Blues hope to continue surge versus Blue Jackets

Hockey Betting Lines

03/13/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - A strong road trip has put the St. Louis Blues back in contention for a postseason berth. The surging club continues its critical swing with tonight's visit to the Columbus Blue Jackets, who'll be seeking a third consecutive victory when they take the Nationwide Arena ice.

St. Louis' playoff push actually began prior to the Olympic break, when the club put together a perfect three-game homestand before the NHL temporarily stopped its schedule for the Vancouver Games. The Blues have remained hot since returning to action, winning three of four tests thus far on this current trek that concludes Sunday in Minnesota.

The latest victory came in a shootout against the New York Islanders, with T.J. Oshie and Brad Boyes each scoring during the final phase to give the Blues a 2-1 triumph.

Chris Mason stopped New York's Frans Nielsen to open the shootout before Oshie scored on a wrister. Mason then made a save on Matt Moulson before Boyes beat Martin Biron with a wrist shot of his own to secure the victory.

Mason was also sharp in regulation and overtime, turning aside 29 of the 30 shots he faced.

New York took a 1-0 lead on Moulson's power-play goal late in the first period, but Patrik Berglund scored with St. Louis on a man-advantage 6:24 into the second to tie the contest. The centerman now has three goals and three assists during a six-game point streak.

"Penalty kill's been outstanding this year and the last little while," said Blues interim head coach Davis Payne. "[The Islanders] found the way to get the [goal] at the end of that first power play of theirs, and we answered with one of our own and our penalty kill really stepped up."

Playing well on the road has become rather common for the Blues, who trail Calgary by six points for the final playoff seed in the Western Conference entering today's play. The team is an impressive 19-10-4 as the visitor this season.

St. Louis has not been able to establish success at Nationwide Arena however, having lost both of its two previous tests with the Blue Jackets held in Columbus during 2009-10 as well as three of the four overall matchups in the season series.

The Blue Jackets had dropped the first three outings of their post-break slate before delivering a 5-2 victory at Anaheim on Tuesday. That result was followed up with a 2-1 verdict over Atlanta in Thursday's opener of a four- game homestand.

Both wins have come without the services of leading scorer Rick Nash, and the standout forward is expected to miss a third straight game tonight because of unspecified lower-body injuries. The former No. 1 overall draft choice has generated 28 goals and 29 assists in 66 games this season.

Left wing Kristian Huselius was able to return from an injured hand that sidelined him for two games, however, and the native Swede recorded a goal and an assist to spark Columbus' offense against the Thrashers. Mathieu Garon did his part on the defensive end, with the Jackets' netminder stopping 28-of-29 shots on the evening.

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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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