NHL Betting – Ryan Miller’s Attempt to Tame the Wild

The surging Buffalo Sabres play host to the struggling and wounded Minnesota Wild on Friday night as part of another busy night on the league’s schedule. The Sabres have regained their early season form while the Minnesota Wild continue to disappoint during their 2009-2010 NHL campaign.

Minnesota Wild (31-29-6) @ Buffalo Sabres (36-20-9)
7:30 PM ET, Friday, March 12, 2010
HSBC Arena, Buffalo, New York
On: XM Satellite Radio Channel 206

• The Buffalo Sabres rank 14th on offense, and average 2.7 goals per game. The Sabres are 16.8% on the power play and have 42 power play goals.
• The Minnesota Wild rank 15th on offense, and average 2.7 goals per game. The Wild are 18.5% on the power play and have 46 power play goals.
• The Sabres average 2.8 goals per game at home, and give up 2.2 goals against on defence.
• The Wild average 2.2 goals per game on the road, and give up 2.8 goals against on defence.

Minnesota Wild:+165

The Guillaume Latendresse is the Wild’s leader in goals while Mikko Koivu leads the team in points. Not exactly household names.

Even though the Minnesota Wild have a no name roster (outside of the disappointing Martin Havlat), they have always had the ability to show up and give a consistently good effort every night. Lately the Wild haven’t even been doing that. On Tuesday the Wild only managed 11 shots in an overtime loss to the Florida Panthers and on Thursday, the Wild were totally outclassed by the Detroit red Wings. They are 10-20-3 on the road and with a road date against Ryan Miller and the Sabres on tap, the Wild’s struggles figure to continue. Goaltender Nick Backstrom, Pierre Marc Bouchard, Brent Burns and Guillaume Latandresse are all very questionable for Friday’s game – not good.

Buffalo Sabres: -200

The Buffalo Sabres appeared to be heading in the wrong direction a week ago, but three straight wins have people believing in the Sabres again. Buffalo continues to be a successful yet unspectacular team that keeps getting it done with solid team play and superb goaltending.

Without a 20 goal scorer on the team, the Sabres preach balance, cohesiveness and effort and even in their losses since the Olympic break (against Pittsburgh and Washington), the effort was there but unfortunately the result was not. Buffalo had their slump and now appear to be ramping up for the stretch drive and the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Look for Patrick Lalime to possibly start in net for the Sabres on Friday night and be solid enough to lead the Sabres to victory. The Wild are a physically and mentally wounded team and shouldn’t pose much of a problem for one of the NHL’s better all around teams.