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03/13/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Phoenix Coyotes will play their first road game in just over a month this evening when they kick off a four-game swing versus the Carolina Hurricanes at RBC Center.
The Coyotes are among the league leaders with 25 home wins, but play 11 of their final 15 contests on the road. That includes each of their next four games, as they play as the visitor for the first time since Feb. 12.
Phoenix went 3-2-0 on a five-game homestand, with four of those games coming after the Olympic break, and wrapped the residency with a 4-3 shootout win on Wednesday versus Vancouver.
Ilya Bryzgalov made 36 saves but allowed three of the Canucks' six shootout skaters to score. However, the Coyotes bested Vancouver's Andrew Raycroft four times, getting the winner from defenseman Adrian Aucoin in the sixth round.
"We're very fortunate to get any points out of it, let alone two. We didn't compete anywhere near the level I'd like us to compete. You're playing against a team that played [Tuesday] night, and I though [the Canucks] dictated a lot of the play," said Phoenix coach Dave Tippett.
Taylor Pyatt scored his 100th career goal during regulation and Lee Stempniak added a pair of tallies over the first 60 minutes. Stempniak now has three goals and an assist in three games since being acquired in a trade with Toronto on March 3.
Phoenix, which has won five of its last seven as the guest, reached 40 wins for just the second time since relocating from Winnipeg prior to the 1996-97 season. The Coyotes last reached the 40-win mark in 2001-02, which was also the last time the franchise made the playoffs. However, Phoenix is tied with Los Angeles for the fourth spot in the Western Conference.
The Coyotes' road play will face a tough challenge tonight as the Hurricanes continue a four-game homestand. They won the opener of the residency on Thursday, besting Pittsburgh, 4-3, in overtime to run their home winning streak to eight games.
Brian Pothier scored the game-winner when he one-timed a Ray Whitney pass into the back of the net 23 seconds into overtime for his fifth goal of the season and first in five games since being acquired from Washington before the trade deadline.
Whitney, Pothier and Eric Staal each had a goal and an assist, while Zach Boychuk also scored for a Carolina club that hasn't lost at home since Jan. 18. The 'Canes are 2-1-1 over their last four games since a seven-game win streak, and 14-4-1 in their last 19 games. However, the club remains eight points back of the Bruins for the eighth spot in the East.
Justin Peters made 37 saves in his fifth career start.
"Our goaltender was real good and we found a way to win a game," said Carolina head coach Paul Maurice. "It wasn't pretty. We had some guys down, some guys injured, and some guys fatigued after last night, but it was good that we got the win."
One of this injured players was Brandon Sutter, who left in the first period due to a lower-body injury and is questionable for this game.
Carolina had lost four straight to Phoenix before winning both meetings last season by a combined 12-4 margin. That includes a 5-2 home win on Nov. 21, 2008 for its third win in its last five at home versus the Coyotes.
Peters has never faced Phoenix, while fellow Hurricane netminder Manny Legace is 7-7-1 with two ties and a 2.34 goals-against average versus the franchise.
Bryzgalov has never beaten the Hurricanes, going 0-3-0 with a 5.06 GAA in three starts.
<< Habs and Bruins square off as playoff hopefuls
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Montreal Canadiens look to further their playoff
chances and defeat Boston for the fifth time in six meetings this year tonight
at the Bell Centre, while the Bruins hope to strengthen their hold on the
Eastern Conference'
<< Raptors resume road trip in Oakland vs. Warriors
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Toronto Raptors haven't been playing like a team headed
towards the postseason and will resume a four-game road trip Saturday night
against the Golden State Warriors in Oakland.
Toronto is currently eighth in the Easte
<< Mavs aim to push win streak to 14 vs. Knicks
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The red-hot Dallas Mavericks will try to stretch their
season-high winning streak to 14 games tonight when they resume a four-game
homestand against the woeful New York Knicks.
Dallas kept its longest winning streak of the
<< Spurs shoot for 16th straight win over Clippers
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - There are quite a few rivalries in the NBA but don't count
the San Antonio Spurs and Los Angeles Clippers among them.
A rivalry generally contains a little give-and-take or back-and-forth. When
the Spurs and Clippers get t
Blues hope to continue surge versus Blue Jackets >>
(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
Home sweet home: Canucks return to GM Place to battle Senators >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The wait is finally over.
After playing 14 straight times on the road over a span of six weeks, the
Vancouver Canucks finally return to GM Place for tonight's interconference
showdown with the slumping Ottawa Senators.
Terriers and Catamounts clash in America East title tilt >>
Burlington. VT (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - A berth in the NCAA Tournament is on the
line in Burlington today, as the second-seeded Vermont Catamounts battle the
fourth-seeded Boston University Terriers in the 2010 America East Conference
Championship Ga
Top-seeded Duke faces upstart Miami in ACC semifinals >>
Greensboro, NC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The fourth-ranked Duke Blue Devils are the
top seed in the 2010 ACC Tournament, and they are set to clash with the 12th-
seeded Miami-Florida Hurricanes in the semifinal round this afternoon.
