Welcome to the daily NHL betting market report, your source for comprehensive and dynamic hockey betting analysis. This page will be updated throughout the day as needed. Be on the lookout for player prop bets. All recommended bets are tracked as one unit (bet to win one unit on favorite and risk one unit on underdog) unless stated otherwise. If you want, you can use the model projection to bet in proportion to its perceived edge.
All game lines via VSiN NHL Odds Page. All stats courtesy of Evolving Hockey. Follow me on Twitter.
Market Report for Saturday, May 14th
I cannot wait for Round 2. Round 1 has been awful. And it’s taking a toll on me and my bankroll. I feel like I did a decent job of handicapping each series but on a game-to-game basis, it’s been brutal, and the losing has become unbearable. Hopefully things start to turn.
Record: 111-107, + -4.35 units, -1.5 percent ROI
(Series bets will be recapped on Monday)
Note: Player prop bets (if any) can be found by scrolling to the bottom of the report.
Market Report for Sunday, May 15th
On Saturday, all three Game 7s stayed under the total, with just 10 goals combined. Game 7 times two. Goal scoring is up this season and has been trending that way for several years now, but often, teams seem to bring a defensive mindset to Game 7. In the 2022 playoffs, the average number of goals per game is six. Since 2011, there have been 54 winner-take-all scenarios and there have been 4.7 goals scored on average. Let’s look at things from a betting perspective.
Pittsburgh Penguins (+ 105) at New York Rangers (-125)
Through the first four games of this series, Pittsburgh accumulated a 43 shot attempt differential and a 51 scoring chance differential, according to hockey stats website Natural Stat Trick. In the last two games, the Penguins scoring chance differential was just 6, and Rangers generated just as many shot attempts as they did. That’s the impact of losing Crosby, but now that Sid is back, and Tristan Jarry is making his first start of the series, how things played out in the first four games is probably a better indication of how things might play out in Game 7. Barring any injury setbacks, the Penguins should be close to full strength, and assuming Tristan Jarry can provide the Penguins with the same type of goaltending that he did in the regular season, this is a coin flip game. The Rangers have home-ice advantage, but the Penguins are the better team, and if things trend the way they did in Games 1-4, the Penguins are in a good position to win the game. According to my model, + 105 isn’t enough to warrant a bet on the Penguins, but there is a little bit of a value. On the other hand, betting the Rangers in this spot would be -EV.
Dallas Stars (+ 175) at Calgary Flames (-200)
Head coach Darryl Sutter said that this series deserves a Game 7, and it’s hard to argue. The Flames have a 96 shot attempt differential at 5-on-5 through six games but have only generated 15 more high danger chances than the Stars have at 5-on-5, and most of that disparity stems from their dominant performance in Game 4. The Flames opened with moneyline odds of -175, which suggests oddsmakers are down on the team, but the betting market has felt strongly enough to push their odds back to -200 and higher. My model suggests that the Flames should be priced quite a bit higher than they are, but my word, it’s hard to trust my model when I’ve lost just about every bet I’ve placed on this series so far. Things have been a lot closer than I predicted they would be, and I’m just going to hang back and hope that the Flames keep my 50-1 Stanley Cup futures ticket alive. And even if you don’t have any rooting interest in this series, you should be cheering for the Flames to win and advance to the next round. The hockey world deserves to see the Battle of Alberta in the playoffs.
Notes: Flames defender Chris Tanev was injured in Game 6 and is not expected to play in Game 7. It's a big loss for Calgary.
Bet Summary:
There are no recommended bets currently.
Player Prop Bets:
Record: 115-113, -11.1 units, -4.11 percent ROI
There are no recommended player prop bets currently.