Washington Capitals vs New Jersey Devils NHL Picks, Odds, Predictions 2/21/21
2021-02-21 14:00:00 EDT
The New Jersey Devils and the Washington Capitals meet in NHL action from the Capital One Arena on Sunday afternoon.
The New Jersey Devils will look to rebound from a 3-2 loss to Buffalo last time out. Jack Hughes leads the Devils in scoring with 3 goals and 7 assists while Myles Wood and Ty Smith each have 8 points with Wood logging 5 goals with 3 helpers and Smith putting up 2 goals and 6 assists. Pavel Zacha and Kyle Palmieri each have 7 points and Damon Severson and Janne Kuokkanen each have 6 points with a goal and 5 assists apiece. MacKenzie Blackwood saw the action in Saturday’s loss so we may see Scott Wedgewood here and his 2.80 GAA on the year.
The Washington Capitals will be out to bounce back from a 4-1 loss to the New York Rangers last time out. Nicklas Backstrom leads the Caps in scoring with 20 points coming on 8 goals and 12 assists while Alex Ovechkin has 14 points with 5 goals and 9 helpers. Tom Wilson’s got 13 points including 6 goals and 7 assists while John Carlson has 12 points with 4 goals and 8 assists. Jakub Vrana also has 10 points split between 5 goals and 5 assists for the Caps as well this season. Vitek Vanacek made another start for the Caps on Saturday, so it’ll be interesting to see if he starts on the back-to-back or if the Caps go with either Ilya Samsonov or Craig Anderson in goal.
New Jersey is 5-2 in their last 7 road games and 4-1 in their last 5 games playing on no rest while the under is 5-0 in their lat 5 games against a team with a winning record. Washington is 7-3 in their last 10 games playing on no rest and 2-5 in their last 7 games overall while the over is 4-0 in their last 4 Sunday games. New Jersey is 7-20 in the last 27 meetings between these two teams and 1-6 in the last 7 meetings between these two teams in Washington.
I get the case that could be made for either side as New Jersey’s been alright this season, but they’re on a back-to-back and just lost to Buffalo, while Washington’s also on a back-to-back and just lost to New York. Instead, I’m going to side with the over here as I can see both sides getting their fair share of goals in this one especially with tired legs and being shelled on Saturday.
