【willbetget the cheese】-NHL March 20th Best Bet: Montreal Canadiens vs. New York Islanders

The madness might be out in full force today, but that doesn’t mean all the other sports need to be neglected — especially from a betting standpoint!

Yes, plenty of gambling opportunities still exist outside of the NCAA basketball tournament. Even on the pitch, where World Cup qualifying matchups are being played throughout the world. (Hopefully you caught my Libya-Angola under wager earlier, by the way.)

But we’re going to stick with the pros on the hardwood and on the ice as far as tonight goes. First, we have a critical Eastern Conference affair to be played between the Montreal Canadiens and New York Islanders that will have huge implications on the postseason picture.

As it stands, Montreal is in possession of the second and final wild-card playoff berth with 73 points. The Islanders are one of the teams closely behind them, carrying 70 points, so this is somewhat of a must-win game for the Long Island residents with only precious time remaining in the campaign.

To New York’s credit, they’ve hung in there since jettisoning longtime franchise stalwart Brock Nelson earlier this month and are coming off impressive back-to-back victories, including one against the second-best team in the East, the Florida Panthers.

The common denominator in all their games since Nelson was traded is that they’ve all been low scoring. In fact, all six of those contests featured final scores that added up to no more than six total goals.

Such a tendency could continue further with the Islanders recently losing Mathew Barzal to injury and now one of their best offensive defensemen, Alexander Romanov, out due to an illness.

Tonight’s high stakes also point to a tightly played encounter, which can be a contributing trait to an under. It certainly also helps that the Isles are last as is in the conference in goals scored, with 2.7 per game.