Game Details
- Ottawa Senators @ Colorado Avalanche
- NHL regular season
- Date: 11/22/2021
- Start time: 08:30 PM ET
- Ball Arena, Denver
A true contender hosting a basement dweller
The Atlantic Division’s 4-10-1 Senators are traveling to Denver to face the 8-5-1 Colorado Avalanche. The Avs are still without superstar center Nathan MacKinnon, who is expected to return during Colorado’s upcoming road trip beginning on December 1st. Still, somehow even without MacKinnon Colorado is winning hockey games, while Ottawa only has four wins in the young season.
Projected goalies are the 0-4-0 Matt Murray for Ottawa and the 8-4-0 Darcy Kuemper for Colorado. Murray is coming off a few rougher games and both he and fellow Ottawa goalie Anton Forsberg got lit up lately by the opposing offenses. Still, the 27-year-old faced an incredibly difficult schedule so far and we would cut him some slack as he had multiple strong performances this year including a 1-goal performance against the Rangers and the game against the Sharks where he only gave up two goals.
Colorado’s Kuemper is the real deal. The youngster has allowed 3 or fewer goals for 10 straight games and has only allowed more than 3 goals twice in 12 starts this season. He is the strongest reason we are looking at a low-scoring game here.
Ottawa not attempting enough shots
The Senators are only putting up 51 shots per game, one of the lowest marks in the entire NHL. No wonder that the team is only scoring 2.05 goals per 60 minutes. You also have to factor in that this team doesn’t really have too much talent on the offensive end which leads to their 7.32% shooting. The Senators were a below-average offense last season, and they seemingly took another step backward on the offensive end. Facing a talented goalie like Darcy Kuemper doesn’t promise too many good things for this Ottawa offense.
On the other end, the Avalanche are doing well offensively, but if you look at their year-to-year statistics, the results are pretty bleak. Last season, Colorado averaged 66 shots per year, while this season the team only averages 58 shots on the offensive end. Colorado’s shot differential is down by almost 18 shots per game. The 2020 version of this lineup (with MacKinnon available) averaged over 3 goals per 60 minutes, while the team is only averaging 2.68 goals this season. If we look at the expected statistics, the overall picture is even uglier. Colorado only averages 2.40 expected goals per 60 minutes, so there is regression coming for this hockey club on the offensive end.
Trends like the under
Ottawa is an under machine on the road. The Senators are 9-5-1 to the under this season on the road and 4-2 to the under when playing rested. They are also 3-1-1 to the under when they played games with a total of 6 or higher.
Colorado has more balanced total trends, but the team likes to take things lightly against the weaker teams of the league. The Avalanche only went over their total once this season when playing against teams with a losing record.
Colorado Avalanche – Ottawa Senators Odds
Pick: Under 6 goals +100 (2.00x) Bet365
We are going with the under here. The Colorado Avalanche have taken a meaningful step back this year and they are no longer the offensive powerhouse they were with Nathan MacKinnon available last year. The Ottawa Senators are barely averaging two goals per game and we don’t have a lot of faith in their offense against an Avalanche defense that our model ranks the second-best in the league. Both of these goalies are also capable of delivering strong games, so the under is the only side we could look at here.
Note: Our model makes this total 5.5 and we would bet the under 6 at -125 (1.80x) or better.
