Sports betting news and advice.

It might not quite be time to hit the panic button in Calgary, but the Flames are in danger of losing five in a row as they visit a Colorado Avalanche team that seems ready to over-achieve again this year.

This first meeting between these teams was a barn-burner with the Avalanche needing a late goal to score the 6-5 victory. Both teams played their backups in this game with Peter Budaj stopping 14 while Calgary counterpart stopped 30 in the losing cause.

The 6-5 final continued a trend with eight straight games between these two sides being decided by a single goal.

Budaj will get the start again for the Colorado Avalanche (7-5-1, 15 pts) with starting goalie Craig Anderson out. While he can’t be happy with giving up five goals on 19 shots in the win over Calgary, he has since been brilliant getting a shutout his last time out and going 3-1-1 (2.61 GAA) since Anderson went down.

The games between these two teams have been close of late, but the Avalanche have definitely enjoyed the advantage winning seven out of their last nine meetings.

Losing close games has been a theme of late for the Calgary Flames (6-7-0, 12 pts) no matter who they play. They have lost three of their last four by a single goal with most of the blame falling on an offense that has gone in to hibernation.

The Flames have scored just four times in the last three games. Their power play is at 12.9 percent on the season and their goals per game has fallen to 2.62.

It doesn’t help that star goaltender Mikka Kiprusoff is having a rough start to the season with a 3.49 GAA and his backup hasn’t been any better.

The Chicago Blackhawks look to go perfect at home to start their series with the Philadelphia Flyers after a back-and-forth Game 1 victory.

Game 1 was exciting with multiple lead changes before the Blackhawks were able to settle things down a bit in the third period and secure a 6-5 victory. Both teams will be looking to play more responsibly on the defensive end of the ice and will be expecting better goaltending after both sides let in some bad goals.

The Chicago Blackhawks‘ secondary scoring really revealed itself on a night where their top line wasn’t getting much done.

Their second and third lines each had three goals with Troy Brouwer leading the team with two of them.

The top line was held pointless and didn’t get a whole lot of opportunities despite Jonathan Toews owning the faceoff circle by winning 75 percent of his 24 draws.

Antti Niemi let in a number of bad goals in Game 1. So far in the playoffs, Niemi has bounced back after bad games with excellent ones and the Hawks are certainly hoping that he’s able to repeat that pattern.

The only injury of note for the Hawks is Andrew Ladd who will miss the game due to a shoulder injury.

One of the big reasons that Chicago’s top line failed to find the back of the net was the play of Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Chris Pronger. Pronger was a force in front of the net keeping Byfuglien in check and the crease clear in 32:21 minutes of ice-time. The 6-foot-6 defenseman equaled the total number of shots for Chicago’s top line with five.

Philadelphia’s goal-scoring mirrored Chicago’s in many ways with the top line getting blanked while the scoring-depth came through.

The Flyers’ second line that’s been hot and cold all playoffs was hot again with three goals while the third and fourth lines added a goal apiece.

Discipline was a major story of Game 1 as the Flyers didn’t take a single penalty which kept Chicago’s lethal power play on the bench.

Michael Leighton got the hook in net after allowing the first five goals. Brian Boucher, the Flyers’ goaltending hero from the first two rounds picked up where he left off before his injury stopping 11 of 12. However, Philly will start Leighton again in Game 2 electing to give the player that was so brilliant against Boston and Montreal one more chance.

The top ten plays of the week from a week that saw the Chicago Blackhawks and the Philadelphia Flyers advance to the Stanley Cup finals by eliminating the San Jose Sharks and the Montreal Canadiens.

The Vancouver Canucks look to finally get a win at home and extend their Stanley Cup Playoff series with the Chicago Blackhawks to a seventh and deciding game tonight at 9:30 PM ET on Versus.

Home teams have struggled in this series with only Chicago managing a home win through five games.

The Vancouver Canucks were very undisciplined in their two home losses being over aggressive on the puck which let the Hawks attack with speed. They also tool too many bad penalties and Chicago capitalized six times in two games.

Defenseman Sami Salo is day-to-day after getting hit with a puck in the groin. Vancouver’s blueline depth will be tested with Salo joining Willie Mitchell, who is out for the playoffs, and Aaron Rome and Nolan Baumgartner on the list of injured defenseman.

Shane O’Brien will key. He will be getting more minutes than he’s accustomed to and could be exposed particularly as the game wears on and he begins to tire.

The Chicago Blackhawks will need to make better passes in the neutral zone to break through Vancouver’s trap. They coughed up the puck too many times and opened themselves up to Vancouver’s lightning-quick counter-attack. The long stretch passes that Chicago likes so much just weren’t there, so they will need to keep it simple and fight through Vancouver’s checking to get to the net.