NHL History & News

On New Year’s Day at Heinz Field, home of the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers, the Arch NHL rivals Pittsburgh Penguins and the Washington Capitals will battle against each other in the Winter Classic and NBC will broadcast the match at 1 pm ET.

For this matchup NHL Odds are not yet available.

The Penguins beat the Capitals 3-2 last Thursday in Washington when the teams met just last week.

The game went seven rounds of a shootout before Pittsburgh winger Pascal Dupuis scored the winning goal on Washington Capitals goaltender Michal Neuvirth, even though it was not easy matchup.

In the first minute of the game the tone was set early when Alex Ovechkin put a big hit on the Penguins’ Evgeni Malkin. In order to stretch his scoring streak to 23 straight games, it took just one shot and three minutes for Sidney Crosby after that. To give his team a 1-0 lead Crosby scored on a tip-in off a pass from Kris Letang.

When Mike Green scored to stop his 14-game scoring drought, Washington later scored on a five-on-three advantage.

Caps Coach Bruce Boudreau said of Green’s play that, “I thought it was his best game in a long time, He played good defensively and yet he jumped into the play to make things happen offensively. You could see when he scored – it was like the weight of the world came off his shoulders.”

When the NHL resumes its schedule after the holiday break on Sunday, hockey fans will be treated to another great Central Division matchup between the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Chicago Blackhawks. Right now the Blackhawks are tied for eighth place in the Western Conference with the Los Angeles Kings, while the Columbus Blue Jackets trail Chicago by 2 points in the standings and sits tied for 9th with Phoenix and St. Louis. In hockey betting lines, NHL betting odds have not yet posted for this matchup.

When looking back at the season, the teams that miss the playoffs by just a few points always kick themselves for losing those interdivision games. Because of this fact, Chicago and Columbus realize this upcoming game could loom large in the standings come April.

On paper this game looks like a bit of a mismatch for the Blue Jackets as the Blackhawks have plenty more offensive firepower than Columbus. However, with Chicago not having played its best hockey of the season yet and Columbus playing fairly well defensively, this game should be a close one between the two Central Division foes. Chicago will be looking to capitalize on their recent success having beaten both Detroit and Los Angeles as part of their 5 games home stand. Columbus will be looking to get a fresh start while traveling on the road to break out of a month long slump that has seen them win only three games in their last 13.

On Sunday (7 pm ET, NHL) at Madison Square Garden, the New York Rangers will battle against the Washington Capitals.

For this match NHL Odds are not yet available.

As the Capitals were to face the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday both teams will be on the second half of a back-to-back and also the Rangers visited the Columbus Blue Jackets the same day.

Thursday, in their previous game Alex Ovechkin and the Capitals lost their fourth-straight game. In over a year it is their longest losing streak.
As the Florida Panthers blanked Washington 3-0, Tomas Vokoun stopped 36 shots to earn his third shutout of the season and on the power play Washington went 0-for-8.

Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau makes a statement “If your best players aren’t your best players, you’re not going to have success, you have to get production out of your best players, and it’s not happening for us right now.”

By beating the Senators 5-3, the Rangers took on the Ottawa Senators on Thursday.

Erik Christensen, Derek Stepan, Michael Sauer, Brandon Dubinsky and Ruslan Fedotenko all had singles for New York.

The Rangers, who have won seven of their past 10, Henrik Lundqvist stopped 24 shots for them.

In an Atlantic Division battle this coming Sunday; the Philadelphia Flyers will lock horn the New York Islanders.

The Flyers will be looking to raise the space between themselves and the rest of the division as they are presently tied with the suddenly red hot Pittsburgh Penguins with 34 points each. On the other hand the Islanders are struggling extremely again this season. On the season with only 15 points and just 5 wins at present the Islanders sit in the bottom of the Atlantic Division.

In order to reach the number one spot in the division, the Flyers have used a balanced scoring and defensive attack. By averaging 3.3 goals for each competition the Flyers are 4th in the league in goals per game. Allowing a mere 2.4 goals per game, Philly also has one of the better defensive units in the league. You are going to have a pretty good record as the Flyers currently do as anytime you can get this big of a difference between goals for and goals allowed per game.

Both offensively and defensively in the NHL, the Islanders continue to be one of the worst teams. Yet allow 3.2 goals per contest, the Isles only manage to score 2.1 goals per game on average. For 29th and 28th overall correspondingly those numbers are good. The Islanders are going to have to find other ways to score goals while limiting their opposition’s chances if they want to turn their season around and have any chance of beating the Flyers on Sunday.