Washington Capitals at Philadelphia Flyers - 8/6/20 NHL Picks and Prediction
Photo by Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
Washington Capitals (41-20-9) at Philadelphia Flyers (42-21-7)
NHL Hockey: Thursday, August 6, 2020 at 4:00 pm (Scotiabank Arena)
The Line: Philadelphia Flyers +135 / Washington Capitals -167 --- Over/Under: 6.5 Click Here for the Latest Odds
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The Washington Capitals and the Philadelphia Flyers meet in a round-robin seeding game from Scotiabank Arena on Thursday afternoon.
The Washington Capitals will look to bounce back after starting the round-robin portion of their playoffs with a 3-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning in their last game. Washington fell behind after 20 minutes of play with Tampa Bay opening the scoring with seven minutes to go in the opening period and the Bolts doubled the lead just under eight minutes into the second frame. Richard Panik got the Caps on the board with 2:36 to go in the middle period and Evgeny Kuznetsov tied the game at two on the power play just 2:08 later. The third period solved nothing, and neither did overtime so we were off to a shootout, which is the norm for the round-robin games compared to continuous OT for the playoff series. Tampa Bay would score on two of three shots while Washington only found the back of the net once in three attempts, giving the Lightning the win and the points that go with it. Braden Holtby took the loss after allowing two goals on 28 shots faced in regulation and OT as well as two goals on three shots faced in the shootout.
The Philadelphia Flyers will try to build on a 4-1 win over the Bruins in their last game to sit at the top of the round-robin group in the East. The game was scoreless through the opening 20 minutes but Michael Raffl would push Philly in front just 5:33 into the second period and Nate Thompson made it 2-0 Flyers just under four minutes after that. Boston would pull a goal back with just over a minute to go in the second period, but Philippe Myers would restore the two-goal lead just :08 later off of the ensuing faceoff. Scott Laughton pushed the lead to 4-1 just over four minutes into the third period and the Flyers would cruise to the win from that point on as Boston just wouldn’t have an answer the rest of the way. Carter Hart got the win after stopping 34 of 35 shots faced in the winning effort.
Washington is 1-4 in their last 5 games overall and 2-6 in their last 8 games against division opponents while the over is 6-2 in their last 8 Thursday games. Philadelphia is 9-1 in their last 10 games following a win and 20-7 in their last 27 games overall while the under is 4-0 in their last 4 games against the Eastern Conference. The over is 7-3 in the last 10 meetings between these two teams.
There’s a lot of talent on these teams and this is not a series I would mind watching over a seven-game series. With that said, I think that this game ends up being a war, as Washington probably doesn’t want to go down 0-2, even though they’re locked into one of the top four spots, while the Flyers can smell that top seed in the East and will want to make their last round-robin game against the Lightning be for all of the marbles. I’ll side with the under as my free pick for this game, but my stronger play is on the side and you can find it as a premium pick available here.
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Chris’s Pick Under 6
AUTHOR: Chris Ruffolo
Mitch's Take...
