Welcome to my Week 6 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 single 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. If you followed my weekly reports last season, one upgrade is that I’m now logging alt pucklines for every game, favorites +1.5 goals and underdogs -1.5 goals. Click here to see my Week 5 Betting Report.
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My Weekly Profit: $771
For my second consecutive week, I’m only able to report a profit on the sum of all my wagers because of over/under (with some help from Devils victories), winning $2,346 on over/under and New Jersey wins, losing -$1,575 on everything else. Once again my algorithm was spectacular, whether betting over or under. In the last 14 days, I have hit on 62% of all my O/U wagers, with very few manual overrides. Though I was 4-1 on my overrides, all overs when the back-up was likely or confirmed to be starting.
It’s a remarkably simple formula to use. Seldom does it lose a substantial sum of money, but some weeks it hits several and producing a hearty jackpot. Those of you who followed my betting reports last season know all about its effectiveness. Typically when it has a fantastic week, either one or the other category tends to be responsible. The past two weeks of impressive returns on both outcomes is a new phenomenon, but one that I’m hoping continues. For more on how it’s calculated, click here.
Over/unders weren’t the only thing that helped me to a profitable week, as a large share of the credit goes to the New Jersey Devils, who have ascended into the number one position in my Power Rankings. I’ll be the first to admit I was expecting them to struggle this season, but was fast to jump on the bandwagon, picking them to win 10 times in their last 11 games. The thing about doing these weekly betting reports, it doesn’t take long to figure out when I’m wrong and need to adjust my tactics. Trends change and you need to be adaptable.
My recent experiment of betting underdogs -1.5 goals came to a crashing halt after the category went 1 for 13 on Monday and Tuesday. The category had already begun a downward trend which was noted in my report last week, it just took me a few days to kick the habit. It’s exhilarating hitting on longshot bets, even if you don’t have real money on the line. I’m not completely abandoning these, as I’m still up 10% on the category for the season, but I was starting to get a little carried away and was betting them far too often. I’m going to wait for the ideal opportunity, preferably vs good teams with struggling goalies.
Goalies with a sub .890 SV% the last 2 weeks: Jake Oettinger, Jacob Markstrom, Darcy Kuemper, Freddy Andersen (injured), Tristan Jarry, Sergei Bobrovsky, Jack Campbell, Ville Husso, James Reimer, Adin Hill, Elvis Merzlikins, Alex Nedeljkovic, Eric Comrie, Craig Anderson.#NHLpicks
— Hockey Economist (@Hockeconomics) November 19, 2022
For some teams to turn things around, that means others must take their place among the ranks of the struggling. The Florida Panthers, Vegas Golden Knights, and Washington Capitals went a combined 2-8 this week. The Panthers especially where the #1 team to bet against, losing to Calgary, Dallas, and Columbus. The Panthers are sitting outside a playoff spot with American Thanksgiving just a few days away. That means statistically speaking, they are more likely to miss the playoffs than to qualify. Just be aware, they’re not who you think they are, at least not right now.
My Week 6 Results
*Note* “Market Return” is based on betting exactly $100 on every outcome.
No category was the clear winner heading into the weekend, until favorites moneyline went 14-3 on Saturday and Sunday, which pushed them near the top of the category leaderboard right behind road favorites -1.5 goals. Chicago and Philly were two teams specifically for whom the clock struck midnight and they morphed back into who we thought they were (going a combined 0-7). Those were two underdogs that were very profitable for the first few weeks of the season, but their stock crashed in November.
Note to self: really starting to get a "they are who we thought they were" vibe from the Philadelphia Flyers... #NHLBetting
— Hockey Economist (@Hockeconomics) November 16, 2022
There were only 3 games this week featuring a rested team vs an opponent who played yesterday, so if you noticed that the category had a high rate of return in the table above, note that it was a small sample. The games were heavily skewed to Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday. There will be 6 in the upcoming week. Last season I got in the habit of unanimously betting all of them, because it was paying off but the prices are getting too expensive. I’m starting to zag a little more often.
My Team of the Week: New Jersey Devils, +$967
The New Jersey Devils have been riding a remarkable hot streak lately, and I’m proud to report boarding the bandwagon 2 weeks ago. Truth be told, I was expecting this team to struggle yet again, unconvinced that Vitek Vanecek was going to solve their goaltending woes. Washington let him go for a reason. But I’m also a big believer in Jack Hughes and drafted him on all my fantasy teams. Both my fantasy teams drafted too many centers and I made 30 trade offers trying to unload my surplus. Hughes was included in exactly zero of my trade offers.
The Ottawa Senators went 2 and 2 with me betting them
to lose all 4. Fortunately, the size of the bets were not equal amounts and
Saturday I went big on New Jersey with bets on both the moneyline and puckline
-1.5 goals. That was my largest victory on any game of the week, so it makes
sense that the two teams involved topped my profit rankings.
My Worst Team of the Week: Chicago Blackhawks, -$528
Nobody was running away with my worst team of the week dishonor heading into Saturday, as there were multiple contenders with whom I had suffered a small loss. Then the Chicago Blackhawks moved into the lead, after my third unsuccessful attempt at betting them to win. It wasn’t a matter of my believing in the Chicago Blackhawks, but more a case of unappealing line prices on their opponents. I certainly didn’t expect they were going to beat Boston, but I’ll always bet the other side of a -400 moneyline whenever that’s the choice. They were all small wagers, but compounded by some misses on their over/unders.
The Nashville Predators appear to have recovered from their terrible start, winning 2 of their 3 games. Juuse Saros posted a SV% above .922 in 4 of his last 6 games, so intuitively is makes sense that Nashville won 4 of those. That is a big relief to both my fantasy teams. If Saros has stabilized, then it might be time for me to stop betting them to lose. Though they did defeat some quality teams this week, so my short position wasn’t exactly crazy.
2) Favorites moneyline: +$619 2) Favorites moneyline: +$436
3) Under: +$556 3) Favorites +1.5 goals: +$289
2) Heavy favorites ML+PL: -$377 2) Underdogs moneyline: -$1,129
3) Underdogs -1.5 goals: -$350 3) Home favorites -1.5 goals: -$876
(over/under/hedges not included) ($100 ML + $100 PL+1.5 + $100 PL-1.5)
2) Colorado Avalanche, +$322 2) Dallas Stars, +$645
3) Seattle Kraken, +$225 3) New Jersey Devils, +$602
(over/under/hedges not included)
2) Chicago Blackhawks, -$350
3) Buffalo Sabres, -$300
(over/under/hedges not included) ($100 ML + $100 PL+1.5 + $100 PL-1.5)
(over/under/hedges not included)
2) St. Louis Blues, -$350
3) Nashville Predators, -$350
2) Florida overs, +$331
3) New Jersey unders, +$311
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