NHL Betting: Capitals vs. Penguins Odds & Picks: May 13 2009

Pittsburgh Penguins @ Washington Capitals o5.5 (-130)

Wed May 13 2009 7:05p - NHL Betting Odds

Visit Touthouse.com for more NHL Hockey Betting Picks from Mike Rose

The Penguins had the Caps right where they wanted them coming into Game 6 in the ‘Burgh, but blew their opportunity by letting a 3-2 third period lead slip away. As he has done in this whole series, C Sidney Crosby came up huge for Pittsburgh, as he netted the game-tying goal at 15:42 of the third period to send the game to overtime.

He’s picked up ten points in the first six games of this series, and will inevitably have to be a force on the scoreboard once again if the Pens are to march on. They’ll also need a much, much better effort from G Marc-Andre Fleury, who had arguably the worst game of his young career in Game 6.

He only stopped 19 of 24 shots and conceded five goals for the second time in this postseason. Pittsburgh isn’t a team that is going to shoot you to death, as it only averaged 29.0 shots per game in the regular season, but it needs to get more offensive chances as the visitors on Wednesday night in order to succeed.

Meanwhile, the Capitals rebounded from three straight defeats to force this series back to DC for the seventh and deciding game. It took until the third period for LW Alexander Ovechkin to really make his impact on the game, but boy what an impact that was!

Ovie recorded the primary assist on the goals by Alexander Semin at 5:38 and Viktor Kozlov at 6:07. He also assisted on Kozlov’s first goal of the game at 6:27 of the second stanza. It was the third three-point game of the series for the 23-year-old phenom, which raised his total to 13 points in this series.

G Simeon Varlamov is still letting too many shots hit the back of the net behind him, but Game 6 was arguably his best game since Game 1 of this best-of-seven set. He came up big between the pipes in the extra frame, and did what was necessary to keep his team’s season alive.

Goals have been flying past both of these goaltenders all series. Each of the five games has reached at least five goals, while ‘over’ bettors have picked up wins in four of the six contests (and three straight). It’s hard to see how both Crosby and Ovechkin won’t get their final say in this series, so expect to see another fantastic game to conclude one of the best series that the NHL has seen in years.