NHL betting trends, odds and predictions for Wednesday, October 4th, 2017 from various handicappers and websites
NHL Knowledge
Not much to go on in the NHL until a few games are played, but I’ll give you what I’ve got.
Series records
Jets are 8-2 in last ten games with Toronto; both Toronto wins were in OT. Leafs lost last five visits to Manitoba. Last ten series games all went over the total. Five of last nine series games were decided in OT or SO. Jets won their last seven games LY but missed playoffs. Toronto lost a playoff series to Washington in six games, five of which went to OT.
Blues are 6-4 in last ten games with Pittsburgh; road team was 7-3 in those games. St Louis won four of last five visits to Steel City (under 3-1-1). Blues were ousted from playoffs in six games by Nashville last spring; Penguins won another Stanley Cup.
Edmonton won its last four games with rival Calgary, scoring 19 goals; over is 6-3 in last nine series games. Oilers won three of last four games in the Saddledome. Calgary lost seven of its last eight games LY. Edmonton lost a 7-game series to Anaheim, after winning first two games the road.
Sharks won 8 of last 10 games with Philly; 3 of last 5 series games went to OT. Flyers were outscored 7-3 in losing their last three visits to the Shark Tank. Under is 5-1 in last six series games. Philly lost three of its last four games LY. San Jose lost to Edmonton in six games in last spring’s playoffs.
Armadillosports.com
Wednesday's Best NHL Bet
Vegasinsider.com
St. Louis Blues vs. Pittsburgh Penguins
Odds: St Louis (+166), Pittsburgh (-185); Total set at 5.5
The 2017-18 NHL season is less than 24 hours away and while NHL hockey doesn't attract the biggest handle from a sports betting perspective, it's grown in popularity in recent years.
Now that Las Vegas got it's expansion team, I would not be surprised to see NHL betting continue to grow in popularity this year, as this Vegas team (who might not be as bad as some expect in Year 1) establishes a fanbase in the city and attracts more “sports bettors” to the game of hockey.
From a pure location and probably a few teams looking past the expansion Las Vegas Golden Knights, that team should find themselves in some very favorable home spots throughout the year.
But this isn't about the prospects of Vegas' NHL squad, it's about NHL hockey being back on the ice with four opening night games. We've got a pair of double headers going on Wednesday night with four Canadian teams doing the honors for our friends up north, but it's the nationally broadcast game in the US that I'm looking to get action down on. The two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins get to raise another banner in that one as they host the St Louis Blues.
The Pittsburgh Penguins will definitely be the “hunted” across the NHL this year with two consecutive Stanley Cups on their resume and primed to make it three in a row. The enter the 2017-18 campaign as the favorites at sportsbooks to win it all again (+850 range), with only the Edmonton Oilers as the other team below +1000 odds.
Lofty expectations come with those kind of odds and as long as the key stars on the Penguins stay healthy (Crosby, Malkin etc) for the bulk of their 82 games, Pittsburgh will be a Stanley Cup threat once again. However, just like the ML sport of MLB, even the best NHL teams each year lose about 40% of their games and going against their high odds in the right spots can prove to be highly lucrative.
There is no question that the defending champs will get plenty of support here even as bettors swallow the -185 price tag, but history suggests that fading the defending champ in Game 1 is quite often a good thing. Pittsburgh did win their opening game last year by a 3-2 score in a shootout, but dating back to the 2004-05 lockout season, defending champions are just 3-8 SU in season openers the following year – disclaimer, Pittsburgh as an organization accounts for two of those wins and are 2-0 SU.
Whether it's reliving all the positive memories from a year ago in the opening video montage, being distracted by other pregame ceremonies, or simply not fully having their head around the fact it's a new season, these champs are almost always saddled as the favorites and have come up short more often than not.
In fact, the 2008-09 Detroit Red Wings were in a similar position to Pittsburgh in that they were off a Cup win and heavily favored to win again (they lost to Pittsburgh in the final that year) and were listed as -300 favorites in their season opener and ended up losing 3-2.
