Canada vs Europe Game 1: Where's the Value?

Team Canada and Team Europe are the final teams standing at the World Cup of Hockey as they now get set to face off in a best-of-three series to determine who will wear the crown until the NHL decides the next tournament will be held.

Canada is coming off a 5-3 win against the Russians in the semifinals in a game in which they outshot their opponents 47-34. The team that has led the game in shots is 8-6 so far in this tournament but if you remove the Americans’ data from that metric, it moves to 8-3 – the U.S. outshot their opponents in every game but went 0-3, skewing the data. Canada outshot Europe by 26 when they last met so much of the responsibility will fall on Jaroslav Halak’s shoulders, assuming he gets the start in net for Europe.

Team Europe has proved pretty much everyone wrong at this tournament so far and has a chance to pay off people who backed them from the beginning as they once had +3300 odds to take gold and were even +1000 heading into the semis. As I’ve said all along, a goalie who gets hot can win a hockey game by himself. Europe is offering +575 moneyline odds for Game 1 and with the way Halak has been playing, I have a hard time not taking Sportsbook up on that.

Canada comes back as the -1000 favorites in the first of three possible games and, yes, they will more than likely win. I do expect the Europeans to compete, however, and I would only take Canada -1 or -1.5. The moneyline is offering no value at all and the spread at 2.5 is a little too wide for me. I think this game ends 3-1 in favor of Team Canada so Europe +2.5 makes a lot of sense to me.

Who will record more points in this game?