While 2011 Belmont Stakes betting players are getting ready for the final leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown on June 11th, the Stanley Cup finals are almost here as Vancouver will host Boston in Game 1 on Wednesday night. The Bruins haven’t won since 1972, while the Canucks haven’t won in their 40-year history. Can the Canucks take the Cup back to Canada?
Bruins vs. Canucks Betting – Wednesday, 8:00 PM ET
The Bruins are coming off a grueling seven-game series against Tampa Bay, their second series that has gone the distance, and they’re doing it with grit, physical play and the effort of goalie Tim Thomas, who helped the Bruins escape with a couple games against the Lightning, although he was poor in other games as well. The Bruins have been getting points from everyone as Nathan Horton and David Krejci have been in some NHL highlights thanks to seven combined game-winning goals, the defense is solid with Zdeno Chara leading the way, and Patrice Bergeron has done it all at both ends of the ice for the Bruins. Their major drawback is a power play that has been successful only 8.2% of the time.
The Canucks have been off since May 24th, when they ended a five-game series with San Jose, and the Sedin brothers, Henrik and Daniel, finally came back to life after a poor series against Nashville. Still, the MVP of the team is Ryan Kesler, who carried the team against the Predators, he has been phenomenal in the faceoff dot, and he has gone up against the likes of Chicago’s Jonathan Toews and San Jose’s Joe Thornton and shut them down, for the most part. The defense, powered by Kevin Bieksa, has been very good in front of Roberto Luongo, who still doesn’t get enough respect, but he stopped 54 shots in the Canucks’ clincher against San Jose.
The Canucks are a -240 NHL betting favorite according to your sports bookie software, while the Bruins are listed at +200, and Boston has won three of their last five meetings with Vancouver, with three games falling under the posted total (along with a push). The Bruins are a tough team, but they’re going to need their best performance of the playoffs to beat the Canucks. Preferably, they need Vancouver native Milan Lucic to be a disruptive force, and he had three points when the Bruins won 3-1 in Vancouver back in January 26th. But that may not even be enough. The Canucks are too deep, too fast, and they’re too good on special teams to lose this series. It’s going to be tough, but take Vancouver at your favorite betting website.
