Bruins edge Rangers in key battle for East playoff spot

Hockey Betting Lines

03/21/2010 - Boston, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Tuuka Rask stopped 23 shots as the Boston Bruins got a big win with a 2-1 victory over the New York Rangers.

Both teams are struggling for their playoff lives, but it was the Bruins that came away with the two points and they now have 76 on the season, three more than Atlanta for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. New York is stuck at 71 points with 10 games to play.

Miroslav Satan and Dennis Wideman each scored a goal for the Bruins, who came into the game having lost five of seven.

Michael Del Zotto scored the lone goal while Henrik Lundqvist stopped 29 shots in the loss for the Rangers, who have dropped three straight and seven of their last nine to fall to the 10th spot in the Eastern Conference.

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What Is the Point Spread?

What are Sports Betting Point Spreads?

In any football or basketball game (the main sports that use point spreads) there are two teams playing against each other.

Those teams, though, are rarely exactly evenly matched – meaning that typically one team has a better chance than the other to win the game. If bettors were allowed to bet on who was simply going to win the game, smart ones would obviously bet on the better team (likely winning more than 50% of the time in the process).

If winning were that easy the Las Vegas and online sportsbooks would stop taking any bets! This is where the point spread comes in: the basic function of the point spread is to balance the likelihood of each team “winning” by adjusting the final score by the point spread. After this adjustment is made you get the Against The Spread result (ATS result for short).

Let’s look at Super Bowl XXXIX, New England Patriots vs. Philadelphia Eagles. Most people believed the defending champ Patriots to be the better team – so if betting were simply based upon which team would win the game, an uneven majority of people would have wagered on New England. But, by using the point spread, the bookmakers adjusted the terms of the bet, evening the proposition so about half the people believed the Pats to be the smart bet, while the other half considered Philly to be the smart bet.

How to Read Point Spreads

New England Patriots -7 vs. Philadelphia Eagles

The better team, called the Favorite, is expected to win the game and must “give” or “lay” points to the weaker team. The favorite is listed with a minus sign and the number of points they are favored by (e.g., New England -7)

In the case of our example, New England must not only win the game, but they must win by more than 7 points for Pats bettors to have a winning ATS result. An Eagles bettor wins his bet either if:

To visit this internet sportsbook go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting and World Series odds.