NHL Betting – Stanley Cup Shifts to SJ for Game 3
Pittsburgh Penguins (+120) at San Jose Sharks (-140, 5.5 o/u)
Down 2-0 in the Stanley Cup finals, the San Jose Sharks (12-9 SU playoffs, 7-2 Home) face a de facto must-win in Game 3 as the series shifts to California. The Sharks will welcome Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins (14-6 SU playoffs, 5-3 Away) to the SAP Center this Saturday (8:00 PM Eastern), hoping to get back in the series.
There’s an old saying that you’re never in trouble in a best-of-seven until you lose a game at home. San Jose is certainly hoping that there’s truth in that statement, but the first two games in Pittsburgh – which resulted in 3-2 and 2-1 (OT) Penguin wins – provide ample reason for concern. The Pens badly outshot the Sharks in both games (41-26 and 30-22) and have looked like the much faster team so far.
After looking shell-shocked in the opener and falling behind 2-0 early, the Sharks at least came out aggressive in Game 2. They outhit the Pens 43-36 but still failed to create shots and scoring chances.
Goalie Martin Jones was solid once again, stopping 28 of the 30 shots he faced, and San Jose was able to force OT on a late goal by Justin Braun which took a favorable deflection, but their hopes of a split were dashed early in overtime by Conor Sheary. The rookie sniped high glove on Jones off a face-off play drawn up by captain Sidney Crosby.
San Jose center Logan Couture was vocal about Crosby cheating in the face-off circle after the game, but in reality, the Sharks have bigger issues to worry about. The team needs to find a way to get more rubber on net; they were averaging 3.5 goals per game in the playoffs coming into the series, but have managed just three through the first two games on 48 total shots.
The good news for the Sharks is that they’ve dominated Pittsburgh at home in recent history, winning ten of the last 11. Of course, that history stretches back a ways and the current rosters don’t have much of a track record against one another. Nonetheless, I expect the Sharks – who have turned around their home-misfortunes during the postseason – to come out strong in front of a raucous SAP Center crowd.
Pick: San Jose (-140).
(Photo Credit: mark6mauno (Flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/])
Zack is a tour guide whose favorite sports are football, baseball, and golf. He enjoys giving obnoxious commentary during games and hopes to some day write a book about sports. His favorite underdog victory was the Diamondbacks beating the Yankees in game 7 of the World Series.
