Bruins try to start win streak against Jets

Hockey Betting Lines

02/17/2012 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Boston Bruins will try to record consecutive victories for the first time in over a month when they visit the Winnipeg Jets tonight at MTS Centre.

The Bruins went 25-4-1 from Nov. 1-Jan. 12, but the defending Stanley Cup champions have played mediocre hockey since then, posting a 7-7-1 record over their last 15 contests.

Despite Boston's erratic play of late, the club is still four points ahead of Ottawa for the Northeast Division lead and, more importantly, the B's have five games in hand over the Senators. The Bruins have given up ground in the race for the conference's top seed, as the New York Rangers are currently seven points ahead of Boston atop the East.

The Bruins last posted consecutive wins with victories over Winnipeg and Montreal on Jan. 10 and 12, respectively. Boston posted a win Wednesday night against the Canadiens to start a six-game road trip and Claude Julien hopes his club can make it two in a row tonight in Winnipeg.

Boston led the Canadiens by a 3-1 score after two periods on Wednesday, but allowed the Habs to tie the game in the third and send it to overtime. Tyler Seguin eventually scored the winner in the shootout to lift the B's to the 4-3 win at Bell Centre.

Seguin scored on the second chance of the shootout when he blew a wrister past Carey Price. Tim Thomas then stopped Lars Eller's wrister with his blocker to give the Bruins their third win in the past five games.

Andrew Ference, Patrice Bergeron and Benoit Pouliot all scored for Boston, while Thomas stopped 26 shots in the win.

"I've been lucky so far in shootouts but I'll take it," said Thomas. "It was a bit more passionate game that we played tonight. We brought the effort with team energy and part of that was how Montreal came at us."

Bruins forward Rich Peverley suffered an injury to his right knee in the third period of Wednesday's game and he was sent back to Boston to be evaluated.

Boston has a solid 17-8-0 record as the guest this year and will also visit Minnesota, St. Louis, Buffalo and Ottawa during this swing.

The Bruins have taken two of three from Winnipeg this season and tonight's meeting is the final scheduled encounter between the clubs this year. Boston has taken three of four and 14 of the last 17 matchups against the Atlanta/Winnipeg franchise, but the B's dropped a 2-1 decision when they visited the MTS Centre on Dec. 6.

The Jets won last night in Minnesota and will try to carry that momentum into tonight's opening game of an eight-game homestand. Winnipeg has performed much better on home ice this season, posting a 16-9-2 record as the host compared to an 11-17-4 road mark.

Winnipeg will try to boost its playoff chances during its lengthy residency. The Jets are currently four points out of a postseason berth in the East and are also five points in back of Florida for the Southeast Division lead.

After losing consecutive outings, the Jets made their way back into the win column with Thursday's shootout win over the Wild. Evander Kane scored twice in regulation and also record the winner in the shootout to lift Winnipeg to the 4-3 decision at Xcel Energy Center.

Minnesota's Dany Heatley was stopped by Chris Mason in the fourth round of the shootout and Kane followed by winning it with a wrister. Kane also had an assist while Alexander Burmistrov had a goal and an assist for the Jets. Mason made 22 stops in the win.

"Every game has such magnitude," said Mason. "Every game is a must win but chances are we're not going to win every one, so we take what's in front of us."

The Jets played Thursday without defenseman Zach Bogosian, who sustained an upper-body injury in Winnipeg's previous contest. Bogosian, who averages 23 minutes, 30 seconds of ice time a game, is considered day-to-day and is questionable for tonight.

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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"

A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."

Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.

In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.

"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"

Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.

This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.

Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.

In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.

No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.

And that's all any bettor can ask for.

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