Minus Howard, Red Wings visit healthy Oilers

Hockey Betting Lines

02/04/2012 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Detroit Red Wings seem to finally be hitting their stride on the road, but they'll be without the league's leader in wins for the rest of their swing.

Minus goaltender Jimmy Howard, the Red Wings look for their third straight road victory on the season and eighth in a row overall versus the Edmonton Oilers, who try to extend a four-game point streak of their own this evening in the return of first overall pick Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.

Detroit is currently in possession of a club-record 17-game winning streak at home and is 20-2-1 as the host this year. That is compared to a 15-14-0 record on the road and the Red Wings were below .500 as the guest before returning from the All-Star break with wins at Calgary and Vancouver. Detroit was routed 7-2 in Montreal on Jan. 25 to begin this five-game swing.

Thursday's 4-3 shootout win over the Canucks did come at a price as Howard suffered a broken finger that will sideline him for the final two games of Detroit's trip. The Red Wings wrap the swing on Monday in Phoenix and Howard will be reevaluated when the club returns home.

Howard picked up his NHL-leading 32nd win on Thursday and is also among the league leaders with five shutouts. He made 22 saves versus the Canucks and stopped both skaters faced in the shootout.

Pavel Datsyuk and Jiri Hudler both scored in the deciding frame, while Danny Cleary, Drew Miller and Hudler scored in regulation. Miller's third-period goal with 7:55 left put the Red Wings ahead, but the Canucks forced the extra time on Mason Raymond's tying tally with 4:24 to play.

"We dig ourselves too many holes when we are on the road," said Detroit head coach Mike Babcock. "We can't do that all the time and expect to keep coming back."

Detroit, which leads the New York Rangers by two points for the most in the league with 71, recalled Joey MacDonald from the minors on Friday to back up Ty Conklin, who gets the start tonight. He'll be looking to slow down Sam Gagner, who matched an Oilers record with eight points in an 8-4 win over the Blackhawks on Thursday.

Gagner came into the game with just five goals through 43 games this year, but tallied four versus the Blackhawks. He also assisted on goals by Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle, Cam Barker and Ryan Whitney to match the club's single-game points record held by greats Wayne Gretzky and Paul Coffey.

"It's something I will never forget," said Gagner, who notched his second career hat trick. "It definitely feels good, it felt like everything I touched went in."

Hall, who has a goal in three straight, and Eberle both added three assists for the Oilers, who are 3-0-1 in their past four, still leaving them 14th in the West and 12 points back of a playoff spot. Devan Dubnyk stopped 43 shots in the win.

Barker played on Thursday for the first time since he suffered an ankle injury in November, while Nugent-Hopkins is slated to play tonight for the first time since sustaining a shoulder injury on Jan. 2. The top pick of the most recent draft has 13 goals and 22 assists on the season and still leads all rookies with 35 points.

"I'm pretty certain I'll be back tomorrow," Nugent-Hopkins told Edmonton's website.

"It's been a long road to recovery, but I'm feeling good and I'm excited to get back out there. It'll be important for me to get into the game right away, whether it be taking a hit, giving a hit or getting a couple of shots on goal."

Edmonton could use all the help it can get as it has lost seven straight to Detroit, which has points in 20 of the past 21 encounters in this series (14-1-6). The Red Wings have also won three straight while going 6-0-4 in their last 10 in Edmonton.

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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"

A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."

Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.

In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.

"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"

Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.

This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.

Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.

In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.

No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.

And that's all any bettor can ask for.

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