Blackhawks and Sharks Still Kicking

Neither the Detroit Red Wings nor the Los Angeles Kings could win close-out games over the weekend and advance to the NHL’s Western Conference Finals. The San Jose Sharks forced a Game Seven in their series with the defending champion Kings in a series where the home team is 6-0. This has to make the Kings a bit uneasy as odds ae the visiting team will win at least once in a series.

On Sunday, the Sharks beat the Kings 2-1 as their loud home crowd chanted “Beat L. A., Beat L. A.” throughout the game. The Sharks scored 6:09 into the contest on a power play goal from Joe Thornton. The Sharks then went up 2-0 4:09 into the second period on a goal from T. J. Galiardi. Dustin Brown pulled the Kings within one at 2-1 13:50 into the second period but that would be all the scoring in this games as the series moves to Los Angeles for the deciding game.

The Chicago Blackhawks will be going on the road for Game Six tonight trying to stay alive and force a Game Seven back on their home ice.  On Saturday, the home ice worked for them as they beat the Red Wings 4-1 to close the gap to 3-2. They scored in the first period when Bryan Bickell scored 14:08 into the game to make it 1-0. The Wings then tied the score 1-1 on a goal from Daniel Cleary. Andrew Shaw broke the tie four minutes later for Chicago and from there they opened it up with goals from Jonathan Toews and another from Shaw.

BetOnline has the Blackhawks -1.5 +250 and the Red Wins +1.5 -300 ATS. Moneyline is Chicago -125 and Detroit +114. Over/Under is 5 with over +118 and under -130.

This is a tough call. The winner of this game will likely take the series as you have to think if the Blackhawks win on the road, they should be able to go back home and win again. They would become only the 2th team to win a series after being down 3-1 out of 249 teams.

But Detroit has held serve so far at home, so they will be tough to beat there. In the other two games in Detroit in this series, neither was very close. But the Blackhawks are the #1 seed in the West for a reason. They are very good.

We are going to take the Blackhawks -125 and the over +118. Why? We’re going with the higher seed. No other reason really.