NHL Playoff Betting – Calgary Flames at Anaheim Ducks

Calgary Flames (+190) at Anaheim Ducks (-210, 5.5 o/u)

After an emotional Game 6 comeback to oust the Vancouver Canucks in round one, the Calgary Flames were clearly suffering from something of a hangover in their opener against the Anaheim Ducks in round two. The Flames were blitzed from the opening face-off and wound up losing 6-1 to the Western Conference’s top seed. Calgary can still head home on level terms, though, if they bounce back with a Game 2 win tonight (10:00 PM Eastern).

Anaheim’s top line of Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf, and Patrick Maroon was downright dominant in Game 1, combining for nine points. Perry scored his fourth and fifth of the postseason and added two assists to take over the playoff scoring lead. But the win was a full team effort from the Ducks, who outshot the Flames in every period.

Anaheim was up 6-0 midway through the third before Sam Bennett potted the only Calgary goal of the night.

The lopsided loss was especially hard on Flames goalie – and former Duck – Jonas Hiller, who surrendered three goals on just 14 shots before being pulled in favor of Kari Ramo.

“You kind of have to check it off and look forward and kind of learn from it,” Hiller told NHL.com. “I think everybody in here knows [that]. Nobody was happy with their game, so everybody has to step it up. Normally, we’re the team that outworks the opponent. But I think we got outworked, and that way, it’s tough to win.”

Ramo will get the Game 2 start, which will be the first playoff start of his career.

In the trends, the Ducks and Flames have scored at least seven goals in their last four head-to-head. Ramo didn’t look much better spelling Hiller in Game 1 and the Ducks big line is firing on all cylinders. Consider the over (5.5) again for tonight’s game.

(Photo credit: Sarah Connors (ERI_4703  Uploaded by Hephaion) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.)