(8) MONTREAL CANADIENS VS (4) PITTSBURGH PENGUINS<\/strong><\/p>\nTo figure out whether or not lightning can strike twice for Montreal, the best strategy is to review every way it beat Washington and predict if Pittsburgh will make the same mistakes. <\/p>\n
First and foremost, the Habs out-goaltended the Caps by a mile. With all due respect to Montreal as a whole, Jaroslav Halak won the last three games of the series almost singlehandedly. <\/p>\n
He stopped an absurd 131 of 34 shots during the three victories. He faced 38, 54 and 42 shots over that span. The Habs had 28, 21 and 16 shots on goal. It\u2019s almost like Montreal should be sheepish about winning. <\/p>\n
Semyon Varlamov (and earlier, Jose Theodore) didn\u2019t lose the series for Washington in goal but he wasn\u2019t as good as he needed to be \u2013 partially because he saw so little action and was probably cold. So will Pittsburgh and Marc-Andre Fleury make the same mistakes? I doubt it. <\/p>\n
Sure, Fleury lays the odd egg, and it will be interesting to see how he handles the pressure as a French Canadian goalie travelling to Montreal, but he\u2019s reached two straight Stanley Cup finals. He\u2019s got nerves of steel when it matters. <\/p>\n
Secondly, Washington\u2019s big guns really disappeared as the series progressed. Alex Ovechkin couldn\u2019t catch a break; Alex Semin was a non-entity; Mike Green proved why he didn\u2019t make Canada\u2019s Olympic team. Can we bettors, or the Habs for that matter, expect a similar flop from the hugely clutch Pittsburgh Penguins? <\/p>\n
All Sidney Crosby does is win. If Ovechkin is LeBron, Crosby is Kobe. He won the Cup last June, a gold medal (with the overtime winner) in February and he had 14 points in six games against Ottawa in the Eastern Conference quarter-final. He\u2019s joined by fellow clutch warriors like Ruslan Fedotenko, Bill Guerin, Jordan Staal and even the battle-hardened Brooks Orpik. ![\"Sports](\"http:\/\/affiliates.commissionaccount.com\/processing\/impressions.asp?btag=a_3953b_677\")
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All these guys are hugely experienced in the postseason. <\/p>\n
All that and we still haven\u2019t mentioned Evgeni Malkin. Geno is maddeningly inconsistent but, for every bad playoff series he has, he explodes for a great one. He wasn\u2019t noticeable but actually played decently against Ottawa, notching four goals and eight points. <\/p>\n
If he rediscovers his elite scoring touch, the Habs will have huge headaches. <\/p>\n
Another factor to consider: Washington\u2019s usually devastating power play \u201cfunctioned\u201d at a three per cent clip in the first round. Three! The Pens, who always save their best for the playoffs, worked at 25 per cent on the power play against Ottawa. <\/p>\n
So we\u2019ve established that the defending champion Penguins aren\u2019t likely to mimic any of Washington\u2019s shortcomings against Montreal. We\u2019ve also established that the Habs won their series despite being hugely outplayed on paper. <\/p>\n
Even Montreal\u2019s shifty, smallish forwards won\u2019t fool the poised, experienced Penguin defense the same way they fooled the Caps\u2019 green, free-wheeling blueliners. <\/p>\n
Sorry, but Joe Corvo or Mike Green simply can\u2019t punish a forechecker the way Orpik or Jay McKee can. <\/p>\n
The Penguins must\u2019ve clicked their heels when Montreal slew Goliath last night. Is it just me or do they have a free pass to the final now? The Habs will ride their adrenaline to stay competitive but won\u2019t win this series.<\/p>\n
Prediction: <\/strong>Penguins in six<\/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 Round 2 Seven game Conference Semi Final series between the Montreal Canadiens and the Pittsburgh Penguins opens Friday night, here’s the odds and our prediction for the series. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":21963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[10330,27701,27694,28443,28444,28445,28446,28447,28366,21458,28442,11979,27691,27692,27674],"class_list":["post-21960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nhl","tag-10330","tag-2010-stanley-cup-futures","tag-2010-stanley-cup-playoff-picks","tag-canadiens-penguins-lines","tag-canadiens-penguins-picks","tag-canadiens-penguins-predictions","tag-canadiens-vs-penguins-series-preview","tag-canadiens-vs-penguins","tag-conference-semi-final-series","tag-hockey-betting-picks","tag-montreal-canadiens-vs-pittsburgh-penguins-predictions","tag-round-2","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\/21960","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=21960"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108182,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21960\/revisions\/108182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}