Pittsburgh vs Philadelphia: The Penguins will win the fourth straight Pennsylvania derby

Pittsburgh have beaten Philadelphia in both head-to-head meetings this season. Will Mike Yeo's team be able to avoid another defeat in the upcoming game? We predict that the Penguins will be stronger again!

Pittsburgh had a very weak start to the current regular season, due to which there were even fears that they would not make the playoffs. But slowly, the Penguins' play began to improve, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin returned to the lineup, and their results rose sharply. Between December and January, the Yellow and Black had a tremendous stretch in which they won 17 of their 19 games and have continued to look strong ever since. In the last three games, Mike Sullivan's wards have not given away a single point to their opponents, which allowed them to rise to third place in the Eastern Conference standings, and the gap from the leader is only one point.

Philadelphia are getting more and more embarrassed with each new season. The Flyers got off to a great start in the regular season but then fell apart and missed out on the cup battles, and now they've looked awful the entire regular season. Of course, all of that has led to the firing of Alain Vigneault, but Mike Yeo hasn't exactly been making much progress either. The Flyers have managed two wins in their last 17 meetings, while 15 defeats have left them among the league's hopeless underdogs. At the moment, Philadelphia have already fallen to 14th place in the Eastern Conference standings, and their chances of making the playoffs have come close to zero.

The confrontation between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia is one of the best in the NHL. Historically, the Flyers have played slightly better in this pairing, but gradually the Penguins are trying to equalize. The Yellow and Black have been stronger in the last three head-to-head meetings, with two of those victories coming during the regular season. This is unlikely to surprise anyone, as Mike Sullivan's team now leads the NHL, while the Reds are outsiders. As a result, a bet on Pittsburgh's victory with a handicap (-1.5) for 1.76 is in order.

The rivalry between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia is incredibly conscientious and characterized by high-scoring activity. In the last ten head-to-head encounters, the opponents combined to score 72 pucks (7.20 average per game), while the bookmaker's upper limit (80%) was surpassed in eight cases in the cited stretch. In the upcoming Pennsylvania derby, we can expect the solid scoring activity of our opponents, and we would expect Total Over 6.5 pucks for 2.16.

Jeff Carter is a forward who once played for Philadelphia, so each meeting against the Flyers is crucial for him. Now he is playing for the Reds' primary opponent and is doing so in a very productive manner. In 43 games for Pittsburgh, the veteran has already scored 27 points (13 goals + 14 assists), which is a very respectable number for the 37-year-old hockey player who recently was offered a new contract by the Penguins. A bet on Jeff Carter Total Over 0.5 points for 3.24 is worth considering in such a situation.