The winner of t
Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).
Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.
Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).
Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.
Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.
The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.
What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.
Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.
But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.
In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.
(This is an update of a sportsbook for the May 4th issue of ESPN The Magazine).
The Kentucky Derby's post-position draw happened on Wednesday. And, as is always the case, shortly afterwards, a buzz raced around Churchill Downs. It was a low rumble at first, nothing that the squares in the mint julep crowd pick up right away. But by the time the sun set over the twin spires, the chatter was impossible to ignore. Everyone -- sharps, trainers, owners -- was talking about one thing: the wise guy horse, the pre-draw long shot us mopes didn't have on our radar until it was too late.
"You think you're hearing the scoop," says handicapper Lane Gold. "Then you get to the window, the odds are short, and you missed it."
Recognizing a wise-guy horse early is as hard as picking a Derby bonnet. That's because handicappers don't like hype (see ya, I Want Revenge). They want Thoroughbreds who look good losing prep races like the Santa Anita Derby. They eye horses who ate up the field after starting wide or made an easy transition from synthetic tracks to dirt. They look for ponies who showed muscle gain race to race and those who ran hard after several weeks' rest.
"A wise guy," says John Avello, a bookmaker at Wynn Las Vegas, "looks for a horse who can improve."
When I first wrote Horse Betting for The Mag, which I turned in a three weeks before Wednesday's draw, I predicted these three horses had wise guy potential:
CHOCOLATE CANDY (15-1 in mid-April, currently 20-1 according to Avello): His second-place finish at Santa Anita, following a seven-week layoff, proved two things: He can run after resting, and -- by losing a high-profile prep race -- he wouldn't be overhyped.
DESERT PARTY (15-1; 15-1): He was upset in the UAE Derby by a horse he had beaten twice. The public remembers his loss, but the wise guys his wins.
PIONEEROF THE NILE (8-1; 4-1): The big favorite at Santa Anita struggled to win, so he initially got less hype than Quality Road and I Want Revenge.
You may have noticed that the odds on Pioneerof the Nile have been cut in half, from 8-1 to 4-1. Which means the wise guys took a shine to him long before the post-position draw. But, to be honest, this is one of those years with four elite horses getting everyone's attention, squares and sharps alike.
"You're not gonna get a lot of chatter about a horse that isn't in that group, which includes Pioneer, I Want Revenge, Dunkirk and Friesan Fire," Avello told me Wednesday. "We don't have a group of horses behind those top four who look like real legit contenders."
Come Derby week, the final two elements in picking a wise guy horse are how he's working out and what gate he's coming out of.
(By the way, picking a Preakness favorite is a whole different bale of hay, partially based on how horses finish in the Derby. You can see my analysis of who has the best shot at Pimlico on Insider Sunday morning.)
Well, early in the week I Want Revenge, Pioneerof the Nile and Friesan Fire were working out better than anyone. Some thought Friesan Fire, currently 6-1, might have run too fast, burning a five-furlong run in :57 4/5. "When you are running that fast you have the sense that it took something out of him," says Gold. "The Derby is longer than any horse has run, and if they need that extra surge you worry they won't have it because they burned it in the workout."
But, Gold points out, Friesan Fire's trainer is Larry Jones, Two years ago his horse Hard Spun did a five-eighths workout in :57 3/5 and then went on to finish second, behind Street Sense, in the Derby. "Every trainer has different methods," says Gold. "And clearly he knows what he's doing."
Now, as for starting position, Gold says to remember this: Churchill Downs traditionally has 14 starting gates. For the Derby, it brings out auxiliary gates and between the original 14th gate and the new 15th gate, there is a little more space than there is between gates 1-14. "That 15 position will give you a precious second or two to sort out what's happening to your inside," says Gold. "Sixteen is also okay because you can follow the horse in front of you."
Dunkirk, one of the race favorites, is coming out of gate 15. In 16 is Baffert's Pioneerof the Nile. I Want Revenge drew 13, where Smarty Jones won from in 2004, and Friesan Fire picked the sixth position. "He doesn't have a lot of speed to the inside of him," says Gold. "So he will get a clear shot to be near the front."
All the jibber-jabber means this: Pioneerof the Nile has leapfrogged from 8-1 to being the second favorite, along with Dunkirk, behind I Want Revenge. Meanwhile, Friesan Fire, with a good trainer, a strong week of training and a decent post position, is still at 6-1. "By Saturday, it's possible he could go from fourth to the favorite," says Gold.
In other words, meet Friesan Fire, your 2009 wise guy horse.
"Now," says Avello, "it's time for action."
To visit this horse betting site go to MySportsbook.com for all your horse racing betting needs.
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