Boston Bruins vs. Montreal Canadiens
NHL Pick: Montreal PL (February 15th 2012)
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After a winner with the Pistons yesterday, today’s free play comes on the ice. The Canadiens are playing at home, have the schedule in their favor and arguably need this game more. However, its Boston which is favored. No surprise. The Bruins are the defending champs.

With the Bruins favored on the moneyline, we’re able to play the Canadiens at +1.5 goals on the puck-line. While we have to lay a fairly steep price to do so, given the recent series history, our chances of cashing should be quite high.

These bitter rivals have faced each other five times this season. All five games have been extremely close. The Canadiens won one of them by two goals, scoring an empty-net goal with 12 seconds remaining for the 4-2 win. The other four were ALL decided by a single goal.

The Canadiens come in desperate for points. They had yesterday off after a disappointing loss Monday. Prior to that, they’d won four straight.

The Bruins are off a shutout loss yesterday. They’ve now dropped four of their six games in February. They’ve only had four wins since January 20th and three of those came by a single goal.

Looking at the last nine meetings between these teams here at Montreal and we find that only one of them resulted in a Boston win by more than one goal. Consider Montreal @ +1.5 goals. -Ben Burns