Montreal Canadiens vs Washington Capitals 2/10/22 NHL Picks, Predictions, Odds

The Washington Capitals and Montreal Canadiens meet Thursday in NHL action at the Bell Centre. The Washington Capitals need a win after losing five of their last eight games. The Montreal Canadiens look to snap a seven-game losing streak.

The Washington Capitals are averaging 3.2 goals per game and are scoring on 15.3 percent of their power play opportunities. Alex Ovechkin leads Washington with 29 goals, Evgeny Kuznetsov has 31 assists and John Carlson has 106 shots on goal. Defensively, the Washington Capitals are allowing 2.7 goals per game and are killing 79 percent of their opponent’s power plays. Vitek Vanecek has given up 52 goals on 610 shots faced, and IIya Samsonov has allowed 64 goals on 651 shots.

The Montreal Canadiens are averaging 2.2 goals per game and are scoring on 13.6 percent of their power play opportunities. Nick Suzuki leads Montreal with 9 goals, Tyler Toffoli has 16 assists and Josh Anderson has 79 shots on goal. Defensively, the Montreal Canadiens are allowing 4 goals per game and are killing 73 percent of their opponent’s power plays. Jake Allen has given up 70 goals on 707 shots faced, and Sam Montembeault has allowed 61 goals on 559 shots.

The Capitals are 3-7 in their last 10 games as a favorite and 50-20 in their last 70 games as a road favorite. The Canadiens are 0-4 in their last 4 home games and 10-41 in their last 51 overall. The under is 5-2 in Capitals last 7 road games. The over is 5-0 in Canadiens last 5 overall. The Capitals are 19-7 in the last 26 meetings in Montreal and 21-10 in the last 31 meetings.

The Washington Capitals and their inconsistent ways makes them tough to trust with big juice, but what option do we have? The Montreal Canadiens are a club that can’t get out of their own way, piling up the losses left and right, not playing a lick of defense and playing at home hasn’t helped much. The only option here for me is to side with the Caps and the PL for max betting value.