Welcome to my Week 13 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 12 Betting Report.
My Season Profit: $15,107
On the first day of Christmas, Santa sent to me a hot hand for betting on NHL games that has yet to cool off as of Jan 16. I’ve been on an excellent month-long run that began shortly before the NHL Christmas break. Did Santa bestow me with the gift of foresight? Not exactly. My hot run started approximately Dec 18, which coincides with the creation of my “GameSum” worksheet in Excel, which breaks down the probabilities of all the different outcomes and measures them against the implied probability of the betting lines. That was also when my over/under algorithm was born. It’s all just a very basic estimate for measuring line values. Keep it simple.
My new method ostensibly became highlighting a game, pressing a button, reviewing probabilities, and making a judgement call. I have been mostly blindly following the recommendations for over/under, but in terms of winners and losers, it was more of a “consultation”. My success over this past month is being driven by favorites on the moneyline. I have picked relatively few underdogs, avoiding them often even when there’s line value. If a line on a favorite is too high, I’m more often decreasing my bet size than taking the dog. Favorites have been consistently outperforming their results from the previous 2 seasons, mostly being driven by home ice advantage.
It did appear as though I’d lost the “Midas touch” when Karel Vejmelka stole a win from the Toronto Maple Leafs with an improbable 46-save performance. That cost me -$1,000 and perhaps should have been a warning to pump the brakes on my enthusiasm for Arizona opponents. Nope. The Coyotes would face another of the league’s top teams a few days later in Colorado. Avs at home against a goalie who had played 4 career games, logging an .823 SV%. That should have been a slam dunk. I went all in, $1,000 on the puckline, Avs barely squeaked out a win in the shootout.
The Nashville Predators vs Aaron Dell sure felt like a slam dunk. My gambling rule; "bet against Aaron Dell every opportunity" led me astray today... 🤦♂️
— Hockey Economist (@Hockeconomics) January 14, 2022
Columbus beating Carolina 6-0 hurt too. #NHLBetting
My weekly balance was below zero heading into
Saturday, when the Avs and Yotes faced off for the 2nd consecutive
night. This time it would be Vejmelka against Kuemper, and I dropped another
$1,000 on the Avs -1.5 goals. Colorado won 5-0, helping me win back some of the
money lost on the previous match. Arizona still finished as my worst team of
the week, but it could have been much worse. I went on to have a big night
winning most of my bets for a profit of nearly $2,000. I’m also pleased to
report that the Coyotes have dropped to 60% of my total profit for the season
and I’d still be up more than $5,000 had I not laid a penny on any of their games.
My Week 13 Results
*Note* “Market Return” is based on betting exactly
$100 on every outcome.
The overs came surging into this week, continuing strong until Thursday night when the trend crashed into a wall with only 1 of 11 cashing in. Overs went 3-0 on Friday, but unders went 9-4 on Saturday, leading to their best week in a month. Scoring has decreased for 2 consecutive weeks, after peaking in late December, but also the lines have been creeping up. It does appear as though the decrease in scoring is due to goalies getting out of Covid protocol (the only current Covid goalies among primary starters are John Gibson and MacKenzie Blackwood). If that was indeed the primary driver behind the December scoring boom, then we should expect to see totals regress to the mean and unders regaining profitability.
The shift in the market did not hurt my OU performance at all. My very simple algorithm (introduced and discussed in my week 10 report) had a fantastic week. Nearly ¾ of my money wagered on over/under was laid on the over, still managing a small profit despite the category as a whole having a terrible week. Whereas I placed 14 bets on the under, and only 3 went over, leading to a stunning return of $1.45 per $1 bet. The unders may be going on a run here, but that won’t affect my strategy at all. I’m just blindly following my algorithm’s advice in 95% of games. As more games go under, the algorithm adjusts accordingly. If unders become a trend, the sportsbooks will adjust their lines accordingly.
