Sports Bet Overview
Betting on MLB baseball has not been popular in Pittsburgh for years. But the NHL hockey news in the Steel City has been pretty good lately, that is until both Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin were out for the playoffs. The price per head experts thought that the Penguins would have problems containing the speedy Tampa Bay Lightning without Crosby and Malkin. It turns out that the Penguins did not want to contain the Lightning, they wanted to punish them. When Crosby and Malkin went down, the Penguins turned to a physical style of play that intimidates an opponent and wears them down. So far, that plan is working perfectly.
Game one of this series opened with two scoreless periods. The Tampa Bay Lightning was trying to establish their run-n-gun style of play, while Pittsburgh was attempting to play physical. The Lightning was affected by the way the Penguins were playing because Tampa’s defense started to break down and the Lightning ran into serious penalty trouble in the third period. If the Lighting want to climb back into this series, they need to stay out of the penalty box and respond in kind to the Penguins’ tough play. But the Lightning may not have the personnel needed to play a physical series with a Pittsburgh team that is very strong and very determined.
Pittsburgh Penguins
Goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury looked strong against the Lightning in game one and withstood a barrage of 14 shots in the first period. Once that first period was over, Fleury and the Penguins seemed to have Tampa under control. Pittburgh spent a lot of time in the Tampa end of the ice in the third period, and their aggressive style of play seemed to unravel the Lightning. Look for the Penguins to come out firing again in game two and press the Lightning hard for the entire game. Now that Pittsburgh knows how the Lightning responds to the aggressive play, the Penguins will bring that style of play to Tampa all night long.
Tampa Bay Lightning
Tampa goalie Dwayne Roloson did as good of a job as could be expected in game one. After a while, he had to have been distracted by the constant flow of Penguins’ players in his crease. Roloson kept his cool right to the end of the game, but the rest of his team did not. The Lightning needs to push back against the Penguins’ pressure if they want to get back in this series. Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis are gutsy players, but they cannot initiate a physical game. Steven Stamkos only had one shot in the first game. If the Lightning cannot find a way to break through the Penguins’ attack, then this could be a short series.
The Bottom Line
This series has become pretty simple; the Penguins are going to keep beating on the Lightning until Tampa surrenders. Unless the Lightning have a set of strong players hiding on their roster somewhere, then the beatings will be successful.
Pick: Pittsburgh Penguins
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.