NHL Betting – Pressure’s on Ovie, Caps in Game 7 vs. NYR

Washington Capitals (+144) at New York Rangers (-160, 4.5 o/u)

During the regular season, playing 82 games to determine something as small as one extra home game in a best-of-seven playoff series can feel like a small reward. When a Game 7 rolls around, though, all that work in the early months suddenly doesn’t seem so inordinate. Thanks to a 53-22-7 regular season record, the New York Rangers earned the 2014-15 President’s Trophy and booked home-ice throughout the playoffs, including in tonight’s winner-take-all Game 7 battle with the Washington Capitals (45-26-11) at Madison Square Garden (7:30 PM Eastern).

In addition to home-ice, the Rangers also have momentum on their side, coming back from 3-1 down to force the seventh and deciding game. The Rangers also have the luxury of Henrik Lundqvist between the pipes. “King” Henrik is 5-0 with a 0.80 GAA in his last five Game 7 matchups.

But Lundqvist isn’t about to rest on his laurels.

“The past is the past,” Lundqvist said to the press. “You don’t think about it, you just go in there and you focus the same way you focused the game before. It’s great memories to have to win important games. Tomorrow is a new opportunity for the team here, so you have to be in the moment. You can’t think about the last year and whatever. That doesn’t really matter, you stay in the moment.”

The Capitals had two opportunities to close the series, and even led with under two minutes remaining in Game 5, before New York’s Chris Kreider was able to force OT. Despite the team’s struggles in close-out games, MVP-candidate Alex Ovechkin promised a win in Game 7.

In the trends, New York has won nine consecutive home games when facing elimination, while Washington has gone 0-4 when forced to a Game 7 after leading a series 3-1. So, even though “Ovie” is talking big, all other signs point to a New York win.

Pick: Rangers (-160). 

(Photo credit: Keith Allison (Flickr: 00091427) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo has been cropped.)