Avs, Blues collide in St. Louis

Hockey Betting Lines

02/11/2012 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Colorado Avalanche will try to boost their playoff chances against a tough opponent, as they visit the St. Louis Blues for tonight's clash at Scottrade Center.

The Avalanche enter today tied with Dallas for the ninth seed in the West and the clubs are just one point behind Phoenix for the conference's eighth and final postseason berth. Minnesota and Calgary are also just one point behind the Avs and Stars in the crowded Western Conference playoff picture.

Colorado had lost five straight (0-4-1) before closing a four-game homestand with consecutive wins over Chicago and Carolina. Friday's win over the Hurricanes was a dramatic one, as Ryan O'Reilly scored the game-winner with 1.2 seconds left in overtime to give the Avalanche a 4-3 win at the Pepsi Center.

With time winding down, O'Reilly picked the pocket of Justin Faulk in the neutral zone and skated the other way. From the left wing, O'Reilly cranked a shot that beat Cam Ward to the left side for the win.

"I looked up and saw four seconds on the clock," said O'Reilly. "I managed to get the shot off on time and got lucky with it."

Paul Stastny had a goal and an assist for the Avalanche, while Jean-Sebastien Giguere stopped 39 shots in the win.

Colorado will now play four straight and six of its next seven games on the road, where it is 12-12-2 this season.

The Blues, meanwhile, have won three of their last four games and enter tonight five points behind Detroit for the top spot in the Central Division and Western Conference. St. Louis is also just two points ahead of Nashville for the West's fourth seed and second place in the Central.

St. Louis won its second straight game Thursday in New Jersey, as T.J. Oshie scored the only goal in the shootout to give the Blues a 4-3 victory over the Devils at Prudential Center.

The Blues found themselves down by a 3-2 score midway through the second period, when Brian Elliot relieved an ineffective Jaroslav Halak in net. Elliott stopped all 15 shots he faced in regulation and overtime before denying three Devils skaters in the shootout.

Patrik Berglund scored with 5:50 remaining in regulation to send the game to overtime, while Chris Stewart and David Perron also scored for St. Louis, which ended its three-game road trip with two straight victories.

"Whenever you're down one goal going into the third on the road it's a good position to be in, so we were pretty comfortable," said Elliot.

Elliott, who played in 12 games with Colorado last year after getting traded from Ottawa, is expected to get the start tonight. He is 1-1-1 in three career tests against the Avalanche.

St. Louis has a 22-3-4 record at home this year compared to a 10-11-3 mark on the road. Beginning with tonight's test, the Blues will play four of their next five games at Scottrade Center.

Jason Arnott is not expected to play tonight for the Blues after sitting out the last three games with a bruised left shoulder. Arnott was placed on injured reserve Friday and will also sit out Sunday's game against San Jose. Matt D'Agostini will also miss a second game since sustaining a blow to the head on Tuesday against Ottawa.

The Blues are expected to get forward Andy McDonald back Sunday when they faced the Sharks. McDonald, who had 50 points in 58 games for the Blues last year, has been out since suffering a concussion on Oct. 13 in Dallas.

Tonight's tilt marks the fourth and final scheduled meeting between the Blues and Avs this season. Colorado has taken two of three encounters so far, but the Blues posted a 4-0 triumph on home ice when the clubs last met on Jan. 7. The Avs have still won nine of 11 overall in this series, but St. Louis has claimed the last two matchups in the Gateway City.

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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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