Flames Will Steal One from Golden Knights Tonight

Flames vs. Golden Knights, 10:00 ET

The whole world may be focused on March Madness, but guess what? A hockey ticket cashes the exact same way as an NCAA one does. I really like the opportunity I found tonight in the slate for hockey as well. Yesterday didn't go great and I'd call this stretch a mini-slump, but we will break our way out of it and we can cash this ticket as we enjoy the entire day of basketball.

The Flames are not one of the best teams in hockey, but they certainly are respectable and tonight they have an opportunity to knock off one of the best teams in the sport. The Flames are on the West Coast and traveled out to Arizona to play a game on the 14th, so they are now in Las Vegas for another game where they had a short plane ride over. The loss to the Coyotes on the 14th was a bit expected in some regards, but they played well in it before falling 4-3 in overtime. The games between the Knights and Flames have been very close this season with both teams winning one of the two games and both games being decided by one goal. The Flames will likely have Jacob Markstrom in the net for them. He's been fairly average this year, but he did play well against the Knights the first time they faced off and allowed just two goals in the Flames victory.

The Golden Knights are playing really well right now with four consecutive wins. All four of those wins have come by at least two goals as well. They also faced some talented competition in that stretch. The problem I see for them tonight is that the travel will probably catch up with them here. In the last 11 days, they've been in five different cities and now are back on the West Coast after being in Philadelphia just two days ago. They have a good enough squad to overcome it, but they also are a bit more successful on the road than at home. Don't get me wrong, 21-13-1 is a good home record, but I actually prefer them on the road. Jonathan Quick is expected to start for the Golden Knights and he struggled against the Flames in the one game he faced them this season. He allowed six goals in that game, one of only two games he has done that in this season.

I'm not sold that Quick is going to have a great performance tonight and I do think that the Flames have a bit of an edge with the travel spot here. I have to give the Golden Knights credit, they are playing very well right now so this is a bit of a scary spot, but I'll take the Flames at -105.

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