Vancouver Canucks @ Detroit Red Wings – Sunday February 24, 2013 5:00PM EST
The Vancouver Canucks are in a familiar place in the NHL regular season standings, but they got there in a very unfamiliar fashion. The Canucks lead the Northwest Division standings by four points over the Minnesota Wild. But the online sportsbook experts have noticed that the Canucks seem to be the best team in a mediocre division. Vancouver is not dominating the NHL regular season standings as it has done for the past several years in a row. The Canucks just are not the scoring machine it used to be, at least not at this point in the season.
The betting websites are still trying to determine how much longer the Detroit Red Wings will stick with goaltender Jimmy Howard. Even when Howard was given his big contract as the Red Wings’ starting goaltender, there were plenty of fans who felt that Howard was not the answer. In this shortened season, Howard has a 6-5-2 record to go along with his .897 save percentage. Howard has been struggling in net all season long and that has been a huge distraction to the rest of the Red Wings who are already trying to deal with some major personnel losses on defense.
Vancouver Canucks
The sports betting experts are wondering if the Canucks is just holding back or if the team is really struggling to score goals. Even the players that were signed specifically to score goals are being forced to come back and play defense to help a struggling Cory Schneider get acclimated with his role as the number one guy. Meanwhile, playoff choke artist Roberto Luongo remains a strong regular season goaltender. Vancouver is headed down a familiar road that will probably yield the same results it has yielded for years.
Detroit Red Wings
The sportsbook world never understood what the Detroit Red Wings saw in Jimmy Howard. The goaltender would have stretches of really impressive performances, but they were in between bouts with inconsistency. When the Red Wings handed the starting job to Howard, everything seemed to start to fall apart for Detroit. When stellar defenseman NiklasLidstrom retired before the start of the season, a lot of fans could see the problems brewing for the Red Wings. Now that the season is underway, the lack of a quality defense and the problems in net seem to be magnified each time Detroit loses a game.
The Bottom Line
The Canucks spend a great deal of time trying to play defense as opposed to moving the puck up the ice. The strategy by the Red Wings needs to be to take the play to the Canucks and keep Vancouver on its heels. But the tenacity of the Vancouver Canucks should be able to overwhelm a Detroit team that is sadly lacking on defense.
Read more about the Vancouver Canucks and its goaltending struggles.
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