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 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 9 Betting Report.
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My Weekly Profit: $1,889
Christmas is just six days out and Santa’s elves have been busy in the factory cranking out low goal totals. If you asked Santa for low scoring hockey games, your wish is coming true. But for all you over-lovers out there, this was “Undermageddon” with unders going 31-21-2. This week got off to a rocky start for me personally, losing -$783 on Monday and Tuesday, before fighting my way back above zero by going 6 for 6 on my Wednesday picks. It was looking like my slump was busted, until getting hit with a gut punch on Thursday night.
The New Jersey Devils had occupied the #1 spot in my Power Rankings for the previous 4 weeks, until Thursday when I lost -$850 on their loss to the Philadelphia Flyers, thanks to nearly 50 saves by Carter Hart. The Devils must be on Santa’s naughty list, going 0-4, or perhaps this is just a bad time of year for all demons in general, with too much goodwill and holiday cheer for evil to prevail. It was a great week for anyone betting New Jersey to lose, unfortunately I was not part of that club, losing -$2,000 on their moneylines and pucklines.
By Friday morning I was down -$232, as the roller-coaster ride continued. But you may have noticed above that I finished the week up $1,889, so how did this happen while the Devils were fighting so hard to bleed my account dry? It was mainly the Blackhawks, Wild, Ducks, Senators, and Sabres who navigated me through this storm. Buffalo and Ottawa now occupy the top two spots in my Power Rankings, unseating New Jersey, who fell down to #8. The Sabres went 3-0, defeating LA, Colorado, and Arizona. I was on the winning side of all 3 games, but was a net loser on their over/under.
Ottawa won 3 of 4 games and have been heating up, winning 8 of their last 12. The New York Rangers busted out of a slump last week that I had previously been profiting from, making them one of my worst teams of week 9. But it was noted in my Betting Report, allowing me to switch allegiance and re-board the Rags bandwagon (which I previously boarded during week 1, which proved to be a costly mistake). Though I did make an uncomfortably large wager on the Devils to beat them, which is how I lost -$750 betting them to lose while I'm claiming to be back aboard their bandwagon.
New Jersey wasn’t the only good team struggling, as the Calgary Flames went 1 for 4 and would have gone winless if not for their defeat of San Jose in the final game of the week. Edmonton went 1 for 4, Nashville went 0 for 4, Seattle-LA-Toronto each went 1 for 3. The Detroit Red Wings have now lost 5 in a row (and 8 of their last 10) after a strong start, and I had a good week betting the Wings to lose (+$491). One short position that cost me money (-$400) was St. Louis busting a slump and going 3 for 3. Never trust those Blues…
This was another strong week for road teams, both favorite and underdog, marking the 4th consecutive week of profit for road moneyline. If you bet $100 on every home moneyline this season, you are down -$4,872. If you bet the same amount on every visitor moneyline, you are up $1,152 making significant profit from both faves and dogs. Sometimes a boom in road teams is attributable to multiple good teams going on concurrent road trips, but underdogs have a hand on the steering wheel. Road dogs had a decent week, but were my 2nd worst category.
It was also a bad week to bet favorites -1.5 goals, but not for me personally, as one of the worst categories overall happened to be one of my best. The reason that I outperformed the market rate by so much wasn’t a function of who I was betting on, but rather who I was betting against. I won $1,244 betting faves -1.5 this week and $1,251 of that came from betting Chicago and Anaheim to lose (the Hawks lost all 4 games by at least 2 goals). The Ducks actually won 2 games, but I had $500 on the Toronto puckline when Leafs won 7-0.
If it was a terrible week to bet home favorites -1.5 goals, that also means it was a really good week to bet road underdogs +1.5 goals, as home favorites struggled to cover the puckline. Dallas, Nashville, Philly, St. Louis, Winnipeg, and the Islanders combined to go 13 for 14 on the road +1.5 goals as dogs, if you’re wondering who killed your home pucklines, those were the worst offenders. St. Louis and Los Angeles were responsible for my two biggest puckline losses.
My Week 10 Results
*Note* “Market Return” is based on betting exactly $100 on every outcome.
My over/under algorithm went 6-12 on Monday and Tuesday, getting destroyed as goal scoring dropped considerably. The under trend had begun prior to this week, and when trends shift, it takes a few games before I start getting good advice. Then my algorithm went 13-4-1 from Wednesday to Friday, bring my O/U balance back above zero by Saturday morning. On Saturday it recommended a big stake in unders, which went 6-7, but it didn’t hurt too bad after nailing most of my overs. For the week: I won $815 on unders and lost -$605 on overs.
