4-unit Play Take #3 Chicago Blackhawks over St. Louis Blues (8:05pm EST) The Chicago Blackhawks rolled the dice in the off-season and so far it has paid off. The Hawks brought back wingers Brandon Saad and Patrick Sharp - two key cogs in their championship runs in prior years. The organization felt like they needed to shake things up after getting swept in the first round of the playoffs last year. Chicago is 4-1-1 and has outscored the opposition 25-13 overall - the best differential in the league. Saad has been particularly productive with six goals and two assists in the first six games of the season. Sharp also has four points (two goals and two assists). The Blues have seemingly taken a step back after losing star defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk last year. He's a tough guy to replace, and the team is currently playing short-handed with several key guys out. St. Louis is especially banged up at center, where they have four different players injured. The Hawks should be favored in this one, so we'll gladly take the underdog price.

Best of Luck - Doc's Sports

4-unit Play Take #967 Los Angeles Dodgers/Chicago Cubs OVER (9:00pm EST) Runs have been somewhat hard to come by so far in the NLCS, but I expect that to change in Game 4. Alex Wood and Jake Arrieta get the ball for their respective teams and there are reasons to doubt that neither can get the job done today. We'll start with Wood. He had an excellent first half of the season, when he was in the talk for Cy Young with a 1.67 ERA. Opposing batters were hitting just .174 against Wood in the first half. But in the second half, Wood came crashing back to earth. He posted a 3.89 ERA and hitters batted .259 against him. The Cubs can match up well against lefties and I expect them to get some good licks on Wood early on. Arrieta comes into this game off a poor effort in the NLDS in which he only pitched just four innings and walked five batters. He doesn't look to be 100% after his hamstring injury that he suffered in early September. Arrieta also runs up a high pitch count, so it would be a surprise to see him go more than five innings. That opens the door to a vulnerable Cubs bullpen that has an ERA approach 8.00 in the postseason. And to top it all off, the wind is blowing out tonight in Wrigley Field. We should see plenty of runs in this one, so take the OVER.

Best of Luck - Doc's Sports

3-unit Play Take #911 Los Angeles Dodgers over Chicago Cubs (8:00pm EST) The Chicago Cubs saved their season with a clutch 3-2 win last night in Wrigley - but it came at a cost. Closer Wade Davis threw two full innings and hurled nearly 50 pitches in the process. As a result, he's not available today for the Cubs. That's a huge problem for a bullpen that has been really struggling overall. That means that Jose Quintana will likely have to outpitch Clayton Kershaw in the early going. That's no easy task, especially with how the Dodgers have been hitting in the postseason. There's too many Cubs in funk offensively right now and I think they'll struggle against Kershaw. And if it happens to become a bullpen game, the Dodgers have a huge edge. Take Los Angeles to close out the NLCS tonight.

Best of Luck - Doc's Sports

4-unit Play Take #55 New York Islanders/New York Rangers OVER (7:05pm EST) The Islanders and Rangers have played some crazy games in recent years. We've seen a lot of high-scoring affairs and there's no reason to expect anything less in today's matchup. In the last six meetings between these two, the OVER is 4-1-1. Both teams have plenty of offensive weapons, with questions on defense. The Isles just don't have a shutdown defensive pairing, and the Rangers can't claim that they do either. Henrik Lundqvist is no longer an elite goaltender in my eyes and the Islanders don't have a dominant goalie either. We should see plenty of good scoring chances tonight and that should put us OVER the total.

Best of Luck - Doc's Sports