The Washington Capitals will look to continue their dominance over the Boston Bruins, as they host Boston on Thursday night in a game that can be seen on NBCSN. The Bruins headed into this week red-hot, having won four straight, while the Capitals had dropped two in a row. The winner of this game could be the team that finds that extra bit of energy, as both teams are playing with no rest, as Boston was home against Ottawa on Wednesday, while the Capitals were in New York to play the Rangers.
This war on the ice will go down Thursday, December 28, 2017, at 7 p.m. ET at Capital One Arena. The game will be televised live on NBCSN.
We'll have NHL odds at BookMaker.eu available for this and every game on the NHL Thursday schedule.
Odds Analysis
The Bruins have turned things around after a slow start and are now playing really well, thanks in large part to their goaltending, as Tuukka Rask and Anton Khudobin have been excellent. Boston had allowed just 88 goals in their first 34 games. That is fifth in the league behind the Kings, Sharks, Lightning and Blues. Three of those four teams are currently leading their division. Boston has been on fire recently, going 13-3-1 in their last 17 games and goaltending is the reason for the hot streak. The duo of Rask and Khudobin allowed just two goals per game during the 17 games.
Boston is 7-7 on the road this season, with six games going over the total and eight going under. They are scoring 2.9 goals per game, while giving up 2.6 per contest.
The Capitals have been a very good team at home going 14-5, with eight games going over the total and 11 going under. Washington is scoring three goals per game but they are giving up a surprisingly high 2.9 goals per contest.
Special Teams
The Bruins are 11th in the league on the power play at just over 20% and they have been solid in penalty killing at 84%. The Capitals have been struggling on special teams, as they are just 18th on the power play at just about 19%, while they are 22nd in penalty killing at just over 78%.
Key Stat
Do you remember the last time that Boston won a game against Washington? You have to go back to March of 2014 when the Bruins won 4-2 in Washington. The Bruins have lost 11 straight games against the Capitals including 5-3 in Boston earlier this month. It has not really mattered where the games have been played, as the Capitals have won the last five at home in this series and eight of the last ten, with the last two going over the total.
Free NHL Picks
One of our winners last week was due to a little research on back-to-back stats, as we had Boston and Buffalo under on Tuesday and it was a 3-0 final. Let’s consider the back-to-back stats for this game. The Bruins have split their last ten games playing with no rest, so there is no edge one way or another with Boston, while Washington is 4-6 in their last 10 playing with no rest. The key part of the back-to-back with Boston is that six of their last seven playing with no rest have gone under the total. Six of the last ten games when Washington is playing with no rest have gone under the total. Boston has been getting excellent goaltending of late and Washington also has two good goaltenders in Braden Holtby and Philipp Grubauer. Since this is a back-to-back, we could see the backups, but in this case it really doesn’t matter as both teams have quality backup goaltenders. I will take this game on Thursday night under the total.
NHL Odds: Capitals 2, Bruins 1
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