Road-weary Sabres make a stop in Tampa

Hockey Betting Lines

03/18/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - An inability to win on the road has plagued the Buffalo Sabres as of late. The Northeast Division leaders will attempt to reverse that negative trend when the team visits a venue it's had great success in during recent years for tonight's clash with the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Buffalo enters the St. Pete Times Forum having lost 10 of its last 11 road tilts (1-7-3) and has dropped the first two tests of a current five-game trek. The Sabres had a string of eight consecutive defeats away from home -- a skid which matched the longest in franchise history -- snapped with a 2-1 overtime win over the New York Rangers on March 7.

After starting this road trip with an overtime setback to Detroit on Saturday, Buffalo came out on the short end of a 4-3 decision Tuesday in Atlanta. The loss was the third straight overall for the Sabres, who are just 6-11-4 since January 19.

The Sabres fell behind by a 3-1 score after one period against the Thrashers, but drew even on goals from Matt Ellis and Tim Kennedy before Atlanta's Jim Slater netted the game-winner with 6:44 left to play. Kennedy was credited with an assist on Ellis' tally.

Buffalo did receive a subpar performance from goaltender Ryan Miller, with the U.S. Olympian stopping just 2-of-5 shots before being removed just 5:20 into the contest. Patrick Lalime saved 20-of-21 chances in relief.

"I worried about him a little bit, three goals in five opportunities is not what you want to see," Sabres head coach Lundy Ruff said about Miller. "It's never an easy decision, you just take the emotion out of it and do it and hope it works out."

Despite its tailspin over the past two months, Buffalo still resides atop the Northeast standings and owns a three-point edge on second-place Ottawa. The Senators have struggled down the stretch as well, going 1-5-1 since returning from the Olympic break.

A trip to Tampa may help the Sabres get back on track. Buffalo has prevailed in eight of its last nine visits to the St. Pete Times Forum and is 15-3-0 over its last 18 overall matchups with the Lightning.

Buffalo has won both 2009-10 meetings between the teams, including a 3-2 shootout verdict in Tampa back on October 24.

The Lightning find themselves in a rut at the moment as well, having lost nine of their past 11 outings. Tampa Bay began an important four-game homestand with a tough 2-1 defeat to defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh on Sunday, then fell to red-hot Phoenix by the same score two nights later.

The Coyotes scored a pair of first-period goals and received another stellar performance out of Ilya Bryzgalov in Tuesday's triumph, with the Russian netminder turning aside 27 of the 28 shots he faced.

"I don't think we got enough traffic in front of (Bryzgalov)," said the Lightning's Brandon Bochenski. "You can see we weren't getting second chances. We weren't getting pucks through to the net, and we weren't getting enough second chances."

Tampa Bay played its fourth straight game without one of its top scorers in Ryan Malone, and the physical forward is expected to miss up to an additional two weeks after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on his left knee on Tuesday. The 30-year-old ranks third among Lightning players with 21 goals this season.

The Lightning enter tonight's play in 11th place in the East and six points back of Boston for the conference's eighth and final playoff seed.

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SPORTS BETTING: NFL Football Sportsbook Betting

NFL owners, already life's biggest winners, want to try their luck with the lottery.


That was the news out of their meetings last week, where team bosses voted unanimously to allow stamping state and local lottery tickets with franchise logos, if, ahem, any governments wanted to do a deal.

A shocker: Within days the Pats announced they'd be sponsoring the Massachusetts state lottery, the Skins said they'd slap their sticker on Virginia scratch-offs and the Ravens admitted they were talking to Maryland lottery bosses. In all likelihood, it won't be long before every team is a presenting sponsor of scratch-offs or just plain old pick fives. "The change in policy was approved 32-0," said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. "So you can expect to see more deals soon."

It's a branding opportunity too big for the owners to ignore, and one a couple of dozen baseball franchises have enjoyed for years. The fact the NFL has been slower to act than those slack-brained Seligites is indicative of its complicated relationship with all forms of gambling. Consider this: Last Thursday, as the Pats and the Redskins finalized their new lottery deals, a lawyer representing the NFL argued before Delaware's Supreme Court that the state's newly signed sports betting law should be repealed.

The NFL betting is the face of opposition to sports gambling . And as much as it would like to share that responsibility with other leagues, that's not going to happen as long as more than 40% of all money legally wagered on games is bet on football. That's why the Brewers can do a multi-million dollar deal with a local casino, or the Celtics can make their own pact with the Mass lottery, and the response is, "Sweet, let's play." But when the NFL does it the stakes are higher, and everyone from NPR's Frank Deford to the Associated Press to the guys blogging at Deadspin will line up to play gotcha.

So I asked Aiello, who surely knew there'd be piling on, how the league can rail against being bait for sports bettors, then allow its franchises to be just that for lotteries, the most insidious and addictive form of gambling around. He emailed me this response: "We are not moral crusaders. NFL personnel are permitted to engage in legal forms of gambling, except for betting on NFL games. We are making a distinction here between the spread of gambling on the outcome of our games and supporting state lottery scratch-off games, that have nothing to do with the outcome of our games."

Here's where I should rip him. But, the thing is, he's right. Not to get Obama on you, but this is a complicated, nuanced issue. As much as lotteries are considered a tax on the poor, the NFL isn't a socially obligated government program -- it's just a business. Scratch-off's help the bottom line, sports betting doesn't. Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors … But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal.

Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors. And it's okay to mutter something obscene when the league pretends gambling doesn't help drive TV ratings and fan interest and put money in owners' pockets. But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal. The Bears should put an orange "C" on every deck of cards dealt at Harrah's in Joliet; the Eagles should slap their logo on roulette wheels at the Borgata in Atlantic City; the Dolphins should hold training camp at the El San Juan in Puerto Rico.

Seriously.

The NFL's problem, when it comes to the gambling world, isn't hypocrisy, it's worse: The bosses lack vision. That's why the league is picking unwinnable fights in Delaware and taking pot shots from critics after making smart sponsorship deals. Roger Goodell and his gang are acting and thinking locally rather than globally, which is rare for them, especially compared to their professional (and amateur) counterparts.

The NBA held its All Star game in Las Vegas and David Stern's kingdom didn't crumble (although the town did bring plenty of players to their knees.) I'd say it's 6 to 5 and pick 'em that Lebron will make a road swing through Sin City before his career is over.

Even the NCAA College Football Betting is more progressive on this issue than the NFL. Several years ago Rachel Newman Baker, college sports' gambling czar, opened a dialogue with Vegas bookmakers to learn about how they do business. She's visited Nevada sports books, studied their operations and listened to how they regulate action. Now she knows she can expect a call from bookmakers, who lose money when sports are fixed, if they think something sketchy is going on in NCAA games. She's not in favor of sports betting, but, as she once told me, "I know it's not going away, either."

The NFL can't seem to accept that. And until it can find peace with the idea, it'll get flack, even when it's right.

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