Canadian NHL Rivals Face Off As Maple Leafs Host Senators

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Canadian NHL Rivals Face Off As Maple Leafs Host Senators

NHL hockey is Canada’s national sport, and as a result head to head matchups between Canadian teams are always fiercely contested. That should be the case at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre on Saturday when the hometown Maple Leafs host their provincial rivals the Ottawa Senators. While neither team has a winning record this season the fact that these two Ottawa based sides are separated by a mere 450 kilometers is usually sufficient to provide the intensity you’d expect from a rivalry matchup.

The Toronto Maple Leafs briefly had the city abuzz with excitement as they got off to a strong start to the regular season, but they soon began to struggle and are currently a half dozen or so points off the pace for playoff qualification. After a brutal month of November the Leafs have regained form to some extent, but haven’t gone on the type of extended winning run necessary to get them back into the top eight teams in the conference.

Even with their somewhat disappointing record, the Maple Leafs’ season has been far superior from a qualitative standpoint than the Ottawa Senators. The Senators are quite simply a mess right now. They recently beat Edmonton to end an 11 game losing streak but that doesn’t negate the fact that they’ve lost 18 of their last 20 games. Betting on NHL hockey teams that have only won twice since Christmas isn't exactly a longterm profitable strategy. Furthermore, December 26th was the last time that Ottawa beat a team with a winning record—their two victories since then have come against the Edmonton Oilers who have the worst record in the NHL and the New York Islanders who have been near the bottom of the Eastern Conference all year. The fact that Ottawa is now only three points ahead of the Oilers for the worst record in the league should underscore just how poorly they’ve been playing.

We expect Toronto to be a home favorite in this matchup and can’t see any alternative to laying the price with the hometown Maple Leafs. They’ve got a winning record at the Air Canada Centre while the Senators have been equally inept on the road as at home—they still haven’t cracked double digit wins in either setting. Neither team is very good defensively so we’ll look for a Toronto victory in a high scoring game that plays OVER the total.