The algorithm struggled the most with Los Angeles, Winnipeg, and San Jose, all teams it was excelling with earlier in the schedule. That’s the thing with goal trends, they’re subject to change. That and oddsmakers can get smarter too, setting the lines at the perfect equilibrium value. LA overs have been a fantastic bet for most of the season, but got reigned in, same with San Jose. Whereas the Jets had a high scoring blip last week, then went back to being an under team, throwing a curveball at my algorithm.
Which teams were actually still delivering overs? Not many, but the Islanders went 3 for 3 and were the leaders, while the Rangers, Ducks, Flames, and Oilers also performed strong. This now marks 4 consecutive weeks of negative profit for Columbus overs, which had been a sustained big producer for me until this recent snag. My algorithm has still been recommending Columbus overs because there are still scattered high scores on their game logs. In their last 8 games the totals were 6, 5, 13, 4, 11, 4, 5, 6 (betting totals all at 6.5).
Betting against back-to-backs was my best category, but most of that came from Minnesota and Toronto. Otherwise you would have barely broken even shorting every btb on the moneyline, making a decent return -1.5 goals. There have been 42 games in the second quarter featuring a rested team against an opponent who played yesterday, and the rested won 59.5%. Despite promising myself to lay off these after a bad first quarter, my foot never really eased of the gas pedal, betting them 40 of 42, winning $2,426. I just hate betting tired teams, even when the line offers value...
Betting the Chicago Blackhawks to lose was one of my more astute strategy decisions this week, as my primary Tank-a-palooza target has started paying dividends. My most profitable game of the entire week was Chicago’s loss to Las Vegas, betting the under, as well as 2 units on the Vegas moneyline and 1 unit -1.5 goals. That was able to offset some of the damage done by the New Jersey Devils. Those Blackhawks opponent pucklines have really started paying off in the second quarter, helping Chicago climb my Power Rankings lately.
My second best team of the week was the aforementioned
Minnesota Wild. Not sure exactly how I found my way onto the Wild bandwagon,
but bet them to win all 4 games and they went 4-0. Looking at my game notes, on
Monday I wrote “Wild heating up and at home”. Then their next 3 games (also at
home) were against teams who played the night before. That’s what lured me in,
but now that I’m here it became clear that they’ve won 9 of their last 11. It
might be prudent to stay aboard this wagon for a little while longer.
My Worst Team of the Week: New Jersey Devils, -$1,726
The New Jersey Devils crushed the competition in my worst team of the week race, going 0-4 with me still stubbornly invested in their victories. That’s okay, I’m still playing with house money for all the jackpots I’ve cashed up to this point, but perhaps this was the fee for my deal with the Devils earlier in the schedule. The team has been an offensive juggernaut, but the goal scoring dried up this past week, averaging just 1.8 in their 4 games (while allowing an average of 3.5). We’ll see if this is the start of a new trend or just random variance, but my foot is on the brake pedal.
My next worse team of the week was the Dallas Stars,
thanks in part to their victory over New Jersey, when Scott Wedgewood decided to
be a hero, stopping 35 of 36 shots. That loss would have been easier to swallow
had it come at the hands of Jake Oettinger. But even if I tried to go backwards
in time to convince myself to bet Dallas over New Jersey, it would have been a
tough sell with Wedgewood starting.
2) Favorites -1.5 goals: +$1,244 2) Road underdogs +1.5 goals: +$659
3) Road favorites moneyline: +$850 3) Road favorites -1.5 goals: +$605
2) Road underdogs moneyline: -$538 2) Overs: -$1,206
3) Home favorites moneyline: -$433 3) Underdogs -1.5 goals: -$1,065
(over/under/hedges not included) ($100 ML + $100 PL+1.5 + $100 PL-1.5)
2) New York Rangers: +$556 2) New York Rangers: +$818
3) Buffalo Sabres: +$543 3) St. Louis Blues: +$776
(over/under/hedges not included)
2) Nashville Predators, -$300
3) Dallas Stars, -$200
(over/under/hedges not included) ($100 ML + $100 PL+1.5 + $100 PL-1.5)
(over/under/hedges not included)
2) New York Rangers, -$750
3) St. Louis Blues, -$400
2) Los Angeles unders, +$301
3) Islanders overs, +$300
3) Pittsburgh unders, +$287
3) Columbus unders, +$279
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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