Welcome to my Week 22 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 21 Betting Report. I also encourage you to check out my Third Quarter Betting Report.
My Season Profit: $19,216
Sometimes you see an angle that makes perfectly reasonable sense, and you’re wrong. There was a large transfer of talent from the have-nots to the haves leading up to the trade deadline, prompting me to hypothesize that favorites -1.5 goals might generate higher returns post-deadline. Bad idea. Three teams in particular were responsible for most of my losses in this category (-$1,392), Minnesota, Toronto, and Florida. The Panthers (who acquired even more firepower) failed to cover against both Montreal and Ottawa, teams that jettisoned assets at the trade deadline.
The Calgary Flames -1.5 goals was among the most profitable
of all bets in the third quarter of the season, but as soon as I compiled and
posted that information, they failed to cover their next 2 home games against
Buffalo and San Jose (but did cover the next two after that against Arizona and
Edmonton). On Saturday night, I lost puckline bets on Florida, Toronto, and
Minnesota; then Tweeted at myself to stop betting favorites -1.5 goals.
Note to self: Stop betting favorites -1.5 goals. 🤦♂️ #NHLBetting
— Hockey Economist (@Hockeconomics) March 27, 2022
I was ready to retire from pucklines, but had already logged a Penguins bet -1.5 goals against Detroit for Sunday, which the Pens won 11-2. Just when I think I’m out, they suck me back in. Maybe instead of ditching pucklines entirely, I’ll just pump the brakes a bit. Technically, home pucklines -1.5 goals nearly broke even, as road favorites were by far the larger losers. This was the 3rd winningest week for home teams, so it’s no coincidence that home moneyline was the best category. Home faves won 75% of games, covering -1.5 goals in 42%.
Last week’s big news that the Columbus Blue Jackets captured the top spot in my gambling power rankings after Arizona led for 20 consecutive weeks proved fleeting, with the Yotes reclaiming the top spot. What tripped me up this week was the Blue Jackets failing to beat the Winnipeg Jets who were on a back-to-back, then played the next night and covered the spread against a rested Minnesota team when I laid $500 on the Wild -1.5 goals. Both Columbus and Minnesota failed to comply with the “Law of Back-to-Backs” multiple times, costing me nearly -$1,000 combined.
The Dallas Stars won 3 games in a row without star defenseman Miro Heiskanen, including an impressive road win against Carolina when I was heavily invested in a storm surge. My pledge to lay more money on Dallas opponents after losing Heiskanen was evolving into a costly decision until the Canucks pulled off an upset victory on Saturday. The Stars are fully engaged in a battle for the western wildcard, but I’d be shocked if they pulled it off without Miro.
My Week 22 Results
*Note* “Market Return” is based on betting exactly $100 on every outcome.
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My over/under algorithm had another losing week (-$70) as scoring recovered, meaning that last week’s low goal dip was more of an anomaly. Unfortunately, the algorithm with the 5-game memory got hit hard by the anomalous week, then was too hung up on what just happened, recommending unders too often when scoring resumed on its previous course. This illustrates a potential hazard of a short-term memory algorithm for over/under betting.
I’ve continued tracking the performance of my original algorithm with the longer memory that looks back at each team’s previous 10 games. In the last 2 weeks, the new algorithm is down -$740. If during that span, I only bet when the 2 algorithms agreed, it would have generated +$868. Case closed! That means I should only wager on the games when the two algorithms agree, right? What about the previous 5 weeks when the new algo produced $5,711 of profit? Eliminating the bets where they disagreed would have deducted -$2,631 from my portfolio.
The moral of the story is, I probably shouldn’t
complain about two losing weeks when the algorithm is still up more than $5,000
since its creation. My problem is, I hate losing more than I enjoy winning.
Algorithms aside, in the sum of all week 22 games, overs were a good bet. Not
quite as profitable as some of the big boom weeks, but still a cash generating
wager. If you laid $100 on every over this week, you finished $488 in the
black.
My Team of the Week: Tampa Bay Lightning, +$895
The Tampa Bay Lightning went on a run of 6 losses in 8 games, but I found shelter from that storm because I was already starting to get turned off by their line prices before the slide. There tends to be a public tax on the back-to-back champs because they attract too much casual money. Pittsburgh suffers from the same problem. The Lightning have not been conducting much electricity these days, and I’ve become more willing to bet their opponents, with some success.
But what really lifted Tampa to my top spot was going
4 for 4 on their unders for a $637 profit. The rest of the profit came from the
Lightning moneyline to beat Detroit on Saturday. The Wings were my best team to
bet against this week (thanks in part to the aforementioned loss to Pittsburgh), and finished second to Tampa in my weekly standings.
My Worst Team of the Week: Minnesota Wild, -$915
The Minnesota Wild cracked my top 3 worst teams to bet both on and against this week. They played 4 games, winning all of them (6 in a row). But they failed to cover -1.5 goals against Columbus when I laid $500 on the puckline. The Blue Jackets were on a back-to-back and Merzlikins played the night before. Then on Sunday I invested another $500 in the Colorado moneyline when Minnesota was on a back-to-back, and the Wild pulled off an upset victory against the league’s best team. That’s how I screwed up the Minnesota Wild this week. Two costly mistakes, but defensible. They veered the wrong way on consecutive back-to-backs.
The Toronto Maple Leafs were not far behind Minnesota for last place, as I bet them to beat New Jersey and Montreal -1.5 goals, both failures. Then when they finally did cover a puckline, it was against a superior opponent in Florida when I had the Panthers +1.5 goals. Thanks Toronto. Can’t cover against two bad teams, then cover against an elite team. Typical Leafs…
2) Tampa under: +$637 2) Anaheim to lose ML+PL: +$592
3) Detroit to lose ML+PL: +$620 3) Over: +$488
2) Minnesota to lose ML: -$600 2) Under: -$905
3) Toronto to win PL: -$500 3) Favorites -1.5 goals: -$645
My Best Teams To Bet On In Week 22: (over/under not
included)
1) Vancouver Canucks, (+$518)
2) Pittsburgh Penguins, (+$435)
3) Tampa Bay Lightning, (+$274)
My Worst Teams To Bet On In Week
22: (over/under not included)
1) Toronto Maple Leafs, (-$500)
2) Minnesota Wild, (-$489)
3) Carolina Hurricanes, (-$417)
My Best Teams To Bet Against In Week
22: (over/under not included)
1) Detroit Red Wings, (+$620)
2) Philadelphia Flyers, (+$316)
3) Arizona Coyotes, (+$274)
My Worst Teams To Bet Against In Week
22: (over/under not included)
1) Minnesota Wild, (-$600)
2) Columbus Blue Jackets, (-$500)
3) New Jersey Devils, (-$500)
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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