Flyers seek to halt skid vs. Maple Leafs

Hockey Betting Lines

02/09/2012 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Philadelphia Flyers will try to halt their longest losing streak of the season when they host the Toronto Maple Leafs in tonight's Eastern Conference clash at Wells Fargo Center.

The Flyers are in the midst of an 0-2-1 stretch, marking the club's lengthiest skid since it went 0-3-2 from March 31-April 8 of last season. Philadelphia has just four wins over its last 11 contests (4-4-3) and is now just two points ahead of New Jersey and Pittsburgh for second in the Atlantic Division and the fourth seed in the East.

Philadelphia's offense was frustrated time and time again in Tuesday's 1-0 home loss to the New York Islanders. Evgeni Nabokov stopped 45-of-45 shots through overtime for the Isles and then stopped both Flyers participants in the shootout. Frans Nielsen and John Tavares both tallied in the shootout to make Nabokov's amazing performance stand up for the win.

After stopping all 18 shots in regulation and overtime, Flyers netminder Ilya Bryzgalov was beat by Nielsen on a fake to the backhand that was lifted high. After Danny Briere missed for Philadelphia, Tavares blew a wrister by Bryzgalov and Nabokov sealed the win when he made a right pad save on Wayne Simmonds' backhand offering.

Bryzgalov posted his second shutout of the season and 25th of his career in the losing effort.

"We didn't score tonight," said Philadelphia head coach Peter Laviolette. "There was traffic there at times, but not always. You are cycling the puck and you need bodies to cycle the puck. You can't do it with one man. There were opportunities where we did have guys, it just didn't go."

The Flyers, who trail the New York Rangers by four points for first in the Atlantic, are playing the middle test of a three-game homestand tonight and are 12-8-5 as the host this year. Philly will complete the residency when they welcome the Rangers on Saturday afternoon.

Meanwhile, Toronto enters tonight as the seventh seed in the East and is trailing Philadelphia by just five points in the East standings. The Maple Leafs had won three straight and posted a six-game point streak (5-0-1) before dropping a regulation decision Tuesday in Winnipeg.

Bryan Little scored the eventual game-winning goal midway through the second period to lift the Jets to a 2-1 win over the Leafs.

Phil Kessel tallied in his third consecutive game for Toronto, giving him 30 goals on the season -- six shy of his career-best total with Boston in 2008-09. Jonas Gustavsson stopped 27-of-29 shots in the loss.

"They did a good job in their zone, but we didn't direct enough pucks towards the net. We were trying to make an extra play, extra pass, things like that," Toronto head coach Ron Wilson said.

Toronto killed off two penalties on Tuesday and has now gone 16 straight games without allowing a power-play goal, the longest such streak in the league since the Chicago Blackhawks went 19 consecutive games without surrendering a power-play tally in 1969-70.

The Leafs are 12-12-2 on the road this year compared to a 16-8-4 record at home. After tonight's test, Toronto will return home to host the rival Canadiens on Saturday before heading back out on a three-game trip.

The Flyers have taken two straight and six of seven overall in the series against Toronto and the Leafs have lost six of seven in Philadelphia.

Tonight's test marks the second time brothers Luke and Brayden Schenn will play against each other. Luke is a defenseman for the Leafs and Brayden is a forward for the Flyers.

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Online Sportsbook Football Betting

Why Sports Betting is so much fun?

Betting Sports

The most popular sports to bet on are NFL and college football along with NBA and NCAA basketball. There are multiple betting opportunities within those sports, beginning with the basic wager on a game’s outcome (also called betting the side). College Football Point spreads are used in both football and basketball in an attempt to even the attractiveness of each team in a match-up. ( See our article detailing how and why point spreads are made)

But you could also simply bet on the money line, or straight-up winner of the game. Oddsmakers use the money line so that more money must be risked on the favorite or expected winner and less money on the underdog to balance the action on both sides. While money line gambling is an attractive option for football and basketball bettors who only care about picking a winner, it is the primary option for those bettors who enjoy wagering on MLB baseball and individual sports like boxing, tennis, golf and racing events such as NASCAR. ( More details on playing the Money Line)

Points (or Runs) Scored

Another bet across all major team sports including football, basketball, baseball, and hockey involves wagering on the amount of scoring in a game, called an Over/Under total. For example, the Over/Under total on Super Bowl XXXIX was 48, which means a bettor could wager whether there would be more or less than 48 points scored by both teams combined in the game.

