Senators vs. Rangers Wednesday January 14th Betting Pick

It’s a slow hockey night tonight with just four games on the slate.

One of them features two doormats of the East as the Senators play the second of a back-to-back in the Big Apple.

Tough to pick a side here, but I do like a total for today’s NHL pick.

NHL Season Stats

Record: 16–26
Units: –9.11

Senators vs Rangers

Over 6 (–115 bet365)

It’s super tough to take a Rangers’ over at home, mostly because they have shown an incredible aversion to goal scoring at MSG.

The Blue Shirts have scored a league-low 40 goals at home in 21 games. That’s 1.9 per game, easily the worst mark in the league.

It’s a little misleading.

They got off to an insanely bad start with three straight home shutouts and then all of one goal in their fourth game. So hey, it’s a less disastrous 2.43 per game since then.

Also, they actually have 58.38 expected goals at home. That suggests either bad luck or bad finishing. The reality is it’s a combo of both.

Most relevantly for now, though, is that there is perhaps no team more dependent on their goaltender than the Rangers.

When they were near the top of the league from 2022–24, New York did not have the best xGA and xGF numbers, but it all worked fantastically with Igor Shesterkin between the pipes.

But in the last 1.5 seasons, Shesterkin regressed mildly while the rest of the lineup has imploded. And now Shesterkin is on IR, leaving 39-year-old Jonathan Quick as the primary goalie.

Quick will fly into the Hall whenever he becomes eligible, and he’s still quite serviceable as a backup, but he’s just not suited to play pretty much every game. He has an 89.9% save percentage and 0.54 GSAA in 14 games.

Further, defenseman Adam Fox and his team-high 59.92 xGF% at 5-on-5 remain out, leaving a very thin and mediocre back line behind.

Ottawa has had an awful season, as we laid out yesterday. But it’s not on offense, especially on the road where they’ve netted 3.32 goals per game.

They can’t keep the puck out of the net and are expected to suit up their fifth goalie of the season tonight.

That goalie would be former Leafs netminder James Reimer, who has yet to suit up in the NHL this year. In fact, he’s only played one minor league game, and it did not go particularly well.

He yielded six goals on 28 shots to the Rochester Amerks.

Even the Rangers might be able to score in this spot.

Let’s roll with the over.