Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Ottawa Senators Odds & Pick: March 16th 2010

Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Ottawa Senators
Free NHL Pick: Ottawa -180 odds
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The Senators entered the Olympic Break on a major roll. In fact, they had won 14 of 16 games and that included an 11-game winning streak. However, they’ve cooled right off, since the break. Since the Olympics ended, they’ve gone 1-4-1. That should have them playing with a ’sense of urgency’ this evening.

Ottawa coach Cory Clouston said as much: “We just have to play a little bit more urgent. Before the break, we were playing like we had something to lose and we built up such - I don’t want to say a big cushion for playoffs - but we relaxed a little bit. We’ve got to start treating these games like playoff games.”

The Sens should have some added motivation here, as the Leafs have actually beaten them three straight times. Even with those results, however, the Leafs are just 6-13 (-6.8) against divisional opponents while the Sens are 12-8 (+3.2) when they’ve faced teams from within their own division.

While the Leafs have admittedly been better recently, they’re still among the league’s weaker teams and they’re coming off a 4-1 loss to the Islanders last time out.

The Leafs recent win at Ottawa was the only time they won a road game all season long, when the O/U line was 5.5. The Sens, on the other hand, are 17-7 when playing a home game with a total of 5.5. With the Sens also at 9-1 (+8.8) the last 10 times that they were playing with two day’s rest in between games, consider laying the wood with the revenge-minded home team.