Bruins carry impressive road streak into Pittsburgh

Hockey Betting Lines

03/07/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - One day after getting a season-long road trip off to a desired start, the Boston Bruins will try to keep up their recent success in enemy venues when they visit Pittsburgh's Mellon Arena this afternoon for a battle with the defending Stanley Cup champion Penguins.

Boston began its current seven-game trek with Saturday's 3-2 victory over the New York Islanders, the Bruins' sixth triumph in their past seven games. Four of those wins came on a road stretch from February 7-13 that preceded the NHL's break for the Winter Olympics.

David Krejci and Marc Savard scored within a 4 1/2-minute span in the second period to snap a 1-1 tie and back an excellent performance from goaltender Tim Thomas, who racked up 37 saves in his second consecutive start.

Thomas, the 2008-09 Vezina Trophy winner, had been supplanted by Tuukka Rask as Boston's No. 1 netminder last month after a string of inconsistent showings, but has been called upon to start the team's past two contests after Rask hurt his knee in Tuesday's 4-1 loss to Montreal. He responded by stopping 24-of-26 shots against Toronto on Thursday, then thwarted all three skaters he faced in the shootout to help the Bruins to a 3-2 decision over the Maple Leafs.

Rask is considered day-to-day with his injury, making Thomas a likely candidate to draw the assignment again this afternoon. The 35-year-old made 27 saves to shut out the high-scoring Penguins in Boston on November 10, but struggled in a 6-5 overtime defeat at the Igloo four days later.

Thomas and the Bruins will have to deal with a Pittsburgh squad that had its offense cranking in Saturday's matchup against Dallas, with Sidney Crosby amassing two goals and an assist to lead the Pens to a 6-3 rout.

Jordan Staal and Chris Kunitz had a goal and an assist in the win, Pittsburgh's third in a row since returning from the Olympic shutdown. Alexei Ponikarovsky, acquired Tuesday in a trade with Toronto, also lit the lamp in his Penguins debut.

Marc-Andre Fleury, coming off a shaky outing in Thursday's 5-4 overtime win over the New York Rangers, rebounded with 27 saves to record his 30th victory of the season.

"We always know he bounces back," said Crosby of Fleury. "It's going to happen, we all have tough nights. He responds the best way possible every time."

One Pittsburgh player who didn't have a hand in Saturday's offensive outburst was Evgeni Malkin. The star center had a career high-tying 15-game point streak, in which he had piled up nine goals and 15 assists, come to an end after being kept off the scoresheet by the Stars.

The win pushed the Penguins' lead on idle New Jersey to three points for first place in the Atlantic Division and improved them to 20-10-3 at home for the season.

Boston's surge has propelled the 2008-09 Northeast Division champions into seventh place in the Eastern Conference, one point better than Montreal and three ahead of Atlanta and the Rangers in the tightly-bunched playoff race.

"We've won two in a row which is a good thing, but there's areas where we can do better," said Thomas after Saturday's game. "At this point in the year, we need as many wins as we can get so we're not going to complain about them too much."

The Bruins are an impressive 11-3-2 with two ties over their last 18 visits to Mellon Arena, but have come out on the losing side in each of their past two games as the visitor in this series.

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Football Betting

NFL Football Betting Online

The San Francisco 49ers (5-11 SU, 5-10-1 ATS in 2007; 1-1 SU & ATS in pre-season) found some offensive life last week, and they will try to build some momentum on Thursday night as they travel to the Windy City to take on the Chicago Bears (7-9 SU & ATS in 2007; 0-2 SU, 0-1-1 ATS in pre-season) in an NFL matchup that is set to get underway at 8 PM ET at Soldier Field (natural turf) in Chicago.

Thursday, August 21

NFL betting odds: CHICAGO -3 (-120), Total 37

NOTABLE STAT: San Francisco was last in points, last in total offense in 2007
KEY NFL BETTING TREND: SF has lost its last seven SU on pre-season road

In the BetUS NFL pre-season football betting odds, the Bears are listed as a three-point favorite (laying -120), with the total posted at 37 points.

Here are some NFL football betting trends as they relate to this matchup (reflecting numbers going into the 2008 season):

* SF has lost 11 of its last 14 games SU
* SF has covered three of its last 11 games
* SF has lost six of its last seven road games SU
* SF has covered one of its last seven road games
* CHI has covered five of its last eight games
* CHI has played five of its last seven games OVER the total
* CHI has covered four of its last 13 home games
* SF has lost its last seven pre-season road games SU
* CHI has covered two of its last seven home pre-season games

Well, I guess we should congratulate the Bears on making their quarterback choice for the season's opening game, as they have designated Kyle Orton the starter against Indianapolis. The Bears obviously have lost patience with Rex Grossman, and what they do with him at this point is anybody's guess. But suffice it to say that there isn't a quarterback competition anymore, at least in training camp.

