicago game and I will argue that the Ducks didn't win that game, but Chicago lost it.
Poor play in their own defensive zone cost Chicago from winning that game 2-0 to going 2-2 into a shootout, where naturally Fasth is a better goalie than Crawford, plus I feel the home goalie has all the pressure in a shootout scenario.

Toews should have had his head up and stuck with stuck with Getzlaf on the 2-2 rush for the first goal, (Datsyuk would have) and CHI made a big mistake with only 2 mins to go on a long shift for Kane to not move the puck off the boards and out. It caused a panic in the defensive zone and Hjalmarrson was out of position allowing Cogs the rebound back door. Chicago earned both goals, Anaheim capitalized on 2 by poor Chicago play, in my opinion.

Anaheim is now going into the Joe on a Friday night to face a weakened Detroit team, but still a very smart and disciplined team. They haven't been much this year, but one thing they are is good at the Joe. This is another day in the neighborhood for the Wings: this is something special for the Ducks who is coming off a very emotional win on Tuesday.

My opinion, the Ducks have to earn this win by fighting and taking control of the wings in the Joe, something not easy in the slightest. The Ducks will be weakened from the road trip and the deflation of the win on Tuesday and come back to earth a bit in a hard fought game.

Hoping you can respond with a backing of the Ducks

Good luck bud 

goodluck tonight amd

Man...great to read your post, thanks

I guess everyone has different philosophies but the thing I see a lot in every forum is the suggestion of  'Look ahead spots" or "letdown spots" for a particular team on any given night. As you've mentioned, Anaheim is succeptable to a letdown after a big win in Chicago but I have to respectfully disagree. If the game was played last night then I could accept the analogy but Anaheim last played a couple of nights ago and I'm under the assumption that the Chicago game is far from the thoughts of Anaheim's mind while simply focusing on tonight. And, with high profile teams like Detroit, teams always bring their best. Teams want to beat the best. While Detroit has certainly fallen off a bit, the mystique of playing at the Joe should certainly exist which is why I feel Anaheim will be up for this game especially after having a few nights off. As for the matchup, I've watched a few of Anaheim's games this season and I watched them in person at the HP against San Jose and, man, this team can skate. They have a solid 2nd line and they get quality shots...they're always around the net. Recently, I've talked a lot about a teams depth because every team seems to have a solid first line but good teams seem to seperate themselves from average teams with a solid 2nd and 3rd line. Koivu and Selanne, while they may be older, are still producing at a very high level...Selanne 4G-10A-14....Koivu 4G-9A-13...and to mention Ryan 4G-7A-11....Getzlaf 4G-6A-10....Winnik 5G-4A-9. Perry has underachieved this year but Anaheim has 6 legitimate scorers and the thing I like about Anaheim is they're a solid two way team. As you know, most offensive teams give up a little, defensively, in order to score...teams like Pittsburgh and Chicago, for example. Anaheim remains relatively sound as their forwards backcheck well and they don't allow a lot of oddman rushes. I'm not impressed with Detroit in their end and I think Anaheim has the type of team who will be able to pepper Howard. With all this said, it's still certainly possible that Detroit wins tonight...nothing is given especially when you have the two best players in the world in Zetterburg and Datsyuk.

GL 

Great response!

Ducks can certainly win this game and I may eat all of these words tomorrow, but I still love debating hockey especially with someone that knows the game like you, so I'll continue to beat the dead horse here .

Emotionally I kind of disagree on the 2 days rest versus 1. I think it is easier to not have a let down if you can keep going and stay in routine, like the tourny's you and I used to play as a kid. If you can keep that moment up high, the emotion doesn't catchup to you until it is over. That is why you find a lot of B2B road games going WW for teams. That being said, if you have time to rest, you start reflecting on what you did and not what you have to do. Allows the media to get in there and get to your head making you think you are as good as people tell you, you are. Veterans can typically combat this however, so you won't see that from a Sellane or Getzlaf tonight, but maybe a Fasth?

You are absolutely right on about secondary scoring too. But I will take it a little further and say roles lead a team to have secondary scoring. The Ducks are good and they have begun to define their roles on the team, from enforcing, to front of the net assignments, to puck carrying, etc. This makes the Ducks really good from top to bottom. Of course the "role" play was originated from the Red Wings though.

If the Ducks come out tonight with a victory, I bet you see every highlight tomorrow of the Ducks scoring being an odd man rush...I don't think we will see a :25+ shift in Detroit's end filled with bad turnovers and lack of puck control leading to a garbage goal. It will be an offensive or neutral zone turnover for an odd man rush. Defensive zone play to me comes down to centers. Toews isn't a Selke award winner (best defensive forward) and both of those goals were scored when he was out there. Datsyuk is a Selke winner (3 times) and that mentality always carries through to the rest of the team.

That being said, I see Detroit having a really hard time scoring tonight with Franzen out and Fasth standing strong.  If ever there was a bet that I felt super confident in, it would be ANAHEIM +1.5, but I would still be scared of the potential gut check that the Red Wings are more than capable of dishing out on a Friday night at the Joe.

Best of luck to all

P.S. I love this stuff

Thanks, Methodical...hope to see you around