Thanks to MH, Mike, RP & 312 for stopping by. BOL this evening.
I think we can make a good case for this UNDER tonight. Right off the top, the 4max scoring system has this matchup at 4.9 so that's a good start. As bad as ARI is, they do have a really good goalie who should be going tonight. Vejmelka ranks 8th (+16.8) in GSAE. It's a real shame he's not on a team that can give him goal support. CHI is sending out a kid who is making just his third pro start. He's the wildcard in this bet for sure but he was solid in his first two starts. He won @ STL & @ CGY, stopping 63 of 67 (.940) shots. Now he gets his first home start. You know he'll want to impress. Luckily for him, he's going up against a team that doesn't put a lot of shots on goal. In fact, this is a matchup of the two teams that rank dead last in SF over the L25 (5v5/SVA) with CHI ranking 32nd and ARI 31st. Naturally, these are also two of the lowest scoring teams with CHI ranking 32nd in GF and ARI 27th. Over the last month, ARI games have seen the U go 11-3 and those games have averaged 4.8 goals. On the road over the last month, the U is 5-0 and those games have averaged 3.0 goals. When facing opponents from the West over the last month, ARI has seen the U go 9-1 and those games have averaged 4.3 goals. The L3 H2H matchups in CHI combined for just 10 goals and this matchup in CHI has historically been low scoring with the U going 18-11 (62.1%) and those games averaged 5.2 goals. Simply put, CHI averages 2.4 goals a game while ARI averages 2.6. If they both score 3 tonight, so be it but this looks like a game that could easily go to OT tied 2-2. Worst case it's 3-2 and we get hit with an empty netter, hence the 6.5.
Arizona / Chicago UNDER 6.5 (-130)
ETA: Well shit, I spent 30 minutes writing this up only to refresh DFO and see that Ingram is in for ARI. My initial thought was to scrap the play because Vejmelka was a big part of my reasoning but the more I dig into Ingram, the more I'm ok with the change. Since a really bad start in EDM two months ago, Ingram has stopped 274 of 296 (.926) shots across 8 starts. That's pretty damn solid for a backup goalie. The line moved 5-10c with the Ingram confirmation so maybe not as big as a drop off as I would've expected. ..... After monitoring this one for a few hours now, I'm ready to fire. If Ingram was going to lose this one for us, the line would've moved more initially. Plus, the 6.5 at Pinny has moved 6c towards the U recently.