Meanwhile, the quarterback competition may also be settled in San Francisco, where the Niners bounced back from a lackluster 18-6 loss to the Raiders, in which they turned the ball over four times, to execute a 34-6 rout of the Packers last Saturday. However, coach Mike Nolan has stopped short of saying that, insisting that the job is still open. But J.T. O'Sullivan, the longshot of the trio of Niner signal-callers who opened camp, will start his third straight pre-season game here. Against Green Bay, O'Sullivan was only 8-for-17, and was intercepted, but he also threw for 9.1 yards an attempt, which included a 59-yard TD pass to Josh Morgan. The others struggled.

Some offensive cohesion is badly needed, in light of the Niners' dismal 2007 campaign, in which they were dead last in the NFL in scoring, with just 13.7 points a game. And O'Sullivan is the guy who is most familiar with offensive coordinator Mike Martz's exacting system, because he learned it last year in Detroit. O'Sullivan will go at least the entire first half and may even last longer. He'll be relieved by Alex Smith, with Shawn Hill doing the mop-up work. Three receivers who were out last week - Bryant Johnson, Ashley Lelie and Arnaz Battle - will miss this game too.

That may hurt a little here, especially since the Bears will be using a lot of their defensive starters. And it's the defense that has been keeping the Bears in games thus far. In fact, the defense and special teams were responsible for the first 19 points Chicago scored against Seattle last time out, as the offense really struggled with Grossman at the controls. But maybe the first-team offense has a chance to settle a little bit as it works more with Orton at the helm.

Certainly we have concerns about the Bears' offensive line, but we like the scenario for them here, especially if O'Sullivan doesn't make some bis plays. The Niners may have nowhere else to turn right now, and they have lost seven straight road games in the pre-season. Let's take Chicago, the three-point favorite in the NFL football betting odds.

CHICAGO -3 (-120) **
(Graded on a scale of 1-4 stars)

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FOOTBALL BETTING : Crabtree's base deal: six years, $32 million

Football Betting

In the wake of the news that the 49ers have signed receiver Michael Crabtree after an extended holdout, there has been not a hint of the dollars to be paid to Crabtree.

And since this means that his agent hasn't leaked the numbers, it means that his agent feels no specific motivation to do so.

Possibly because his agent isn't all that thrilled to have his name on the deal.

So the numbers will come from sources other than Crabtree's agent. And we've gotten our mitts into them.

Per a league source, Crabtree has signed a six-year, $32 million contract. (The total includes guaranteed money, base salaries, and the one-time incentive based on achieving minimum playing time.)

The deal also includes $17 million in guaranteed money.

As reported elsewhere, the deal can void to five years based on performance triggers, wiping out a final year base salary of $4 million. But they won't be easily reached.

The source tells us that, in his first four seasons (including 2009), Crabtree must either qualify for two Pro Bowls, or he must qualify for one Pro Bowl in one year and he must participate in 80 percent of the offensive snaps in a separate year in which the team makes the playoffs.

In other words, if in 2010 he qualifies for the Pro Bowl and the team makes the playoffs and he participates in 80 percent of the snaps, he'll still need to make it to the Pro Bowl or achieve the 80-percent/playoffs in another season.

Since the chances of Crabtree making the Pro Bowl or participating in 80 percent of the offensive snaps this year is roughly zero percent, he'll have three years to get it done.

And it won't be easy. Frankly, he'll be hard pressed to make it to one Pro Bowl in three years with the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, the other Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, DeSean Jackson, Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings, Roddy White, T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the same conference for sportsbook betting.

So, by all appearances, it's a six-year deal. And at $17 million in guaranteed money, the per-year guarantee is a tepid $2.83 million per year.

There's another problem with the deal -- it has no mid-tier incentive package. Instead, the additional $8 million that Crabtree can earn (pushing the max value to six years, $40 million) requires the kind of unrealistic, mega-star performances that no rookie is likely to ever achieve.

So while the contract paid to Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji covers five years and pays $22.5 million, he has the ability (if he's a solid player) to make up the difference between his base deal and Crabtree's five-year, $28 million haul via the mid-tier incentive package in Raji's deal.

And unless Crabtree meets the performance thresholds necessary to void the sixth year, he'll be stuck under contract for another year at a base salary of only $4 million.

There's one other area of concern with the deal. Crabtree, per the source, received no option bonus. Instead, he has significant money tied to a fairly new device known as a "discretionary salary advance," which unlike an opition bonus is subject to forfeiture if Crabtree decides in a year or two that he wants to hold out for a better deal. (We're also told that the 49ers have included language that would make certain escalators subject to forfeiture, too.)

Meanwhile, the deal falls well short of the mark for which Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker were aiming -- the five-year, $38.25 million contract paid by the Raiders to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, the seventh overall pick in the draft.

Even if Crabtree successfully voids the final year, he'll make more than $2 million per year less on average than Heyward-Bey.

Thus, as we explained earlier in the day, this is a deal that Crabtree could have done in July, which would have given him a much better chance of making a contribution to the 49ers during his rookie year.

So while the final outcome can be described as win-win, the broader view suggests that it's really a lose-lose situation.

NFL Betting Lines

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