Overview
The Toronto Maple Leafs head out to the west coast where they play the LA Kings in the first game of a 4 game road trip. The Leafs and Kings don’t exactly play a lot of games against each other just 10 times over the past 10 seasons so some of the head to head stuff may not mean as much as it normally would. The Leafs have won 4 of the last 9 meetings overall and surprisingly enough they have also won the last 3 meetings played LA.
Head to Head Trends
Road team is 6-1 in the last 7 meetings.
Under is 4-1 in the last 5 meetings.
Los Angeles Kings (-180)
The LA Kings are 4th in the Pacific Division with 48 points 12 points back of the 1st place Anaheim Ducks. The Kings are a pretty good team overall and probably should be a bit higher in the standings then they actually are. The Kings are just just 2-10 in games that go to overtime including losing their last 6 straight and maybe some of that is they are just not a super good team playing 4 on 4 or in the shootout but I think a lot of the time when a game goes to overtime there’s a lot of luck involved. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Kings go 10-2 or 9-3 in overtime games during the second half of the season.
Los Angeles Kings Trends
Kings are 1-5 in their last 6 overall.
Kings are 44-19 in their last 63 home games vs. a team with a road winning % of less than .400.
Toronto Maple Leafs (+160)
The Toronto Maple Leafs are 6th in the Atlantic Division with 47 points and are currently out of a playoff spot. After playing so good for most the season the Leafs are in the middle of their yearly mid season collapse. This is no surprise I actually called this a few weeks ago and it’s because they were playing over their skill level plus getting a lot of bounces. Up until a few weeks ago the Leafs had a shooting percent of 11.30% which is statistically too high to maintain for any length of time and it was only time till they came back down to earth. The Leafs still actually have the highest shooting percent in the league at 10.87% which is still way to high so expect it to drop even further down to maybe even the mid 9’s over the second half of the season and that will probably mean the Leafs will continue to struggle.
Toronto Maple Leafs Trends
Maple Leafs are 3-8 in their last 11 overall.
Maple Leafs are 16-36 in their last 52 road games.
Conclusion
I’m going with the LA Kings over the Leafs in this one. These are two teams that should go in opposite directions for the rest of the season. The Kings will start to get the lucky bounces that the Leafs were getting in the first half and the Leafs will start or actually they already started getting the unlucky bounces the Kings were getting.
Free Pick: Los Angeles Kings is at -180 at 5 Dimes Sportsbook
