Welcome to my Week 10 NHL Betting Report, featuring my Gambling Power Rankings, results by category, my best bets, and my best/worst teams to bet on or against. It should be noted that I’m not betting with real money. These are all fictional wagers in a spreadsheet. If you’re betting with real money, you should not be betting on every game, only the games you like the most. Whereas I’m betting on every game, every over/under, because it provides a complete dataset for macroeconomic analysis. Click here to see my Week 9 Betting Report.
My Season Profit: $8,256
Week 10 in the NHL will forever be remembered for Covid chaos. There was a skyrocketing of case counts and players shelved due to positive tests. The Flames were shut down on Monday (cancelling the only game scheduled for that night), while the Hurricanes and Bruins each lost multiple star players. I made the decision to roll with both Boston goalies in fantasy hockey before learning that Marchand, Bergeron, and Craig Smith were all shut down due to Covid. If all that wasn’t bad enough, on Friday with over 70 players already in Covid protocol, it was announced that Calgary, Colorado, and Florida would be frozen until after Christmas.
All of my bets are recorded the night before the game, which is a difficult practice to justify with this level of pandemic outbreak around the league. I had already laid $500 on Colorado to beat Nashville on Thursday when it was announced that Makar, Toews, and Kuemper would all miss the game. The Preds won 5-2. The Avalanche had the option to postpone the game, but decided to play it anyway. I’m sure everyone with money on the Avs would have preferred postponement. Perhaps the best move would have been the bet the same amount on Nashville after the news broke, to ostensibly buy myself out of the original wager. That wasn’t exactly necessary since I’m not using real money, but is an option for those who do. It would violate my betting experiment parameters to place opposing wagers on the same game.
The biggest upset on Thursday night wasn’t Nashville over Colorado, but rather Buffalo over Minnesota where I invested $500 in the Wild puckline. The Sabres won 3-2 on the back of a strong Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen goaltending performance. The only thing saving me from a complete catastrophe on Thursday night was a large wager on the New York Islanders to defeat the Covid depleted Bruins. The game probably should have been cancelled, but wasn’t, and opportunistic bettors were rewarded. Friday brought more calamity as the Arizona Coyotes upset the Mighty Ducks, a team I’ve been riding a lot lately.
By Saturday, half of the scheduled games were postponed due to Covid, depriving me of an opportunity to dig myself out of a hole for the week. I was down nearly $1,400 heading into the limited Sunday slate, and made $1,800 in wagers on the final day, $500 each on Washington and Pittsburgh to win moneyline. Of course, the Capitals lost more players to Covid after my bet was made, and failed to defeat the LA Kings. The Kings have sunk to the bottom of my Power Rankings. It doesn’t matter if I pick them to win or lose, the opposite outcome tends to occur.
My Week 10 Results
This is my virgin foray into NHL over/under betting, so my October picks were predominately instinctual, based on educated guesses. In November, I would check my previous results, and make course corrections based on account balances. I wanted to build up a sufficient sample size before getting too analytical. On Wednesday December 15, I started a new “Game Summary” worksheet that summarizes probabilities for each team for each game.
With this new worksheet came a new over/under system. This being my first algorithmic method for over/under, it was important to keep it simple. My general philosophy with any type of model building is to always start simple. If simple doesn’t work, then you start adding layers of complexity. For my first O/U method, take the last 10 games played by each team, and measure what % of games they went above or below the total on the line. Then you calculate the implied probability of the betting line and subtract it from the percentage over or under. Bet on the positive value. Bet double when there’s significant positive value.
I finished the week down $52 on O/U betting, but that
was after a $363 loss on Tuesday, after which I implemented the new system.
Under the new methodology, I wagered $3,700, generating $310 of profit for a $1.08 rate of
return per $1 bet. I’ll continue to post updates on my outcomes going forward.
It’s possible that going 10 games back might be using data that’s too old, but
looking only at the 5 most recent games might be too small a sample. It’s a
delicate balance.
My Team of the Week: New York Islanders, +$937
This has been a rough season for the Islanders, after
starting the schedule with a month-long road trip. Once their new building
opened up, the team started to nosedive, while also suffering a Covid outbreak.
The team has climbed to 2nd in my betting Power Rankings, mostly due
to profits on their losses. This week however, I laid a big $500 bet on the
Islanders moneyline to defeat a depleted Bruins team. Notwithstanding the
ethical implications of profiting from a health crisis, it’s nice when the
pandemic works in your favor.
My Worst Team of the Week: Buffalo Sabres, -$950
The Sabres were my big buzz-kill of the week, and the
single largest contributor to my losses. They departed for a 3-game road trip
that began in Winnipeg, where they pulled off a 4-2 upset win. My money was on
the Jets. Then (as previously discussed) they travelled to Minnesota and pulled
off a stunning upset of the Wild as +250 underdogs. The damage was mostly done by the solid
goaltending of Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, who posted a .939 SV% in his first 5 GP of
the season. If the young prospect can sustain quality play, it may be time to stop shorting Buffalo.
My 3 Best Bets of Week 10: Best Market Bets of Week 10:
2) New Jersey to lose ML: +$633 2) Buffalo to win ML+PL: +$620
3) Boston to lose ML+PL: +$625 3) Florida to lose ML+PL: +$576
2) Nsh, LA, Wsh, Fla all cost me: -$750 2) Vegas to lose ML+PL: -$507
*see below for more details* 3) Buffalo to lose ML+PL: -$469
My Best Teams To Bet On In Week 10: (over/under not
included)
1) Toronto Maple Leafs, (+$658)
2) New York Islanders, (+$575)
3) Vegas Golden Knights, (+$380)
My Worst Teams To Bet On In Week
10: (over/under not included)
1) Washington Capitals, (-$750)
2) Florida Panthers, (-$750)
3) Minnesota Wild, (-$500)
My Best Teams To Bet Against In Week
10: (over/under not included)
1) New Jersey Devils, (+$633)
2) Boston Bruins, (+$625)
3) Edmonton Oilers, (+$558)
My Worst Teams To Bet Against In Week
10: (over/under not included)
1) Buffalo Sabres, (-$850)
2) Nashville Predators, (-$750)
3) Los Angeles Kings, (-$750)
Team By Team Power
Rankings
These power rankings are based on the sum of all my bets per team, including
where the money was won or lost. It’s still a small sample size, but each week
my new power rankings will be based on all the games in the season, not just
what happened this week.
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