Canada Faces Slovakia Thursday in Another Apparent World Juniors' Mismatch
Here's why we like Team Canada -5.5 and OVER 7.5 goals for the game when they play against Slovakia on Thursday.
Team Canada's debut performance at the 2022 IIHF World Junior Ice Hockey Championships (U-20) on Wednesday was a bit underwhelming.
The heavy hosting favourites to win this year's tournament skated to a lackluster 5-2 win versus Team Latvia. Typically a three-goal victory on any ice rink is impressive. However, Latvia was a replacement entry (for Russia, which is banned this year from international competition). Given their opponent was the biggest longshot to win (500-1) the WJs and was listed as a +6.5 goal underdog vs. Canada, the favourites shouldn't take much comfort in the victory.
That said, Slovakia, which is Canada's next opponent, looks to be similarly skilled and is given virtually no chance by oddsmakers. So, it looks to be just a question of how much Canada wants to show in this game before the level of competition stiffens.
The puck drops at Rogers Place in Edmonton at 4:00 pm MDT on Thursday. Here's the odds sheet at Spreads.ca:
Prediction (powered by Pointspreads.ca):
Team Canada is laying -5.5 goals. The O/U is 7.5 goals.
For those who like betting crazy longshots, Slovakia is 35-1 to upset Canada. To give some perspective of how ridiculous Canada is perceived, in order to win 50 cents, you would be forced to wager $100 if betting on the Canadians. We won't bother with quacky longshots and bridge jumper bets, so instead let's expect head coach Dave Cameron to fire up his 25-man roster in between games 1 and 2 and motivate a more impressive showing in Thursday's game.
Just as we correctly called a LATVIA and UNDER parlay in Wednesday's game, this time we're flipping the puck over and betting CANADA and the OVER.
Lay -5.5 goals and look for the Canadians to put plenty of shots into the net (OVER 7.5).
