(5) OTTAWA SENATORS vs (4) PITTSBURGH PENGUINS<\/strong><\/p>\nThe Senators were supposed to flop offensively with Dany Heatley leaving town and, though they did regress slightly, Ottawa still fielded a competitive attack this season. Both Daniel Alfredsson and Jason Spezza appeared to miss their departed linemate early on but both rallied for explosive second halves and Mike Fisher remained the model of consistency.<\/p>\n
That said, Ottawa still had no player top 25 goals. Especially now that Alex Kovalev is lost for the season with a torn ACL, the Sens lack a go-to sniper to terrorize the Pens. Their defense is largely a stay-at-home group, though Pittsburgh will have to keep an eye on youngster Erik Karlsson, who came into his own with 14 points in his last 19 games.<\/p>\n
But let\u2019s be honest: Ottawa can\u2019t hold a candle to Pittsburgh\u2019s offense. Even though Evgeni Malkin had an off year, the Pens are still a deep group at forward. Sidney Crosby\u2019s immense talent finally translated into goal scoring this year, as the pivot tied for the league lead with 51 goals. Thanks to solid support from guys like Bill Guerin, Alex Ponikarovsky and Jordan Staal, the Pens have plenty of weapons. And that doesn\u2019t even factor in their offensively minded defenders like Sergei Gonchar and Kris Letang.<\/p>\n
The Sens have decent size and toughness on \u201cD\u201d with guys like Andy Sutton, Chris Phillips and Anton Volchenkov. Minus the experience, they actually remind me of Pittsburgh\u2019s cup-winning group from a year ago. The Pens aren\u2019t nearly as tough on the back end as they were in 2009 but they have an experienced group with good skating and Brooks Orpik alone has the grit of two guys. ![\"Sports](\"http:\/\/affiliates.commissionaccount.com\/processing\/impressions.asp?btag=a_3953b_677\")
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The Sens have some good two-way forwards in Fisher and Matt Cullen but few teams can match the effectiveness of Pittsburgh\u2019s checkers. Staal, Max Talbot and Tyler Kennedy were crucial in Pittsburgh\u2019s cup run last year and should be major factors on the forecheck and backcheck again this season.<\/p>\n
Perhaps Pittsburgh\u2019s clearest edge in this series is goaltending. No disrespect to Brian Elliott or Pascal Leclaire, but they\u2019re simply not in the same league as Marc-Andre Fleury. The Pens\u2019 puckstopper isn\u2019t consistent but Fleury has the athleticism and poise to steal a series. That\u2019s not the case for Elliott or Leclaire.<\/p>\n
Special teams are even on paper, with both teams boasting solid penalty killing and middle-of-the-road power plays. That said, I can\u2019t help but wonder if the Pens were \u201cholding\u201d back, saving their energy for the playoffs. Last year, their power play hovered around 17 per cent and jumped over 20 in the playoffs. I could see a similar spike in crunch time this season.<\/p>\n
The Sens did a nice job to overcome a tumultuous offseason and played good two-way hockey this season. But the road ends here for them. The Pens will have a challenge repeating as champs but the Sens aren\u2019t part of that challenge. The real battle will come later; Pittsburgh shouldn\u2019t have much trouble with Ottawa at all.<\/p>\n
Prediction: <\/strong>Penguins in five.<\/p>\nCLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT SPORTSBOOK.COM\u2019S NHL HOCKEY BETTING LINES FOR THIS WEEK’S MATCHUPS!!!!<\/h3>\n
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\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 7 game series between the Ottawa Senators and the Pittsburgh Penguins opens on Wednesday night, here’s the odds and our prediction for the series. <\/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":[10330,27701,27694,21458,27688,27693,27690,27689,27695,27681,27691,27692,27674],"class_list":["post-21159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nhl","tag-10330","tag-2010-stanley-cup-futures","tag-2010-stanley-cup-playoff-picks","tag-hockey-betting-picks","tag-ottawa-senators-vs-pittsburgh-penguins-predictions","tag-senators-penguins-lines","tag-senators-penguins-picks","tag-senators-penguins-predictions","tag-senators-vs-penguins-series-preview","tag-senators-vs-penguins","tag-stanley-cup-playoff-picks","tag-stanley-cup-playoff-prediction","tag-stanley-cup-playoffs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21159","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=21159"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108171,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21159\/revisions\/108171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}