NHL best bets: Senators vs. Sabres odds, preview, prediction 3/27  

Senators vs. Sabres Odds

Wednesday, March 27, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN+

Odds via bet365. Get up-to-the-minute NHL odds here.

Ottawa Senators

All-but-forgotten down near the bottom of the Eastern Conference, the Senators had a decent weekend, when they played their last games. They took down New Jersey by a 5-2 score at the Prudential Center on Saturday, then came home to beat Edmonton 5-3 on Sunday.

Coach Jacques Martin elected not to give Anton Forsberg his scheduled start against the Oilers after he gave up 11 goals and delivered a pair losses in his last two starts. Instead, Joonas Korpisalo got back-to-back starts and earned both wins.

Though he's at an .888 save percentage and minus-17.3 Goals Saved Above Expected for the year, Korpisalo has been announced as the starter again in Buffalo on Wednesday. Ride the hot hand when you can!

The Senators have been a streaky team all season. This week, their pendulum seems to be swinging back toward positive outcomes.

Such dramatic peaks and valleys make it tough to draw any kind of conclusions from data over the full season, or even a smaller sample like the last 10 games.

Let's try to pick out some highlights and lowlights:

• For the season, Ottawa's penalty killing ranks second last in the league at 73%.
• The power play has been an outstanding 7-for-21 over the last six games, including 3-for-4 against Edmonton on Sunday.
• Ottawa has been somewhat unlucky over the last 10 games, with a shooting percentage of 6.44% at 5-on-5, which ranks fourth worst in the league.
• The Senators are much better at home than on the road, where they're just 11-20-2 this season.

Buffalo Sabres

The Sabres are back home after a five-game road trip which ended on a winning note, with a 4-1 victory in Calgary on Sunday. Now, they're settling into a five-game homestand.

Buffalo has slipped far enough in the Eastern standings that any playoff hopes are all-but-doused, especially considering that home ice doesn't actually offer them much of an advantage. The Sabres have a record of 17-17-1 this year at KeyBank Center.

Arguably the most positive news for the Sabres lately is the stabilization of their situation in goal. Other than a disastrous eight-goal outing on the road against Edmonton, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen has been razor sharp in net, and recently recalled Devon Levi looked good in a 3-2 loss in Vancouver last week.

Buffalo has also had trouble killing penalties lately, with a success rate of just 10-for-14 over the last four games. To make matters worse, the power play has also come up empty over those four games.

While Buffalo is controlling just 43.0% of Expected Goals at 5-on-5 over the last 10 games, the team's high Shooting Rate of 10.81% combined with strong goaltending has helped deliver results that might be a little bit on the lucky side.

In addition to longer-term injuries to Jack Quinn and Mattias Samuelsson, Buffalo was also missing center Tyson Jost with an undisclosed issue in its road-trip finale in Calgary on Sunday.

Senators vs. Sabres

Betting Pick & Prediction

Looking at the season series, it's tempting to bet the total for this game. The Sabres' wins were both resounding, by 6-4 and 5-3 margins, while the Senators won 5-1 on New Year's Eve.

However, the oddsmakers are well aware of these teams' frequent defensive breakdowns. A line of -122 for the game to go Over 6.5 isn't especially enticing.

Instead, let's look at Buffalo's decidedly average home-ice record, along with the fact that the Sabres are just home from a long and tiring Western road trip while Ottawa has been making short jaunts — while winning its last two games.

At +117 on the moneyline as of Tuesday night, it's tempting to back the streaky visitors to deliver another victory — and drive another nail into Buffalo's playoff coffin.

Pick: Senators moneyline (+117 at PointsBet); play down to +100