NHL Saturday Matinee - Chicago Blackhawks at Philadelphia Flyers

In a Saturday matinee, the Chicago Blackhawks will travel to the city of brotherly love to face a Philadelphia Flyers team that is playing their best hockey of the season. This is truly going to be a matchup of two of the NHL’s most well rounded and talented teams, but with both having goaltending as their only weakness. I don’t know about you, but this game looks like it has the makings of a 6-4 slug fest which would mean a play on the over, but we’ll get to that later.

The Blackhawks have only been getting better the last few years, and have continued that trend this season as they are cruising toward their first division title in 17 years. That would be quite an accomplishment, but they are in a position to attain a much more prestigious title, winning the Western Conference championship.

Win a win over the Flyers, they would hold a share of the Western Conference lead with the San Jose Sharks. To do so they’ll have to go on the road and beat the Philadelphia Flyers, something they haven’t done in more than 13 years.

Here are some NHL betting trends for this matchup:

• Home team is 4-1 in the last 5 meetings.
• Blackhawks are 2-12 in the last 14 meetings.
• Blackhawks are 0-7 in the last 7 meetings in Philadelphia.

With a 16 point lead on second-place Nashville for the Central Division crown, they definitely have turned their sights on the San Jose Sharks, which have a much easier game on Saturday as they host the lowly Florida Panthers. This will be the first time Chicago has played in Philadelphia since a 3-0 loss way back on October 30th, 2006.

Philly has been a tough team to beat in their own building, posting a 20-12-2 record at the Wachovia Center. The Flyers are currently tied with the Montreal Canadiens for sixth in the East and are coming off a tough 5-1 loss to the eighth-place Boston Bruins on Thursday. The loss haulted their five-game home winning streak and you know they’ll be coming into this one with revenge on their mind.

"We all need to be better, from me all the way down," defenseman Chris Pronger said. "It was a very big game. They were four points behind us and this was a chance for us to distance ourselves from them. For whatever reason, (we) didn't come up with a good effort at all."

In net for Philly will likely be Michael Leighton who would be getting his 13th consecutive start if so. There will be a little something extra on the line for Leighton as he played his first two NHL seasons with the Blackhawks. He’ll be hoping for a better start as he was pulled midway through the second period Thursday.

Chicago hasn’t given any indication if they’ll be using Cristobal Huet or Antti Niemi between the pipes. Niemi is the likely choice as he is 5-1-0 in his last seven games after and is coming off a 28 save performance in a win on Wednesday. Like I said before, with both teams playing so well, and so many questions in net, the over would be a strong play for this one.

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