If you like #NHLBetting over/under parlays with the moneyline, the three best teams to parlay with the over are (with $100 bets):
— Hockey Economist (@Hockeconomics) January 13, 2022
1. Avalanche, +$1,472
2. Panthers, +$1,358
3. Wild, +$1,267
With the under:
1. Rangers, +$2,036
2. Sharks, +$1,502
3. Ducks, +$1,221
My Team of the Week: Seattle Kraken, +$974
The Seattle Kraken have lost 9 games in a row (including 15 of their last 16), and find themselves 5 points out of dead last in the entire league. I have been cognizant of this nosedive for a few weeks, and have been profiting from it since the beginning, banking more than $2,000 over this 9-game span. Philipp Grubauer continues to struggle. Chris Dreidger logged back-to-back decent starts before going into Covid protocol. Seattle has climbed from #21 in my power rankings in week 9, up to #9 in week 13, thanks to their futility. I’m going to keep my foot on the gas until they actually start winning hockey games. It should also be noted that their overs have been declining in profitability as the scoring has struggled.
The Boston Bruins were my second-best teams of the
week. Tuukka Rask returned, the team got healthy, and Pastrnak found some
chemistry with Taylor Hall on the 2nd line. The team played 4 games
in the week, with convincing wins over Washington and Montreal that accounted
for most of my Bruin winnings. Their last 2 games (one being a back-to-back) I
took their opponents +1.5 goals and both hit (Bruins won all 4 games). I’m
reserving myself a seat on the Bruins bandwagon for the second half.
My Worst Team of the Week: Arizona Coyotes, -$1,440
It was clear by Thursday night that my worst team of the week was going to be either Arizona or Toronto, depending on how the weekend unfolded. The aforementioned game where Vejmelka stood on his head was my first max bet loss of the week, but those wily Coyotes stole another G-note from me a few days later. This time it wasn’t Vejmelka who robbed me, but the less experienced Ivan Prosvetov, with the .833 career SV%. My puckline bet failed, but I can’t be too angry at this outcome, as it was my blind faith in the Yotes futility that drove my early success. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Can we get a line on Colorado -4.5 goals vs Arizona? #NHLBetting
— Hockey Economist (@Hockeconomics) January 14, 2022
Fortunately for me, the game on Saturday came much closer to expectation, with the Avs winning 5-0. I made the same $1,000 puckline bet as the previous game, not the least bit concerned that history would repeat itself the next night. Had Colorado not taken care of business Saturday, I would have lost more than -$3,000 on Arizona games for the week. Does this mean that I should be weary of betting against Arizona going forward? Are they not as bad as previously thought? Or should I just erase these two fluky goalie performances from my memory? They have a turtle race against Montreal scheduled for Monday. That’ll be a tough call…
2) Montreal to lose ML+PL: +$812 2) LA to win ML+PL: +$732
3) Seattle to lose ML: +$701 3) Anaheim to lose ML+PL: +$712
2) Toronto to win ML: -$1,000 2) Overs: -$625
3) Home favorites -1.5 goals: -$880 3) Florida to lose ML+PL: -$600
My Best Teams To Bet On In Week 13: (over/under not
included)
1) Tampa Bay Lightning, (+$654)
2) Boston Bruins, (+$633)
3) Florida Panthers, (+$420)
My Worst Teams To Bet On In Week
13: (over/under not included)
1) Toronto Maple Leafs, (-$1,000)
2) Nashville Predators, (-$389)
3) Colorado Avalanche, (-$283)
My Best Teams To Bet Against In Week
13: (over/under not included)
1) Montreal Canadiens, (+$812)
2) Seattle Kraken, (+$701)
3) Dallas Stars, (+$520)
My Worst Teams To Bet Against In Week
13: (over/under not included)
1) Arizona Coyotes, (-$1,231)
2) Los Angeles Kings, (-$500)
3) Chicago Blackhawks, (-$250)
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. 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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