Fortitude
Recap: A great victory after sticking with it yesterday and not being afraid to show confidence. That’s our second shutout victory where we won the ML and covered the spread. We are back on .500 and if you’ve been following the suggested plays you’re in the black after last night. You may’ve already been ahead as most of our winners also hit for the spread whereas losing plays were mostly ML slight favorites and underdogs. We can also chalk one up for man vs. machine on the human side, as Zcode predicted the Isles.
We are picking a team other than Toronto tonight, but remember we predicted them to win both games in the home and home. That means it’s suggested to make a .5-1 unit play from last night’s winnings on the Leafs again tonight.
On a rare night before the impending Ovechkinless all star break, it can be said it wasn’t difficult to choose tonight’s match up. There are some worthy teams with strong home records playing up to higher standing teams. The lines for these home teams are also near even keel. We expect Pittsburg to play tight tonight against St. Louis. The Pens long winning streak stands to be broken on the road before the break. We are choosing a different game, since it’s a tall task to stop such a powerful streak. We don’t really use streaks to determine our picks, but there’s no reason they can’t tell us when to shy away.
Our game is the San Jose Sharks versus the Calgary Flames. The Sharks have done well to stay first in such a tough division, but fighting hard to keep their position makes them a candidate for the team needing a break most of all. They should have no issue going into the break with a loss, accepting a well deserved rest, and going back to the chalk board to figure out how to pick up where they left off. It’s not common to use the “acceptable loss theory” to pick a game, but there’s more. Calgary is coming home after a sturdy three game road trip and a perfect two day period of rest.
The Flames went one and one in tight games, and finished the trip airing it out over the Deadmonton Oilers. They will be feeling good about themselves, but not complacent or lazy against an extremely strong opposition.
The best part is the Sharks are on zero rest coming off an extra time loss to the much the same Oilers. The product is the Flames are strong enough at this point to win this one.
The Flames have a slight edge in the last ten played, and the over .500 record is good for them. The barely over .500 record is not a good mark for the tired Sharks, in desperate need of a break from hunting.
Recommended Play: Flames ML
Of course we get our upsets and nothing is a “sure-win” but in a long run the results are coming fine.