{"id":10802,"date":"2009-05-29T01:34:57","date_gmt":"2009-05-29T06:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.capperspicks.com\/blog\/?p=10802"},"modified":"2023-02-07T07:40:39","modified_gmt":"2023-02-07T15:40:39","slug":"stanley-cup-predictions-penguins-redwings-280509","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/nhl\/stanley-cup-predictions-penguins-redwings-280509\/","title":{"rendered":"2009 Stanley Cup Finals Betting"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Stanley Cup Final Preview\/Predictions<\/h2>\n<p>In Saturday&#8217;s boxing betting lines, Nikolay Valuev gets his rematch against  Ruslan Chagaev. Brock Lesnar gets another shot at Frank Mir in UFC 100  come July. Now, the Pittsburgh Penguins get a chance for revenge against  the Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley  Cup Final odds.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The Red Wings are the <a title=\"hockey betting\" href=\"\/nhl\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>hockey betting<\/strong><\/a> favorites at -155 to win the series, with the Penguins&#8217; line set at  +135. The smart money is on the Penguins at +135, and here are five  reasons why.<\/p>\n<p><strong>5. In the playoffs, size matters. <\/strong> The Wings have a few big guys, and they get great bang for their buck  from them, as Johan Franzen and Tomas Holmstrom terrorize opposing goalies  with their screens. But the Penguins top-to-bottom form a much bigger,  more physical group. Evgeni Malkin is a load to pull off the puck, Bill  Guerin and Chris Kunitz throw themselves into the corners with reckless  abandon, and Jordan Staal&#8217;s big stride creates matchup problems. The  Pens&#8217; D lacks skill but big Hal Gill and Brooks Orpik dole out punishment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4. The Penguins have matured. <\/strong> Overtime wins. Come-from-behind wins. Road wins. The Penguins have excelled  in virtually every clutch situation imaginable during the Stanley Cup betting playoffs, a sign that they&#8217;ve grown up from  last season. They&#8217;ve also dramatically improved their discipline,  averaging 11 penalty minutes per game compared to 16.5 in last year&#8217;s  hockey betting playoffs. That&#8217;s an important stat considering how  dominant Detroit&#8217;s power play is.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3.  Goalie advantage: Pittsburgh. <\/strong>Chris Osgood probably is underrated  &#8211; his numbers are great for the second straight postseason and he&#8217;s  10<sup>th<\/sup> on the all-time hockey betting wins list &#8211; but that  doesn&#8217;t change the fact that Marc-Andre Fleury is the better goalie.  He&#8217;s younger, bigger, more athletic, and he even loves playing in  clutch situations. Unlike Osgood, he&#8217;s capable of stealing a game.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Those two guys who score a lot  &#8211; what are their names again? <\/strong> Detroit has better forward depth, but the Penguins improve their NHL  odds by icing two of the top three offensive players in the game every  night.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" style=\"margin: 1px; border: 1px solid #ffffff;\" src=\"http:\/\/baff.betonline.com\/aspx\/affiliateGetImage.aspx?ID_SC=2225&amp;ID_I=1646\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" \/> Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin have 26 goals in 17 games as  a tandem in these playoffs and are both arguably playing the best hockey  of their careers right now. If Malkin doesn&#8217;t pull a disappearing  act like he did last season, the big two will put on a show. Dan Bylsma  is also maximizing his team&#8217;s chances at sportsbook success by double-shifting  them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Pavel Datsyuk is not Pavel Datsyuk  right now. <\/strong>Hobbled by injury, star Red Wings center Pavel Datsyuk  has been a shell of his true self in the playoffs. After scoring 97  points in regular season hockey betting, he has just one goal and seven  points in 13 Stanley Cup betting contests this year and his questionable  for Game 1. One factor some sports  wagering fans forget; Datsyuk&#8217;s  phenomenal defense is just as important as his offense. He&#8217;s not at  100 per cent and that means he can&#8217;t shadow Crosby and\/or Malkin the  way he normally would.<\/p>\n<p>There you have it &#8211; the reasons why  the Penguins  Red Wings odds look good  for Pittsburgh. Don&#8217;t be surprised if the Pens take advantage of home  ice and win the Cup in Game 6.<\/p>\n<h3>Planning On Betting On The 2009 NHL Playoffs? The Best NHL Hockey Odds &amp; Stanley Cup Future Lines Can Be Found At BetOnline.com Sportsbook!!!<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Red Wings are the hockey betting favorites at -155 to win the series, with the Penguins&#8217; line set at +135&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[14001,13996,14003,1957,895,14002,10150,14000,13998,13999,13997],"class_list":["post-10802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nhl","tag-2009-nhl-betting","tag-2009-stanley-cup-finals-betting","tag-detroit-red-wings-vs-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-nhl-betting","tag-nhl-picks","tag-penguins-vs-red-wings","tag-red-wings-vs-penguins","tag-stanley-cup-final-odds","tag-stanley-cup-final-picks","tag-stanley-cup-final-predictions","tag-stanley-cup-final-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10802"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108553,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10802\/revisions\/108553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}