Taking it one step further, the last two teams to have consecutive Stanley Cups under their belt – the 1998-99 Detroit Red Wings and 1992-93 Pittsburgh Penguins – went 0-1-1 SU in season openers the following year as well. So with that as the historical backdrop, and the Penguins experiencing plenty of turnover during the offseason, this looks like one of those spots where fading the defending champs could work out rather well.
St Louis is a team that has experienced plenty of success in their own right the past few years, as they were eliminated in the 2nd round a year ago, and made it all the way to the Conference Finals in the 2016 playoffs. They had minimal roster changes over the summer, and while some of their bigger names enter the year with injuries, they've got more then enough talent to steal one from the Penguins here. They won 3-0 in Pittsburgh a year ago as +170 underdogs in mid-January, and starting a new campaign with a road win over the defending champs is a huge confidence boost right out of the gates.
With the road team 5-2 SU the last seven times these two organizations have played, and Pittsburgh still basking in the glow of what they accomplished a few short months ago, this +160ish price on the Blues is too hard to pass up. Fading defending champs in Game 1 of all sports is something I like to do each time a new year is upon us – we saw the New England Patriots lose SU and ATS in Week 1 of the NFL season a few weeks ago – and at these odds I'm going to ride with that line of thought once again.
Best Bet: St Louis Blues +166
NHL Picks and Betting Tips
By Parker Michaels
Bangthebook.com
TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS @ WINNIPEG JETS
The NHL season kicks off with a Canadian matchup between two teams with big expectations this season. The Toronto Maple Leafs have aspirations to contend for the Stanley Cup while the Winnipeg Jets hope to take a step forward and become a playoff team.
On the Leafs side, training camp couldn’t have gone much better as everyone survived healthy. Goaltender Frederik Andersen had a “tremendous offseason” and enters fully healthy, unlike last season when he was coming off a concussion suffered in an Olympic qualifier which left him unable to play for Team Europe in the World Cup of Hockey and endured a slow start in the Leafs crease.
Auston Matthews picked up right where he left off scoring five goals in four preseason games and will be expected to be the key offensive cog once again. Some good news I liked on the roster setup is Patrick Marleau will start on the third-line with Nazem Kadri and Leo Komarov. This should give the Leafs much better balance and be a more effective usage of Marleau, at least to start. On defense, Roman Polak was released from his PTO and won’t be a regular in the Leafs lineup this season and that’s very good news. The young Swede Andreas Borgman had a huge training camp and will slot in on the third-pair with Connor Carrick. Borgman was the rookie of the year in the Swedish Hockey League and can throw his weight around.
For the Jets, their own young superstar had a great preseason as Patrik Laine also scored 5 goals in 4 games. I’m still not sold on the roster, however, as the depth is still lacking to me and this should be a big problem against a Leafs team who can roll 4 effective lines at them. The bottom-six of Copp/Lowry/Armia and Tanev/Matthias/Petan doesn’t do it for me and it’s the main reason why I’m not as high on the Jets this year as some people.
Matthews opened last season with a 4-goal outburst against the Senators and I wouldn’t be surprised if he pots a couple to begin this one. My numbers say this is a no-play which is unfortunate because I was hoping to back the Leafs in this one. I’m not expecting much line movement for this one as the current number is within the range of where it should be.
ST. LOUIS BLUES @ PITTSBURGH PENGUINS
The Pittsburgh Penguins will raise their fifth championship banner at PPG Paints Arena tonight and a lot of people expect they’ll be hanging a sixth at this time next year as they go for the rare three-peat. The Penguins are a great team once again, there’s no doubt about that, but I’m not sold on them being as dominant as many predict. Look, they’re third-line center tonight is going to be Greg McKegg. Greg. McKegg. And I’m supposed to believe this team is as deep as last year? Color me skeptical.
