NHL Betting Picks for October 11, 2010

NHL betting is underway and Oddsbay's handicapping team is ready to bring you the strongest hockey plays available anywhere. Today we'll look at a pair of games as we kick off our hockey coverage for 2010-2011!
ANAHEIM DUCKS AT ST. LOUIS BLUES--OCTOBER 11, 2010 11:00 AM PACIFIC
It's Columbus Day in the United States and Thanksgiving in Canada so there are a number of daytime games on the board in the NHL. We'll take a look at one of them as the St. Louis Blues host the Anaheim Ducks. The Ducks are wrapping up a three game road trip to open the season and it's been rough going for them so far--they've lost both games at Detroit and Nashville by a combined margin of 8-1. Obviously when you're giving up that many goals and not scoring any you're not going to win a lot of hockey games.
A bigger concern for Anaheim is found deeper in the box score--they're allowing a ton of shots and not getting scoring opportunities of their own. In Detroit, they were outshot 43-21 and against Nashville--a team that often struggled to get shots on goal last season--they allowed a whopping 49 shots on goal to 30 of their own. With the Anaheim defense not giving him much help, its a credit to goaltender Jonas Hiller's skill that they weren't beat by even bigger margins.
St. Louis is a team on the rise and they've finally solidified the goaltending position with the acquisition of former Montreal netminder Jaroslav Halek who was very solid in the Blues' season opening win over Philadelphia. We look for Anaheim to struggle somewhat this year, while St. Louis will likely be back in the playoff picture. The Ducks were off Sunday but the early start combined with travel makes this more of a difficult scheduling situation than it initially appears. The public doesn't yet appreciate the quality team that St. Louis has put together and we'll look for the Blues to keep the Ducks winless.
PLAY ST. LOUIS BLUES -155 OVER ANAHEIM DUCKS
FLORIDA PANTHERS AT VANCOUVER CANUCKS OCTOBER 11, 2010 7:00 PM PACIFIC
When handicapping hockey its important to look at the performance of the teams involved beyond the wins and losses, and we've got a perfect example of that concept here. Florida lost one of the strangest hockey games you'll ever see on Sunday, completely dominating play throughout with tough defense. The Panthers held Edmonton to 13 shots on goal for the game with only 3 in the first period and 4 in the second. The problem was that Edmonton scored on 3 of their 4 second period shots!
Usually in a situation like that its due to poor play in some phase of the game--usually goaltending. Yet none of the three Oilers' goals were 'soft'--the first two were deflections of slapshots that were virtually impossible for any goalie to stop. The third Edmonton goal was nominally a deflection as well--off the skate of Shawn Horcoff--that sure looked to have been kicked into the net on multiple replays. Even the Oilers' announcers said that the goal should be waved off but after review it was upheld giving Edmonton a 3-0 second period lead despite only having 6 shots on goal to that point.
Florida continued to press the attack and narrowed the margin to 3-2 but were unable to score the equalizer due to the stellar goaltending of Nikolai Khabibulin. Still, their performance in a losing cause didn't go unnoticed by our handicapping team and it sets up a nice underdog opportunity as they head to Vancouver. The Panthers aren't a team that opponents really get 'up' to play but they give a strong effort on most nights and we look for that to continue on Monday night. The Canucks are loaded with talent but they've got a history of starting the season slowly. They'll be a championship contender by the end of the year, but they've had a tendency to underachieve early. Last year their scoring sputtered in the first part of the season, and their defense was porous--they also had a bad habit of standing around and making Roberto Luongo do all of the work. While it is too early to conclude that'll be the case again this year, they sure showed signs of that in their season opening home loss to Los Angeles.
Ultimately, we're taking a big price with a hard working team against an opponent that has a track record of not playing up to their potential at the beginning of the season. The Canucks have the talent to beat any team at any time, but if they reprise their bad habits of last year the Panthers will be in this throughout and could steal the win at a big underdog price.
PLAY FLORIDA PANTHERS +200 OVER VANCOUVER CANUCKS