NHL Pick: New York Rangers at Anaheim Ducks

Overview

The New York Rangers head out to the west coast where they play the Anaheim Ducks. Being in different conferences these two teams don’t play each other very often just a handful of times over the past few seasons. The Ducks have won 4 of the last 5 meetings overall versus the Rangers and they have also won the last 3 meetings played in Anaheim.

Head to Head Trends

Home team is 6-1 in the last 7 meetings
Rangers are 1-4 in the last 5 meetings.

Anaheim Ducks (-125)

The Anaheim Ducks are 1st in the Pacific Division with 58 points which is also good for top spot in the entire NHL. The Ducks have been playing some good hockey all season apart from a little rough stretch back in November that saw them lose 6 of 7 games but they were dealing with some injury issues at the time and even though they lost 6 games 5 of those losses came in overtime so at least they were picking up points. The Ducks have a somewhat average offense with just 2.8 goals per game but I think there’s room for improvement there especially on the power play that is hitting at just 15.2%. The Ducks are also just average on defense allowing 2.7 goals per game so with numbers like those it’s kind of surprising they are the top team in the NHL.

Anaheim Ducks Trends

Ducks are 12-4 in their last 16 overall.
Ducks are 47-22 in their last 69 home games.

New York Rangers (+115)

The New York Rangers are 4th in the Metropolitan Division with 46 points 7 points back of the 1st place Pittsburgh Penguins but the Rangers have played 3 or 4 less games then most teams in their division. The Rangers had a fairly mediocre start to the season and looked like they were just another average team but man have they caught fire over the past month winning 10 of their last 11 games. Anytime a team wins 10 of 11 it’s impressive but Rangers played a lot of really bad teams over those 11 games so probably not as impressive as it seems.

New York Rangers Trends

Rangers are 10-1 in their last 11 overall.
Rangers are 1-4 in their last 5 road games vs. a team with a home winning % of greater than .600.

Conclusion

I like the Anaheim Ducks over the Rangers in this one. The Rangers may be one of the hottest teams in the league right now but they haven’t exactly been facing a lot of top teams so I guess we’ll see what they’re really made out of tonight when they take on one of the best teams in the league.

Free Pick: Anaheim Ducks -120 at TopBet