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Future Bets

Sports gambling doesn’t end there. Betting sides and totals are the most common wagers available everywhere, but many sportsbooks also offer future bets on big upcoming events like who will win next year’s Super Bowl and what movie will win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

The main advantage of futures is that you can get appealing odds by betting far in advance. For example, with NFL futures you often can get much higher odds on a team by betting before the season even starts. A NFL future bet on a team to win the Super Bowl odds might be 20/1 in the preseason; but by midseason, their odds might decrease to 10/1 if they turn out to be legitimate championship contenders.

Proposition Bets (or Prop Bets)

Proposition bets , also known as prop bets, focus upon the more exotic aspects of a game and are generally reserved for events that are widely televised. Prop bets are extremely popular when it comes to wagering on the Super Bowl in Las Vegas. The Imperial Palace Casino’s sportsbook is well-known for the enormous number of prop bets offered. For example, you can bet on:

Types of Bets

Straight Bet

Involves one individual wager, whether it be on your team to cover the point spread, to win the game straight-up on the money line, or to go over/under the total.

Sports Betting Parlays

A parlay is a single bet that links together two or more individual wagers and is dependent on all of those wagers winning together. The benefit of the parlay bet is much better odds than placing each individual bet separately since the difficulty of hitting it is much higher.

Standard payoffs on a two-team parlay are 13/5; while a three-teamer pays 6/1; and a four-teamer 10/1.

Parlay cards are also fairly common in sportsbooks and popular with bettors, as they are released early in the week with set odds that do not change in return for a slightly lower payoff.

Round Robin Betting

Adventurous bettors who enjoy betting parlays sometimes put together a series of parlays called a Round Robin . A three-team Round Robin consists of one three-team parlay and three two-team parlays. For example, Joe likes teams A,B,C – with a Round Robin he has a three-teamer with ABC, and two-teamers with AB, AC, and BC.

Betting Teasers

Similar to a parlay, a teaser bet is a single bet that links together two or more individual wagers, but is different in that the point spread is adjusted to your advantage on each individual wager. In exchange for the points, you get less of a return on your bet compared to a parlay. For example, a 6-point teaser would move the line on a 7-point favorite from -7 to -1, meaning the team would have to cover 6 less points. Each of the individual wagers must win or the bet is a loss.

These are the main types of sports bets available today. But as sports betting continues to grow, sportsbooks will continue to develop new and creative ways to bet. We’ll continue to track these changes to the sports gambling landscape, so check back often and we’ll tell you all about it!

To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.

Big 12 Conference betting odds

Work left to do: Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas State

Texas joins Texas A&M and Kansas as locks after getting league win No. 11. Texas Tech greatly helped its own hopes and crippled OK State's with the two-point win Saturday. Is K-State the last reasonable hopeful? Could be an elimination match in Stillwater on Tuesday, at least for the Cowboys.

Work left to do:

Texas Tech [18-11 (7-7), RPI: 44, SOS: 12] A critical two-point win over OK State leaves the Red Raiders with Baylor and at Iowa State left. Get both and the Red Raiders likely are good to go. Get one and there could be some interesting comparisons with a K-State team that could finish two or three games "ahead" of them in the standings but doesn't have any of the quality wins Texas Tech has. Not a lot in nonconference play (against Arkansas in Little Rock being the best win, by far) to lean on.

Oklahoma State [18-9 (5-8), RPI: 50, SOS: 35] Still without a road win, the Cowboys now need to win two on the road just to get to .500 in conference play. It's hard to recall a team (OK, other than Clemson) falling so precipitously from lock status to almost certainly out of the NCAAs at this point. There are wins to be had in the last three, including a very big home game against K-State on Tuesday, but this team is reeling. Can you tell the pressure to win is getting to them with the way the final possession played out at Texas Tech? There are some good nonconference performances to lean on, specifically beating Missouri State and Syracuse on neutral floors and Pitt in OK City, but if the Pokes don't right this very, very soon, that won't be enough.

Kansas State [20-9 (9-5), RPI: 56, SOS: 96] It pays to be in the Big 12 North. The nine league wins are Colorado (twice), Missouri (twice), Iowa State (twice), Baylor, Nebraska and (a good one against) Texas. That helps explain the middling computer profile. The win over USC is nice, but the nonconference leaves a lot to be desired. The game at OK State in Stillwater on Tuesday is huge, as it could KO the Cowboys and leave K-State with a home date against Oklahoma with which to work.