Wednesday NHL Picks
Our team of writers and handicappers hand out their hockey playoffs picks and predictions for Wednesday, April 22.
Boston Bruins at Montreal Canadiens, 7:05PM ET
MONTREAL (AP) – While the Boston Bruins talked about how tough it is to get the fourth win in a best-of-seven playoff series, the Montreal Canadiens contemplated their bleak reality of being down to the final chance to get their first.
Boston practiced at the Bell Centre on Tuesday, one day after taking a 3-0 lead in their Eastern Conference quarterfinal with a 4-2 win in Montreal.
The Bruins, who are poised to win their first playoff series in 10 years, will get their first chance to finish off the Canadiens in Game 4 on Wednesday night.
“We want to come out here and give everything we have, like we have all series, and hopefully get the win,” Bruins center Marc Savard said. “That’s the goal right now, is to come out and play another ‘one game at a time’, and hopefully we win it. It’s going to be tough. We know they’re going to come out and throw everything at us, and we’ve got to be ready.”
NHL Free Pick: Boston – View Game Matchup | Best Line: -190 SBG Global
Washington Capitals at New York Rangers, 7:05PM ET
NEW YORK (AP) – Simeon Varlamov is a man of few words – especially the English kind.
The surprise top goalie for the awakening Washington Capitals is a virtual unknown to not only the NHL, but to his coach, his teammates, and anyone else who doesn’t speak Russian.
“Seven games. That’s how well I know him,” Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau said Tuesday of the 20-year-old rookie with limited experience. “He is a really quiet young man.
“I don’t know if he is mature beyond his years because my level of communication with him is patting him on the butt or saying, ‘Go get ’em.”’
Yet, Boudreau – finishing his first full season as an NHL head coach – took the big risk of throwing Varlamov into the pressure cooker. After Jose Theodore’s poor performance in Game 1 of the first-round playoff series against the New York Rangers, Varlamov took over.
NHL Free Pick: NY Rangers – View Game Matchup | Best Line: +120 SBG Global
Chicago Blackhawks at Calgary Flames, 10:05PM ET
CALGARY, Alberta (AP) – The lasting image of Calgary’s Game 3 win was a violent one.
In the closing moments, Chicago’s Adam Burish broke his stick on Rene Bourque’s shoulder and an irate Jarome Iginla wanted a piece of Burish in the ensuing melee in front of the Blackhawks’ bench.
So while the Flames try to even their series at two games apiece Wednesday night, they’re also aware that tempers are going to be even shorter – in a series that was already full of trash talk.
Iginla said it was the hit on Bourque, and not anything else, that set him off.
“There wasn’t any one thing as far as verbal that got to me,” the Flames captain insisted. “I can take that. Verbal abuse is nothing. Trash talking is fine.”
Flames head coach Mike Keenan said Tuesday he addressed the trash talking with Iginla, whose father is Nigerian.
NHL Free Pick: Calgary – View Game Matchup | Best Line: -150 SBG Global
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Posted: 4/22/09 10:55 AM ET