NHL Hockey Betting: Columbus Blue Jackets at Vancouver Canucks

NHL hockey action on Friday night as the Vancouver Canucks host the Columbus Blue Jackets. Columbus is 8-11-3 on the season for 19 points and is in a last place tie in the Metropolitan Division with the New York Islanders. The Canucks are 11-8-4 and 26 points which leaves them in 5th place in the Pacific Division. Strangely, they’ve been better on the road than at home this season. They’re just 4-4-2 at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena but are 7-4-2 on the road. Columbus is about the same home and road with a 4-6-1 record at home and a 4-5-2 record away from home.

This game promises to be a tightly contested defensive and an excellent goaltending battle. At the opposite ends of the ice will be two of the best goaltenders in the game-Columbus’ Sergei Bobrovsky is the defending Vezina Trophy winner and Vancouver’s Roberto Luongo has been one of the best goaltenders in the sport for much of the past decade. To date Luongo has been the better of the two with a 2.33 goals against average to Bobrovsky’s 2.77 GAA. The Canucks are ranked #12 in team goals against (2.52 goals against per game) while the Jackets are #20 (2.91 goals against per game). Both teams rely heavily on their goaltending and don’t do a particularly effective job of limiting shots on goal ranking in the lower half of the league shots against ranking.

For years Vancouver has been a team known for a potent scoring attack but that hasn’t been the case this season. The Canucks and Blue Jackets are both in the bottom ten of team goals per game. Vancouver is #21 (2.48 goals per game) while Columbus is #23 (2.41 goals per game). There’s definitely value on the big road underdog-is a very evenly matched game that should be decided by the goaltenders. As noted above, the goaltenders are *also* evenly matched further obviating the solid value on the high priced road underdog. We’ll take Columbus at this big moneyline price and also look for this game to go ‘Under’ the total. 7 of the last 8 head to head have gone ‘Under’ and with both teams scoring to put the puck in the net it should be 8 of 9 ‘Under’ after this contest.

BET COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS +200 OVER VANCOUVER CANUCKS
BET COLUMBUS/VANCOVER UNDER 5 +110