11/19/2008 - New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Alex Burrows had two goals and Vancouver doubled up the New York Rangers, 6-3, at Madison Square Garden.
Kyle Wellwood, Ryan Johnson, Pavol Demitra and Daniel Sedin also scored for the Canucks, who are 7-1-2 in their last 10 games. Mattias Ohlund collected three assists, while Taylor Pyatt and Jannik Hansen both recorded two helpers.
Roberto Luongo made 39 saves to notch his 11th win of the season.
Chris Drury registered a goal and an assist for the Rangers, who had a three- game winning streak snapped. Henrik Lundqvist allowed five goals on 17 shots before he was yanked in the second period. The Swedish netminder had been nearly unbeatable recently, yielding two goals or less in his last 12 appearances entering Wednesday.
Stephen Valiquette stopped all 15 shots he faced.
Forward Markus Naslund, who joined New York in the offseason, picked up an assist in his first game against his former team. Naslund spent 12 years in Vancouver and was the team's captain from the start of the 2000-01 campaign until his departure over the summer.
Vancouver grabbed a 1-0 lead 4:16 into the contest on Wellwood's team-best eighth goal of the season.
The Canucks struck again while shorthanded. New York defenseman Wade Redden coughed the puck up at the left point and Hansen fed Burrows, who skated in alone and snapped a wrister that beat Lundqvist on the blocker side midway through the first period.
Burrows put Vancouver up 3-0 early in the middle frame, rifling a shot from down low that found the back of the net at the 1:23 mark. The Canucks took a four-goal lead 58 seconds later, as Pyatt shoveled the puck from behind the net to Johnson and he was able to sneak it past the New York netminder.
Drury's power-play marker put New York on the board 51 seconds after Johnson recorded his first goal in a Vancouver uniform.
A power-play tally by Demitra made it a 5-1 game at 5:33 and chased Lundqvist from the crease.
Aaron Voros lit the lamp three minutes later for the Rangers, and Ryan Callahan scored on the power play at the 7:45 mark of the third, trimming the deficit to 5-3.
Sedin added an empty-net marker in the final seconds.
Game Notes
Vancouver has won three straight and eight of the last nine meetings with the Blueshirts...The Canucks improved to 5-4-1 on the road this season...New York dropped to 9-4-1 as the host.
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Rule No. 1 in the gamblers' handbook states, "Avoid sports betting on meaningless games."
When you're drowning in a sea of baseball monotony, however, things change. Even a hint of pro football betting can persuade the most disciplined bettor to break a few rules.
The NFL preseason is around the corner, with a tempting Hall of Fame match kicking off on Sunday. But bettors must stay vigilant. Wagering on NFL exhibition games is an entirely different beast than the regular season. Most fans don't recognize the players on the field because starters get as much action in August as Warcraft fans get on Prom night.
The only certainty about the NFL this time of year is uncertainty – and yet there are some who say betting in August can be a gold mine.
“I actually feel the NFL preseason presents solid profit opportunities for sharp bettors and handicappers,” Sports Expert Steve Merril explains. “My experience has been that the sportsbooks fear the preseason, which is evident by lower limits and massive moves.”
The line moves are attributed to the limited knowledge available regarding playing-time distribution. One team’s top unit out on the field for one more series has an impact on the pointspread. Setting lines in the preseason often is a shot in the dark.
“We base the betting lines mostly on public perception,” Pete Korner, founder of the Sports Club in Las Vegas, says. “It’s very tough to predict, almost a guessing game.”
The preseason is all about figuring out who’s in and for how long.
“It becomes a race between bettors and oddsmakers to find out how long the quarterbacks are going to stay in,” Korner admits. “If a sharp gets the information first, he could exploit an early line. I’m a full believer in moving the line in the preseason if the books find out something late in the week.”
Determining what each team’s motive is can help bettors handicap. To do this you must pay close attention to the philosophies head coaches employ in exhibition play.
“You need to know what a coach is trying to accomplish,” says Covers Expert Bryan Leonard. “Sometimes a new coach will want to instill a winning attitude. Others just want to make sure their starters don’t get hurt."
So how do you distinguish who’s playing scared and who’s playing for keeps?
“Head coaches on the hot seat or new coaches trying to implement a winning attitude usually try harder to win in the preseason,” Merril says.
Cleveland Browns head coach Romeo Crennel fits this criteria. He’s entering his third season as the sideline boss and has yet to lead the Browns to more than six wins.
Cleveland is an enticing bet as well because of the unresolved quarterback situation. General manager Phil Savage sacrificed the Browns’ first-round pick in next year’s draft for Brady Quinn, but the former Notre Dame quarterback hasn’t signed or reported to training camp yet.
Charlie Frye and Derek Anderson split time at QB last season and it looks like either player (or even Quinn) could be the opening-day starter.
“If a team has quarterback depth and the pecking order hasn’t been decided, it’s a big advantage,” Leonard says.
Even in the third week of the preseason when starters generally play the most, the final outcome of the game is in the hands of fringe players. A team's talent, all the way down to the last man on the roster, is something to consider.
The New England Patriots have long been considered one of the deeper teams in the NFL and coach Bill Belichick has said in the past he’s unafraid of stars getting hurt in games with nothing on the line. He shocked his colleagues in 2003 by playing some of his starters on special teams in the preseason.
“We want to have the team ready to play a tough, physical game and preparation has to go into that and I imagine a certain amount of injuries go with it,” Belichick told the Providence Journal in August 2003.
Bettors can only hope to find more teams that share the Pats' business-like approach to the preseason (New England is 17-9-3 against the spread since 2000) and take advantage of teams who detest the exhibition schedule.
To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your bet on football needs. Mysportsbook.com online sportsbook accepts Visa and Mastercard credit cards.
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