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NHL Free Pick of the day by Ron for February 1, 2012

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Number Ten

          Recap: Easy win yesterday as Pittsburgh deletes a 4-1 deficit in the third period. In case you missed, Pens tied it with six seconds left and Fleury stones Kessel in a shootout. It might be fair to say that Crosby’s absence was a helping factor in a valiant team effort with some heavily celebrated goals. Crosby did have a tendency to get in the team’s way.

That means we are now in positive profit and also back at a .500 record, going for a winning one. The theory that all teams would be at their best seems accurate now, highlighted by several late comebacks including New Jersey and Nashville. Buffalo was also a highlight as recent media comments by their owner have sparked some hard work.

Will be an interest match up at home against the Rangers for a battle of New York. Obviously Buffalo will look to finally get a streak going while the Rangers will try and recover from a tough loss. We won’t be picking this game but will use a similar mindset.

It’s finally time for us to use the “hunger theory” mentioned in the past. We will also combine it with the back to back road game versus sleeping home team theory for an extra appetite. The game at hand is the Washington Capitals versus the Florida Panthers. This will be the first time we pick the Caps, same as the Pens last night. Almost a flashback of a distant winter classic for our purposes. The Caps faced a tough loss last night against the Lightning. Florida had off on the big day of NHL return. The Caps will be hungry to avoid two consecutive road losses. They were also able to score three goals in last night’s battle, and get their legs under them. With Ovechkin out the team will also be able to spread out the effort against a nostalgic Panther crew. The Panthers will likely be surprised early by Washington, due to the difference in hunger between the two teams. Both teams are battling for first in their division, separated by a single point.

Washington will really be looking to prove worthy of first place ownership and improve on their atrocious road record. Best of luck to us tonight for our tenth game. Hope we will have more correspondence in the future. And of course…Rock on!

Suggested Play:

Washington Capitals ML

NHL Free Pick of the day by Ron for January 31, 2012

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The All Star break is over, and it was a pretty theatrical and annoying one at that. We are back in action tonight with one of the largest lineups of the season. Unfortunately no one will be wearing a cape.

The million dollar question in the air is how will teams be affected by the break?

Lucky for us we only choose one game to work with, so we only need to worry about this effect on a single game basis. The last fact we all encountered were the Red Wings crawling into a deep sleep just before the break. They were on the road but also on a nice winning streak. Logically it follows that teams will pick things up in top gear coming back with no long rest in the foreseeable future. This will help us make a choice tonight. We were successful with Toronto twice just before the break if memory serves you well and we entered the break with a loss from Calgary. Our current record is a single dab below .500, but our success on goal spreads combined with wins keeps us in the black. Let’s come back from this break with fury like tonight’s teams!

    Our game is the Toronto Maple Leafs visiting the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Pens are on an enormous seven game win streak looking for the snowman. Toronto played well against the Islanders to our fortune before the break. They actually looked their strongest offensively in some time while staging the comeback in New York. But we will not stray from the idea that no team will come out sleeping tonight. Everyone will be playing at their absolute best. If there is any game Pittsburgh is likely to extend the streak even further it’s this one.

Extra motivation is Detroit’s failure to extend their own streak. Pittsburgh will be able to learn from the Wing’s mistake and play with more fire. On top of this the Wings ended their streak on the road, while Pittsburgh is at home for this one. Pittsburgh is great venue to come home to on such a streak against a Canadian team. The biggest factor we have to count on is that the Pens will take this Toronto team seriously and be extra aggressive offensively. This shouldn’t be a problem as Toronto is also third in their division.

The Pens are slightly closer to second (Philadelphia) than Toronto and have exacted 5 more total points through the season. Toronto is an even .500 on the road so again the Pens should be the more motivated team. Toronto’s two game winning streak, both against the Islanders, will not be a factor here and is as good as no streak.

Suggested Play:

Pittsburgh ML and -1  (approx. 2-1 ratio totaling 1.5 units)

Bonus Pick: NHL free Picks of the Day by Ron for 24 January 2012

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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

NHL free Pick of the day by Ron for 21 January 2012

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Nice to see everyone again. We are back in action for the big Saturday of games! Good night to take off last night as there was some unpredictable action, including a 5-4 SO come backer by Pittsburgh. As for our trends, we are coming straight off celebrating a Turkey. It was a last second shootout spin-o-rama, but we’ll take it. All we can say is, way to go three in a row!

Plenty of games to choose from. Because of the numerous match ups we’re going to put our record on the line and make two selections. One of the selections will also be a spread pick, and will have to cover to count the “W.”

First game on the map is the Detroit Red Wings versus the struggling Columbus Blue Jackets. What! The Red Wings again!? Yes, the Wings again. Will give a more behind the scenes reasoning this time for all skeptics. The Red Wings have been enforcing/trying out some system changes lately in their playbook. Most likely this was generated by the Babs himself (Mike Babcock). We actually can’t say for a fact that Babcock is the best fit for this Wings team. Personally I think Zetterberg needs to be dealt away. However there have been at least two changes made. There is a renewed commitment to keeping heads up, especially for defensemen starting the rush, for a more anticipated timing on moving the puck past the blue line. Second, there is an alternating of crowding the net and spreading out the Wings for rebound opportunities, instead of sticking to one method throughout the game.

Last and most noticeable, the defense is now taking wrist shots from the back end, instead of hard slappers. There have been more deflections and the puck stays in the opposition zone longer. The Wings defense has also been bar none as of late. They are at the Joe trying to increase the record to 16 in a row at home. When the Wings are home they play their best players for the fans. They should probably use the time to rest them and use it for some road wins, but that’s not the case. If this game were on the road I’d say Datsyuk would have the night off, he may even get it off at home for Columbus. Most likely he will be out there and as we said before he’s very due for a goal (plenty of recent assists), and only a few tacks off the league lead in scoring. Howard is also well rested coming of a perfect shootout finish and ready for the sub-par Jackets shooters.

Not only is Columbus absolutely pitiful but Detroit matches up well against them. I’ll hint everyone in on another secret. It’s become apparent that at this point in the season, for whatever reason, the streaky teams are fairing well against the struggling teams. This has started very recently.

To say the Wings are favorited heavily in this one is a bit of an understatement. They are suggested at a -1.5 goals spread. They must win and cover here for us to put it down as a win.

For our second game we have the Florida Panthers versus the Winnipeg Jets. I should say that I’ve predicted the restless teams from last night’s games will have an overall winning record tonight. However, one of the teams that won’t benefit from the back to back affair are the Florida Panthers. Why? Let’s say a home loss followed by a next day road win is exactly at fifty percent. It has proven easier coming off a home win to an immediate road game. Two road wins are tough back to back at below 50%, but that’s Tampa’s problem not ours. The hardest ordeal then is the road loss followed by a next day road game. It’s worth mentioning here that Montreal may fair differently because of the nature of their loss in a shootout. Enough of the tangent and back on track…Florida gets beat by a very strong home team in Chicago, who I see as currently heating up for a streak. They now go on to play an equally strong home team in Winnipeg, having no time to figure out how to score more than one goal.

Winnipeg is also more offensive than Chicago, and will be looking to open up the game and challenge Florida’s tired legs from the get go. We take Winnipeg ML and -.5 in regulation as the smaller side play.
To review we aren’t changing up much, sticking with the home team advantage. We are selecting a strong home team in Winnipeg over the ill rested Panthers. We select the Red Wings for the second time in a row as the strongest home team, after catching them sneaking out a road win. Remember they must win by two to count, considering the odds and the Jackets as a terrible opponent. A fun night of a hockey is ahead!