Rick Tocchet has turned Vancouver around. The Canucks are 10-2 in their last 12 games, including winning their past four road games.

I'm going to ride Vancouver here against St. Louis, which has lost seven of its last nine home games and been on the road the past five days.

Vancouver's Elias Pettersson is one of the hottest scorers in the league with 17 points during his last dozen games.

A goalie edge, too, to the Canucks with Thatcher Demko against Jordan Binngton.

The Blues haven't faced good competition lately aside from losing to the Kings this past Sunday. Prior to that game, the Blues had played the Ducks and Red Wings twice. This marks St. Louis' third game in four days. The Blues are 0-5 in that situation the past five times.

Vancouver has enjoyed good recent success in St. Louis winning in five of its last six visits.

Down their top three scorers, the Hornets have become a dead-nuts Under team especially away from home. Charlotte has gone Under in each of its last five games. The Under has cashed in 10 of the Hornets' last 11 road games.

LaMelo Ball and Terry Rozier are out for Charlotte. Kelly Oubre has missed the last two games due to a shoulder injury. He's questionable here. Those are Charlotte's three top scorers. They lack firepower without those players especially inside at center with Kai Jones, Nick Richards and Mark Williams all rotating. The Hornets rank 27th in scoring, 29th in field goal percentage and 29th in 3-point percentage.

Oklahoma City is above average in defensive field goal percentage. The Thunder, though, haven't been doing much scoring either lately. They are averaging 108.7 points in their last four games.

During the past nine meetings between the two teams, the Under has cashed seven times.

Both teams have good reason to be stressing defense in this matchup. The teams just met eight days ago in LA and the Kings slaughtered the Flames, 8-2.

Calgary certainly doesn't want a repeat of that onslaught in which the Kings built a 4-0 first period lead. Since that loss, the Flames have played three games and given up an average of 2.3 goals.

The Kings will look to tighten their defense, too, having nearly blown a 5-1 lead against the Blues two days ago in a 7-6 victory. Prior to that contest, the Kings had gone 10 straight games without giving up more than two goals during regulation.

Alabama-Birmingham has been the best team in the NIT. I'm going to ride the Blazers here. UAB defeated Southern Mississippi and Morehead State by double-digits in the tournament and then reached this semifinal match by defeating Vanderbilt, 67-59, on the road.

The Blazers have done all this despite their top scorer and best player, senior guard Jordan Walker, shooting just 35.4 percent from the field during the tournament. Walker averaged 23 points during the regular season while shooting 42.3 percent from the floor.

UAB is winning by playing its best defense holding their three NIT opponents to an average of 59.3 points. None of these opponents were able to score more than 60 points on the Blazers.

Utah Valley is giving up an average of 74 points in its last four games.

I see a class difference of more than this point spread between UAB of Conference USA and Utah Valley from the Western Athletic Conference. The Blazers are 15-2 in their last 17 games. Their only losses during this time span were on the road to North Texas in overtime and to Florida Atlantic in the finals of the conference tournament game. North Texas plays Wisconsin in the other NIT semifinal and Florida Atlantic is one of four teams left in the NCAA Tournament.