Washington Capitals at Buffalo Sabres - 1/15/21 NHL Picks and Prediction
Photo by Timothy T. Ludwig-USA TODAY Sports
Buffalo Sabres (0-1) vs Washington Capitals (1-0)
Game Info: Friday, January 15, 2021 at 7:00 pm (KeyBank Center)
Betting Odds: Buffalo Sabres +110 / Washington Capitals -130 --- Over/Under: 6.5 Click Here for the Latest Odds
Where to Watch: MSG-Buffalo, NBCS-DC Stream live sports and exclusive originals on ESPN+. Sign up now! 
The Washington Capitals and the Buffalo Sabres meet in NHL action from the KeyBank Center on Friday night.
The Washington Capitals will look to complete the early season back-to-back sweep of the Sabres after a 6-4 win over Buffalo last time out.
Nicklas Backstrom opened the scoring for the Caps just under six minutes into the game before Taylor Hall scored his first goal as a Sabre to tie the game at one. T.J. Oshie restored Washington’s lead just under two minutes later, giving Washington a 2-1 lead into the 2nd period. John Carlson and Brenden Dillon pushed the Capitals’ lead to 4-1 before Tobias Rieder pulled a goal back for Buffalo with 1:14 to go in the 2nd period and Jake McCabe cut the deficit to 4-3 :20 into the 3rd. Jakub Vrana restored the two-goal cushion just :26 later, but Viktor Olofsson cut the deficit to 5-4 late in the 3rd, but that’s as close as the Sabres would get as Garnet Hathaway iced the result for the Caps with an empty net goal with just over one minute to play.
Ilya Samsonov got the win in goal for the Capitals after stopping 22 of 26 shots faced in the winning effort while Carter Hutton ended up with the loss for the Sabres after giving up 5 goals on 27 shots faced in the defeat.
Washington is 3-7 in their last 10 games overall and 2-5 in their last 7 games against a team with a winning record while the under is 4-1-1 in their last 6 road games. Buffalo is 1-7 in their last 8 games and 40-94 in their last 134 games playing on no rest while the under is 3-1-1 in their last 5 games as an underdog. The over is 5-2 in the last 7 meetings between these two teams.
The plus money with the Sabres is tempting as the Capitals have had struggles stringing wins together dating back to last year, but it’s going to be tricky to figure out what we see on the back-to-back from both sides. I think the goaltending is going to shaky across the board and we’re going to see plenty of scoring from both sides so give me the over in this spot.
Chris’s Pick Over 6.5
AUTHOR: Chris Ruffolo
Mitch's Take...