Patric Hornqvist is going to miss the first couple of games for the Pens as he’s not quite 100% yet from his broken finger sustained in last year’s playoffs. Bryan Rust is expected to take his spot in the top-six and should be a fine fill-in tonight. That opens a spot in the bottom-six and looks like Ryan Reaves will get into the lineup against his former team and that might be the most interesting storyline in this game as I’m not sure it’s going to be too competitive.
The Blues enter the season in injury hell already as three regular players are out long-term and a fourth will miss at least the opening week. That means three rookies are going to be expected to fill big minutes right away as Oskar Sundqvist will center a third-line with Tage Thompson while Vince Dunn will slot in on the blueline. Those are three players who likely would not have had a roster spot if not for injuries. Welcome to the league. For your first real game initiation you get to try and stop the back-to-back Stanley Cup champions. Good luck.
I’m not sure what’s up with Jake Allen either but he looked like hot garbage in the preseason. It’s not wise to put a ton of stock in preseason results because of all the rookie auditions but the Blues iced almost their regular lineup in the final preseason game and he still got lit up. Could be a big start for Crosby and company tonight. The opener of -185 hasn’t budged and I’m not expecting it to go too crazy as it’s in the range it should be.
CALGARY FLAMES @ EDMONTON OILERS
The Battle of Alberta is where it looks like we’ll see our first bet of the season. This line suggests Edmonton would be considered fairly better than Calgary if they played on a neutral ice and I’m not so sure that should be the case. The Oilers are a big public team because of Connor McDavid which will affect their lines slightly but the top of the Pacific division is expected to be a tight three team race between these two teams and the Ducks. I’m not as high on Edmonton as most people entering the season and I actually have Calgary just a slight notch ahead of the Oilers in my preseason power ratings due to the Sekera injury which I feel people are underrating. Hell, if you’re up in Canada here and you caught the TSN and Sportsnet preview shows, you’ll have seen over half of their analysts picked the Oilers to be in the Stanley Cup Final. I wasn’t sure which Canadian team was receiving more hype between the Oilers or Leafs but that pretty much answered that for me. Only one of those teams is deserving of said hype, to me, and it’s not the western team.
Jaromir Jagr was a big addition for the Flames this week but he won’t suit up in the opener. They technically haven’t signed him yet to an official contract but that should change sometime today. He’s expected to arrive in Calgary later today and should play by the weekend.
If you followed the preseason you probably don’t want anything to do with Calgary tonight as they looked pretty terrible. When Tanner Glass looks like one of your best players… yeah. Oh yeah, Calgary signed Tanner Glass yesterday to a 1-year, $650,000 contract because he was “impressive”. Not really convincing you to fire a bet on them, am I. Well, Glass will at least provide the Flames with some physicality which is why he was signed. They did lose Deryk Engelland and Lance Bouma so there’s not really anyone else to raise that important “grit” stat.
I guess the good thing about stinking in the preseason is this team sounds a little pissed off now and are eager for tonight’s game. They did actually play a really strong game in their preseason finale so hopefully that was a good turning point for them. I think Mike Smith is going to surprise some folks this year and be a pretty good goalie.
The only other injury for the Oilers is Anton Slepyshev who will miss tonight’s game. The Oilers are really high on this guy but he’s recovering from a sprained ankle and is headed to Bakersfield to play a conditioning game with them Friday night, then he’ll be back up with the Oilers.
This isn’t a real sexy pick for our first play of the year but I play what my numbers tell me. Expect that line to come down some but the Oilers are going to be a team that’s inflated compared to my ratings so we’ll likely be fading them a lot to begin the season. You should be able to grab a good number on Calgary throughout the day.
PHILADELPHIA FLYERS @ SAN JOSE SHARKS
The Philadelphia Flyers roster looks a lot different than last year and while some familiar names are gone and some unknowns in their place, this team could end up surprising and provide us with some betting value later in the season. Names like Patrick Nolan and Robert Hagg have the Flyers primed for a good future but it’s likely to be a lot of growing pains early on.
Shayne Gostisbehere was questionable for tonight after getting sandwiched between two Islanders players in the final preseason game but he’s “ready to go” and is expected to be in the lineup. That’s good news for the Flyers defense. What’s not good news for the defense is Andrew MacDonald is slated to play on the top-pair with Ivan Provorov. Looks like Hakstol is off to a great start on his roster management. Try to hang in there Flyers fans.
The San Jose Sharks return basically the same team as last year except they’re minus a top-six winger in Patrick Marleau, a solid defender in David Schlemko and, oh, “Jumbo” Joe Thornton spent the summer rehabbing a knee injury after a torn ACL AND MCL suffered in the playoffs. Oh, and they’re another year older. But at least they still have top shutdown pair Justin Braun and Marc-Edouard Vlasic. Seriously, that’s a hell of a good pair.
This line is right around where it should be, to me, although I think I’m probably a little lower on the Sharks than most people so this line could rise a bit. If it were to get as high as into the -160s I would look at firing on Philadelphia.
So there you have it, our opening night action awaits us. Just the one very not sexy pick of Calgary to get the season started. Don’t worry, there will be plenty of action in the days and weeks ahead. Patience is a virtue.
Early Season NHL Betting Trends
By: Ashton Grewal
Covers.com
The puck drops on a new NHL campaign on Wednesday and that’s good news for bettors looking to find weak betting lines.
Oddsmakers agonize over each number they hang on pigskin spread and totals because of the sheer volume of action placed on NFL and college football games. That’s not the case with hockey.
There are opportunities to make some dough wagering on a fringe sport like the NHL while the eye of Sauron – aka the book – is solely focused on football.
Here’s a look at a few early season NHL betting trends to keep in mind before the skates hit the ice and shoulders hit the boards on Wednesday night.
Bet Under the game totals early on
Excluding pushes, the Under is 318-259 (55.1 win rate) in October since the start of the 2013-14 season. Last year the Over went 19-9-7 in the first week of the season but finished 55-65-9 by the end of the month.
“I’d say we see that Under trend for a few reasons,” TSN’s Dustin Nielson told Covers. “Shooters are still rusty from the offseason, for the most part defenseman are healthy, and coaching is still fresh to the players so they are focused on playing systems as opposed to playing a little loosey goosey like they would later in the season.”
Bet on the Montreal Canadiens
If the season ended on Halloween, the Habs would be four-time defending champions. Montreal is 34-11 in games in October since the 2013 campaign, including 8-1 last season. If you had bet $100 on Montreal in each of its games in October since 2013, you’d be up $1635.75 or 16.36 units.
The Canadiens aren’t the only team that gets out of the blocks quickly. The Pittsburgh Penguins are 28-14 over the same stretch, but of course oddsmakers make you pay a premium to back the club with Sidney Crosby.
Best puckline bet: Washington Capitals
The Washington Capitals continue to disappoint in the playoffs but that shouldn’t discourage NHL bettors from backing them in the regular season. The Caps have won the last two Presidents’ Trophies (awarded to the team with the most points at the end of the regular season) and their success has spilled over to the puckline as well.
For those unfamiliar, the puckline is just like betting the runline in baseball which means backing a team at plus or minus 1.5-goal spread. Washington would normally always be the favorite meaning you’d be betting them at -1.5 goals. Betting the Caps this way means improved odds, which explains why they had a 37-42 record on the puckline last year but still finished up 15.39 units for the season.
If you bet $100 on the Caps on the puckline in each of their regular season games over the last three seasons, you’d be up $3436 or 34.36 units.
Not too shabby.
Best Under team: Los Angeles Kings
The Kings are one of the slowest-skating teams in the NHL and they used to have one of the best goalies in the world. Netminder Jonathan Quick missed all but 17 games last season and the Under still went 37-24-21 for the Kings in 2016-17.
That brought the Under win rate to 57.4 percent for the Kings in the regular season over the last four years. And that’s with this team seeing more 5-goal totals than any other team in the league.
Last season all seven teams in the Pacific division saw more Unders than Overs with the San Jose Sharks being the worst offenders with a 22-37-13 Over/Under record for the season.