Mighty Rangers host free-falling Blackhawks
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02/16/2012 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The New York Rangers seem to be on cruise control in the race for the top seed in the Eastern Conference, but the last few weeks have been anything but a smooth ride for the struggling Chicago Blackhawks.
Chicago will try to end its longest losing streak in over six years when they visit the hard-charging Rangers in tonight's battle between Original Six teams at Madison Square Garden.
Chicago has lost its last nine games, going 0-8-1 since its a victory on Jan. 20 against Florida. The current slide is the franchise's longest since an 0-8-2 drought from Jan. 4-26 during the 2006-07 campaign, which was the season before talented Blackhawks forwards Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane burst onto the scene.
The extended skid has hurt Chicago's standing in the Western Conference playoff race, as the Blackhawks have fallen into a tie with Los Angeles for the conference's sixth seed. They are also just two points in front of eighth- seeded Phoenix.
Meanwhile, the Rangers enter tonight having won four straight games and have compiled an 8-1-1 record over their last 10 trips to the ice. New York is currently 10 points ahead of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia for the Atlantic Division lead and is also leading the East by seven points over Boston.
The only team ahead of New York in the NHL standings is Detroit, which has 80 points but has played in three more games than the Rangers.
Tonight's test marks the first of two meetings between the Rangers and Blackhawks, as the clubs will also get together in the Windy City on March 9. New York has taken four of the last five encounters with Chicago and the Blackhawks have lost three in a row and four of five in the Big Apple.
Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist turned in yet another stellar performance on Tuesday night, as he stopped 42 shots to turn in his league-leading seventh shutout of the season in New York's 3-0 win in Boston.
Lundqvist made 18 of his season-high 42 saves in the third period for the Rangers. The Swedish backstop is a leading candidate for the Vezina Trophy thanks to his 27-11-4 record, 1.77 goals-against average and .941 save percentage. Lundqvist has been a finalist for the Vezina three times, but has never won the award given to the league's top goaltender.
"I have been more determined this year," Lundqvist told his team's official web site after Tuesday's win. "The clock is ticking. This is my Year Seven (seventh NHL season) now. I'm excited about this group, how hard they work and how well they play under pressure, and I feed from that."
Ryan Callahan, Ryan McDonagh and Artem Anisimov provided the goals in front of Lundqvist on Tuesday. Callahan has scored goals in four straight games, registering six markers over that span. His 23 goals in 55 games this season matches the career-best total he set in 60 contests last year.
Callahan put his team's hot streak in perspective after Tuesday's win and the Rangers captain doesn't think his team should take anything for granted.
"Teams go on streaks. There are a lot of things that can happen, so [the standings] are not on our mind at all right now," said Callahan. "We just have to keep rolling, and also it's important to keep improving."
New York forward Brandon Dubinsky was hit in the face with a puck late in Tuesday's game and was forced to leave the contest. He is questionable for tonight's test as is fellow forward Ruslan Fedotenko, who has sat out the last three games with an upper-body injury.
The Rangers have won four of their last five home games and are 18-6-2 as the host this season. New York will complete a two-game homestand when it hosts Columbus on Sunday.
Eight of Chicago's nine losses during its current skid have come on the road and the Blackhawks are 0-6-1 so far on a nine-game swing that is set to end Saturday in Columbus. The recent slide has dropped Chicago's road record for the season to 10-15-3.
The Blackhawks last played on Tuesday in Nashville and suffered a 3-2 regulation loss as Ryan Ellis notched the game-winning goal for the Predators with just 5:42 left in the third period.
Bryan Bickell and Marian Hossa lit the lamp in the losing effort and Ray Emery was tagged for three goals on just 19 shots.
"This was a tough loss," Blackhawks head coach Joel Quenneville said. "We've been finding ways to not come out on top, but tonight looked like we did the things we wanted to do. We wanted to just get it to overtime and see what happened, but that hurt."
Chicago has played the last three games without the services of defensemen Niklas Hjalmarsson and Steve Montador and neither player is expected to return tonight. Hjalmarsson has been dealing with concussion-like symptoms, while Montador is suffering from an unspecified upper-body injury.
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Sportsbook Betting Lines
Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?
Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.
“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.
“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?
There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).
How the Opening Line Is Made
The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.
Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.
The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.
Why Sports Betting Lines Change
Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game
Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.
Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.
Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”
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Kurt Warner to start, Matt Leinart to watch
Despite the debate that's swirling , Kurt Warner will remain the starting quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals, coach Dennis Green said today. The Arizona Cardinals are the +7 point underdog at online sportsbook MySportsbook.com for this Sunday's game.
Green's comment came in a statement released by the team following an ESPN report that Green decided that rookie Matt Leinart would replace Warner as starter for Sunday's game at Atlanta.
"Generally talking about the starting lineup is not something we do," Green told the AP. "However, given the speculation that was out there we want to make it clear. We're disappointed after last week, but we still expect to be a playoff football team and we fully expect Kurt Warner to be the quarterback that leads us. That has not changed."
To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your bet on football needs.