The NHL Playoffs First Round begin tonight and the Columbus Blue Jackets will take on the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 1 of their series. The game is scheduled for a 7:30 p.m. start time and it will be televised nationally on the NBC Sports Network. Currently the odds for the game have Pittsburgh as a very heavy home favorite in this one.

The Penguins finished with 51 wins this season, which should come as no surprise. They have the best player in the game in Sidney Crosby, who won another Art Ross Trophy for leading the league in points with 104 this season. Mario Lemieux (six), Jaromir Jagr (five) and Evgeni Malkin (two) are the other three Penguins all-time to win the award more than once in addition to Crosby. Malkin has been sidelined for a couple of weeks now with his foot injury. He practiced with the Penguins on Tuesday and his status for tonight's game is uncertain, but the Pens expect him to play soon.

Pittsburgh won all five games against Columbus this season, out-scoring the Blue Jackets 16-7. The Penguins are very dangerous on the power play and they'll need to that be successful in this series. Pittsburgh, who won the Stanley Cup in 2009, was knocked out in 2011 and 2012 in the opening round of the playoffs.

The Blue Jackets haven't won a playoff game since they became a team in the 2000 season. They made the playoffs in 2008-09 but were swept by the Detroit Red Wings in the opening round. They were one of the teams that moved from the Western Conference to the East and won a team-record 43 games this season.

Columbus has gotten good goal tending from Sergei Bobrovsky this season. Yet, the last time he started a playoff game, for the Philadelphia Flyers, the Penguins dominated him for five goals on just 18 shots. In his only action against the Penguins this season he game up three goals on 13 shots. Pittsburgh is the second highest-scoring team in the league this season, but a hot goalie can win a playoff series. We've seen it before in the playoffs. Bobrovsky won his last four starts and allowed only six goals during that span.

The Jackets will be without Nathan Horton for the whole series while RJ Umberger and Nick Foligno won't play tonight.

Pittsburgh will look to get a better effort from goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who is just 14-16 in the last few post seasons for the Penguins. Last year he was even benched in the playoffs, but he is clearly the guy for Pittsburgh, tying for second place this season with 39 wins in between the pipes. If he plays well, the Penguins are going to be very hard to beat. We think they get out to a good start tonight.

Free Pick: Pittsburgh 4, Columbus 1

Handicapping Tips: Baseball Correlations

Steve Fezzik from Pregame.com gives some handicapping tips for betting runlines and correlated parlays in major league baseball.

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