Tampa Bay Lightning at Chicago Blackhawks - 3/5/21 NHL Picks and Prediction
Photo by Mike Dinovo-USA TODAY Sports
Chicago Blackhawks (12-7-4) vs Tampa Bay Lightning (15-4-1)
Game Info: Friday, March 5, 2021 at 8:00 pm (United Center)
Betting Odds: Chicago Blackhawks +170 / Tampa Bay Lightning -200 --- Over/Under: 6 Click Here for the Latest Odds
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The Tampa Bay Lightning and the Chicago Blackhawks meet in NHL action from the United Center on Friday night.
The Tampa Bay Lightning will look to take another one from the Blackhawks after narrowly edging Chicago by a final score of 3-2 in overtime on Thursday night.
The first period saw no scoring but Ryan Carpenter would break the deadlock just over seven minutes into the 2nd period with a short-handed marker before Alex DeBrincat doubled the lead with just under six minutes to go in the second period. The Hawks would carry the lead into the 3rd, but it would evaporate quickly as Anthony Cirelli cut the deficit in half with a short-handed goal just over a minute into the 3rd period and Steven Stamkos tied things at two for Tampa Bay just 1:51 later. The rest of regulation didn’t produce any more goal-scoring, so it was off to overtime where a shootout appeared forthcoming but Alex Killorn would bury the winner just before the end of the overtime period with a literal buzzer-beater to give the Lightning the win and the extra point that goes along with it.
Andrei Vasilevskiy picked up the win between the pipes for Tampa Bay to improve to 14-3-1 after stopping 35 of 37 shots faced in the winning effort while Kevin Lankinen fell to 9-3-4 this season in the loss after allowing 3 goals on 34 shots faced in the defeat.
Tampa Bay is 59-22 in their last 81 games overall and 34-15 in their last 49 games against a team with a winning record while the under is 5-0-1 in their last 6 games overall. Chicago is 13-6 in their last 19 home games and 9-3 in their last 12 games overall while the over is 4-1 in their last 5 games overall. The favorite is 21-8 in the last 29 meetings between these two teams.
Thursday’s matchup was extremely fun to watch, and it looked like it would go either way and I think the buzzer-beater was the perfect way to summarize how exciting it truly was. However, we had a tight defensive game in the first meeting and I think we see a different game in game two. I’m expecting a battle of the backups in goal between Malcolm Subban for Chicago and Curtis McElhinney for Tampa Bay and neither of those two are the most reliable goaltender in the NHL. There’s also a lot of offensive potential on both sides, so I’ll back the over in this spot.
Chris’s Pick Under 6
AUTHOR: Chris Ruffolo
Mitch's Take...
