Leafs' Strong Start to Continue at Boston?

There’s a big slate of hockey games on tonight – Frank Doyle looks at three of the best!

How about those Maple Leafs? The sleeping giant of hockey is off to a 4-0-1 start this year but Toronto starts a four game road trip tonight that will test the Maple mettle.

Toronto visits Boston tonight, Montreal on Saturday, Philly on Monday and then the Rangers on Thursday before coming home for a tough matchup against the Penguins. You’ll get a big NHL betting price on the Leafs coming unscathed out of that.

Toronto is a +155 underdog at the Stanley Cup Champions and that is a tempting price. Stanley Cup winners have been known to get off to slow starts and the Bruins are no exceptions, with a 2-4-0 record so far and only ten goals scored over those six games. The goals will come, but the question is when. The Leafs are a tempter at the price, not least with in form forward Phil Kessel possibly eager to make a point against his old team.

Three hundred miles to the south, two of the top five teams in the League face off. Washington is 5-0-0, the Capitals’ best start in franchise history, but they can’t enjoy it. Nobody knows more than the Caps themselves just how disappointing they’ve been in the playoffs and if they screw it up again, the franchise record start is just another stick to beat them with.

Despite that hot start, the Caps are still the underdogs in Philly. For starters, they haven’t won in Philly in three years and the Flyers are playing pretty well themselves. They’re 3-0-1, they’ve got a point in every game and that’s Philly’s best start in a quarter of a century. They’ll be ready for Alex and the Caps.

The Jets are suffering an inevitable hangover after the celebrations of their return to the big time. Winnipeg got its first win of the season at Pittsburgh on Monday and the Jets are hoping to claim the second when they visit Ottawa tonight.

Home ice sees Ottawa as a favorite but the Senators are dead last in the league for goals against, letting in thirty over six games. The Jets will be tired after that loss against Toronto last night but they’ve surely had a big “X” marked on their calendars for this trip to Ottawa. Wins will be precious for Jets this year – they really need this one.