Premium NHL Picks: December 11th

We have three premium picks today:

Pittsburgh Penguins @ Buffalo Sabres

Sabres beat the Sharks one more time in their latest home game. They improved their impressive record to 11-1 against the Sharks with that 6-3 victory. That was the third win in last five games for Buffalo.

Sabres have fast skating and skilled players like Derek Roy. It was the key for their good performance against Sharks. 

Penguins have won 11 games in a row and they will try to make it 12 tonight. Sidney Crosby with an 18 game point streak seems unstoppable. They won their latest match 5-2 against the Leafs.

Pens had some problems with their powerplay in last two games. Just before those two games, they had a 75% pp rate in Columbus when they beat the Jackets 7-2. That was the only match in last five they had a powerplay goal. Once they fix this man advantage problem, they will be even better.

Penguins are 6-2 SU in last 8 matches in Buffalo and I will go with them tonight as they have been playing extremely good and Buffalo have alternated wins and losses and I don't think they can match the Pens tonight.

PICK: PITTSBURGH PENGUINS TO WIN [Moneyline] 

3 units on Pittsburgh.

1.83 @ betus.com.

Carolina Hurricanes @ St Louis Blues

Blues have won two straight and stopped their losing streak with wins over Canucks and Columbus. They are one of the best teams on home ice with a 9-2-1 record. Canes are 5-7-3 on road and they have only one win in last five games. They lost in Nashville and then in Dallas in last two games. Last night they had a pretty good performace in Dallas and kept Stars at 1-1 but they lost in shoot outs.

Blues are 8-2-1 in last 11 matches in St Louis against Carolina. When they met the last time last season, Blues lost both games in Carolina. It was October 2008 when these teams meat at Scottrade Center for the last time and Blues had lost that one 1-0.

Canes are a healthy team meanwhile Blues are without some top players. Oshie and David Perron has been injured for quite a while and McDonald was added to the injury list later. Polak is also out. Their offensive problems will continue as long as Oshie, McDonald and Perron are out. They are still doing well considering such important absentees.

Total has gone UNDER in 7 of Blues' last 9 games and they went UNDER in 5 of last 7 home games as well.

PICK: UNDER 5,5 GOALS 

3 units

1.73 @ betus.com

Chicago Blackhawks @ SJ Sharks

Second match of this season between the Sharks and the Hawks.

Defending champions are dealing with injuries. Hossa has been out with a lower body injury and Patrick Kane was added to the injury list recently and now they are without two top forwards.

Sharks have been inconsistent. They have won three of their last five games in a five game road trip. They had an impressive come back against the Flyers last Wednesday and then suffered a huge 6-3 defeat at the hands of Buffalo Sabres.

They are coming to this game with 13 goals scored in last 3 games as well as 12 goals allowed. They seem to be enjoying high scoring games as of late. Hawks are similar. They have won four of their last five games and we have seen them score 18 goals in 5 games despite a goalless 3-0 loss against the Canucks 9 days ago. 

Crawford is expected to start for the visitors tonight while Niemi will make another start for the Sharks despite allowing 6 goals in Buffalo on Thursday.

I will go with OVER in this one. The total has gone over in 11 of Sharks' last 14 games. That's a percentage of over 77% and the total has gone over in 6 of Chicago's last 9 games. This looks like a high scoring match as well.

PICK: OVER 5,5 GOALS [LOSS]

2 units @ 1.87

best odds at bwin.com

Outcome: