Welcome to the daily NHL betting market report, your source for comprehensive and dynamic hockey betting analysis. Follow me on Twitter to stay up to date as I handicap the NHL each day.
Market Report for Sunday, Oct. 23rd
Recap: 20 percent of all NHL games this season have seen teams rally to win from a multi-goal deficit, and I had been on the wrong side of nearly one quarter of those, but things turned around with a 3-0 sweep on Saturday:
First, the Bruins (barely) fought off a comeback after going up 3-1 on the Minnesota Wild and came away with an overtime win. Then, the Penguins completed a 6-3 comeback against the Columbus Blue Jackets after falling behind by a couple of goals. And of course, the Sabres showed no mercy in their 5-1 win over the Vancouver Canucks after going up 2-0 early in the game.
Wins: 13 Losses: 11 Units Won: 1.09 units ROI: 4.6 percent
I’m tracking all my plays on Betstamp: a third party bet tracking app. The bets reveal themselves after the games start. I keep my own personal records as well and they may differ slightly from Betstamp due to several factors, but for the most part, it should line up closely.
Today: Sunday’s card is ugly.
All game lines via DraftKings Sportsbook and BetMGM Sportsbook, but I will sometimes use the consensus odds from the VSiN NHL Odds page if it is a better price and widely available. All recommended bets will be accompanied by recommended stake size.
Seattle Kraken (-145) at Chicago Blackhawks (+ 125)
Former teammates Martin Jones and Alex Stalock will go head-to-head on Sunday as they guard the nets for their respective teams. This game will likely garner a lot of attention from bettors for that reason. However, don’t go thinking that Chicago or Seattle can fill the net with ease. The Blackhawks and Kraken rank 30th and 31st on offense at even strength and they’re in the bottom third of the league overall (all situations) when it comes to goal scoring. Bettors that backed the Kraken at the overnight might’ve made out alright depending on the odds. I might have placed a small bet on the Kraken at -135 or -140, but I’m not sad that the line moved. Seattle isn’t a bad team, but their goaltending is atrocious, and Chicago is scoring goals at about the same rate. My model prices the road team at around -150.
New York Islanders (+ 175) at Florida Panthers (-200)
The Islanders were one of the most popular bets on Saturday thanks to the fact that the Tampa Bay Lightning were playing their second game in as many days with backup Brian Elliott guarding the cage. Bettors flocked to bet on New York early in the day and the odds moved heavily in their direction, but the Islanders were never really in the game and lost by a score of 5-3. Ilya Sorokin was in goal for the loss, which means Semyon Varlamov will almost certainly be in the crease on Sunday.
Varlamov is a good backup who is capable of being a starter, in my opinion, but my model predicts that the Panthers will win this game approximately 65 percent of the time, even with their injury troubles. That doesn’t mean they’re a good bet, though. Converting 65 percent to US odds will give you -185 and that means there’s no value betting on either of these teams at the current market price.
Columbus Blue Jackets (+ 240) at New York Rangers (-280)
New York was being priced as high as -275 by some operators, including those that are known for accepting large bets from sharp bettors, while others were sitting at around -220 or -225 long after the initial moves. That’s no longer the case, though, as even retail books must catch up eventually. And besides, I don’t think it would be right for me to make my right up about picking off bad lines at retail sportsbooks. Doing that regularly will result in limits being placed on your account, or worse. The good prices weren’t widely available this morning, though, so it wouldn’t have been fair for me to suggest betting on the Rangers and count it on my record at a price that not everybody had a chance to obtain. My model estimates that the Rangers are now being priced in a more appropriate range and there’s no longer any value in betting them to win this game, even though they’ll likely do so easily.
Anaheim Ducks (+ 125) at Detroit Red Wings (-145)
Trying to make a case for either of these teams would be like polishing a turd. The Red Wings mostly stink because of injuries to two of their best players, Jakub Vrana and Tyler Bertuzzi, while the Ducks stink because they’re soft and inexperienced. There are several ways the coaches can choose to play this, as far as who will start in goal for each team, and that makes it tough to set a line on this game. However, I’m almost certain that I won’t be betting on either of these teams unless there’s a big shift in the odds, though.
San Jose Sharks (+ 110) at Philadelphia Flyers (-130)
In the last 15 years, no team has scored fewer goals (per 60 minutes than the 2013-14 Buffalo Sabres. I tell you this because it helps illustrate how bad 2022-23 San Jose Sharks have been:
|
Team
|
Goals Per 60 Minutes
|
|
2022-23 San Jose Sharks
|
1.7
|
|
2013-14 Buffalo Sabres
|
1.77
|
San Jose currently has the worst shooting percentage in the league and while I don’t expect them to be as bad as the Sabres were a decade ago, I also don’t expect them to make much of an improvement. Philadelphia is off to a surprisingly hot start, but goaltender Carter Hart is the biggest reason for that, and he played on Saturday in Nashville. Head coach John Tortorella will likely give the nod to backup Felix Sandstrom on Sunday, and that’s why the market has moved toward San Jose. Sandstrom allowed four goals on 36 shots in his one and only start, which was also the second half of a back-to-back for the Flyers, but it was against the Florida Panthers, a much tougher team than San Jose to say the least.
Tortorella has already stated that starting Hart on the second half of a back-to-back is not the right thing to do early in the season, and while the Flyers do have three days off following this game, they’ve got four games against four of the league’s best teams (Florida, Carolina, New York and Toronto) coming up and this is the best spot for Sandstrom to get some reps in. I’m not willing to bet on a hunch, though, when we’re talking about a bad team like the Sharks, who are also playing tired after losing yet another game. James Reimer will almost certainly get start for San Jose, which should give them an edge in the goaltending department, but despite the Flyers’ injury woes, these two teams seem to be evenly matched. No bet.
2021-22 Betting Season Recap:
NHL Betting Guide (Futures): plus-25.9 units
Reg Season (Sides and Totals): plus-6.22 units
Player Props: minus-15.33 units
Playoffs (Sides and Totals): minus-14.43 units
Thoughts: I tried to do too much last season (The Propagator is one example) because it was the first time that I was going to be producing content at large scale. I was worried that my typical betting habits would be seen as too selective and therefore not enough for the average VSiN subscriber. I was wrong.
Going forward: I am back to focusing on what has worked for me all along: Making long term forecasts for futures markets and handicapping all 1,312 regular season games.