The sports betting community has been trying to figure out the Western Conference quarter-final series between the Los Angeles Kings and the Vancouver Canucks since the series started. The Kings vs Canucks odds still stand at the Canucks being a -200 favorite, but they have not been playing that way.
Vancouver goaltender Roberto Luongo has had the NHL betting experts picking against him in big games his entire career. The hope was that Luongo’s success as a gold medal winner in the Winter Olympics would change his fortunes in big NHL games. In game three of this series Luongo was pulled because he was playing poorly. Being pulled from a playoff game is not the sign of a goalie that has learned how to play in pressure games.
The Los Angeles Kings came into this series with nothing to lose. Their Stanley Cup odds when the season started were 60 to 1. Even after a season where the Kings accumulated more than 100 points in the standings and made the playoffs, the Kings could only improve to a 30 to 1 favorite to win the Cup.
The Vancouver Canucks had big plans when the season started. After the pre-season was over, the odds makers had the Canucks as 15 to 1 Cup favorites. When the Canucks finished third in the Western Conference their chances were improved to 8 to 1. But there was still that cloud hanging over Luongo’s head and it has been raining on him this entire series.
In the NHL playoffs the difference between winners and losers is a hot goalie and the ability to score in clutch situations. The Kings have Jonathan Quick who has been holding his own with a .903 save percentage and keeping the high-flying Canucks to just about three goals a game, while Anze Kopitar and Michal Handzus each have four points in these playoffs.
But the stats in this series can be deceiving. The Sedin twins have 11 points between the two of them, and Mikael Samuelsson has chipped in six points of his own. The difference in this series is Luongo. His save percentage is .871 and his goals against average is 3.41. He has faced 30 less shots than Quick, but has let in the same amount of goals.
In game five the Canucks are hoping their home crowd can help them to take a 3-2 lead in this series, but the Kings and Canucks split the first two games in Vancouver and home has not been a safe haven for the Canucks.
If Jonathan Quick picks up his game at all then the Canucks could be in trouble. Luongo has shown that his playoff collapse is an annual event, and it is not something that looks like it is going away. Even in the game four victory Luongo let in four goals on only 26 shots. Most playoff series come down to goaltending, and for the Canucks that has been a problem ever since Roberto Luongo joined the team in 2006.
Pick: Los Angeles Kings 5-3
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