NHL Picks: Red Wings will get much needed win against Maple Leafs – CBSSports.com
Welcome to the NHL Daily Picks where hockey writers Adam Gretz and Chris Peters make their selections for all of the day’s games.
Detroit Red Wings vs. Toronto Maple Leafs, 7 p.m. ET
Entering Saturday the Detroit Red Wings have four games remaining in the 2015-16 regular season. If they are going to make the playoffs and run their playoff streak to 25 consecutive years, they just might need to win all of them. And if they do lose one along the way, it will probably need to be in overtime where they can still earn a point for themselves.
They started to take care of business on Friday night when they kept pace with the Philadelphia Flyers and Boston Bruins (who also won on Friday) by holding on for a 3-2 win against the Minnesota Wild thanks to goals from a trio of their younger players, Dylan Larkin, Tomas Tatar and Riley Sheahan.
They will have to continue to come through for them on Saturday in Toronto against the Maple Leafs and their former coach, Mike Babcock.
Thanks to their win on Friday they enter Saturday tied with the Flyers for the second wild card spot in the East (because the Flyers have played fewer games, the Flyers get the tiebreaker at the moment) and just one point behind the Bruins for the third spot in the Atlantic Division.
The reason every game the rest of the way is so important is because two of those remaining four games are against Philadelphia and Boston, the teams they are trying to chase. A head-to-head loss this late in the season, when the race is already so close, could decide almost everything. Especially when it comes to the Flyers who still have two games in hand on them.
That also makes a game like Saturday in Toronto even more important because this is the only game they have left this season that isn’t against a team fighting for a playoff spot. This is the type of game where they simply have to collect points. The problem is that even though Toronto is near the bottom of the NHL standings, this probably will not be an easy game for them.
Not only because the Red Wings played on Friday while Toronto had the night off (always a disadvantage for the team playing the second end of the back-to-back), but Toronto has been playing much better hockey over the past month. They are 7-5-0 over their past 12 games, and have collected five wins against during that stretch against teams either in a playoff spot or competing for win, including a 1-0 win over the Red Wings in Detroit back in the middle of March. On the other side, the Wings have been alternating wins and losses for most of the month and have only won consecutive games two different times since the start of March.
Having said all of that, this just does not seem like a game the Red Wings lose. There is too much on line and too much for them to play for down the stretch. Pick: Detroit Red Wings 5, Toronto Maple Leafs 3
The rest of Saturday’s picks
Flyers 3, Senators 1
Hurricanes 4, Blue Jackets 2
The Detroit Red Wings could really use two points on Saturday night. (USATSI)
