Monday, December 5, 2022

2022/23 NHL Week 8 Betting Report

Welcome to my Week 8 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 7 Betting Report.

If you’re looking for a big picture commentary on the last 3 years of hockey betting, you should check out my new book the Hockey Economist's Betting Prospectus; breaking it down by team, by category, by strategy, by season. There is plenty of useful information for bettors of all skill levels. It covers pre-pandemic, peak-pandemic, post-pandemic. What worked, what failed. Lessons learned, market trends, team-by-team analysis. What impact did the pandemic have on hockey betting? The market differences between these 3 seasons are discussed at length, and there's a lot to talk about. To read more, visit the Amazon store.


 
My Weekly Profit: $1,442
My Season Profit: $8,595

This was the first full week of the NHL season’s second quarter, and if you’d like to read a 15,000 word breakdown of the first quarter, then click here. My quarterly reports dig deeper into each individual team, with cool new stat graphics outlining the results of betting on every outcome every game for every team. There are charts to show you how each of the major categories performed for the first 6 weeks, and several team rankings by category. Who was the best team -1.5 goals? Who was the best to bet against -1.5 goals?

Last year at this time we still had strict Covid testing and the Omicron variant was spreading rapidly through the NHL, forcing multiple teams to quarantine for a big chunk of December. It’s probably not a coincidence that there was also a scoring boom taking hold early last December that peaked shortly after Christmas. I don’t expect that means overs are about to boom because those were unlikely circumstances, however week 8 was the second highest scoring week of the season (thanks in part to Seattle’s 9-8 victory against Los Angeles).

My best category in the first quarter was road moneyline, and that category is out to a big lead in the second quarter. At no point did I make a conscious decision to start focusing on road teams, but when I’m making my picks for each match, I’m crunching the home-road win percentages of both teams and comparing it to the implied probability of the betting line. It’s possible that there’s an unfair tax on home moneylines that is jacking the profitability of visitors. We’ll just have to wait and see how much longer this persists.

If you want to know what’s driving a trend, the best place to start is the teams involved. Buffalo, Detroit, Philly, Los Angeles, Columbus, St. Louis, Vancouver, and the Rangers went a combined 4-18 at home; while Carolina, Nashville, New Jersey, Tampa, and Vegas won 11 of 13 games on the road. So basically we had a large number of struggling teams play 2-3 games on home ice, and suddenly a new trend is born. Once those struggling teams leave for road trips, we’ll probably see a bump in home ice performance.

While I’d love to brag about my insightful intelligent road picks, my worst category was home moneyline, so I was still making mistakes on the other side of the week’s best bet. However, since road moneyline was also my best category of the entire first quarter, evidence suggests there has been excess value betting visitors. It’s not necessarily all about who struggled on homestands. Favorites were the primary driver of the visitor success this week, but road dogs do have a higher rate of return on the season as a whole.

Speaking of road dogs, sadly my Arizona Coyotes went winless this week and have now lost 8 of their last 9 games (they’ve been on the road for over a month). My streak of consecutive games betting Arizona to win and/or cover -1.5 goals is still alive at 16 (with another set for Monday night), and I’m still up $700 during the streak (which doesn’t include over/under, just bets on Yotes to win), but that’s down from the peak of $1,300 after the win vs Carolina 11 games into the streak. Four of their last five losses have only been by one goal, and they had a lead at one point during many of these games, so it certainly doesn’t feel like they’re on a 1-8 run.

I’m finally starting to have success betting Chicago and Anaheim to lose, though you may not have shared in my success if you bet Rangers to beat the Blackhawks on Saturday night. That was not a confidence vote in Chicago, but rather one of my algorithms could not understand how the Rangers were -255 favorites. So my shorting of Chicago had to take a pause for a bad line, and it paid off. The team I should have been betting against more aggressively was St. Louis, who are now mired in a 1-5 slump after peeling off 7 straight wins. They suck, they’re good, they suck. You just can’t trust this team one way or the other (underdogs have won 50% of all their matches, driven mostly by Blues opponents).



This was also a strong week for me betting on the correct outcome of Colorado games, over/under notwithstanding. The Avalanche have been devastated with injures and lost 2 of 3 games, with me picking the correct winner in all 3 games. They are currently without Landeskog, Nichushkin, Manson, Byram, Rodrigues, and Lehkonen. They currently have Alex Galchenuyk, Martin Kaut, and Charles Hudon playing in their top 6. This has created an opportunity for bettors, as the Avs still get a lot of respect from oddsmakers despite the health woes.
 

My Week 8 Results

*Note* “Market Return” is based on betting exactly $100 on every outcome.

My over/under algorithm was on its way to a second consecutive uninspiring week before going 11-5-2 on the weekend. Moving the writing of my Fantasy Hockey Report from Saturday night to Friday night allowed me to move writing the first 500 words of my Betting Report to Saturday night. Otherwise I would have written a very pessimistic appraisal on Friday night only to delete it on Sunday night. Instead I’m happy to report a modest 7.7% return with a profit betting both overs and unders (though 97% of my total profit came from unders).

Unders did have a big lead overall heading into the weekend, until overs struck back going 10-6-2 on Sat-Sun. As mentioned above, this was the second highest scoring week of the season at 6.57 goals per game, which would make you think that overs had a great week; especially considering the average betting total was 6.2 (the second lowest of the season). The reason unders finished ahead is that most of the scoring boom was confined to a few games. There was a 17 goal game, and 4 others where at least 10 goals were scored.

This was a resurgent week to be betting against back-to-backs, which was my worst category in the first quarter. It was the best category overall in week 8, but only 3rd best in my own personal cat ranks. The prices were still expensive, but this week it was worth the cost. They won 69% of their games in the last 7 days, and each of those wins was by at least 2 goals. There was some cross-over in my heavy favorites ML and shorting btb ML success this week, boosted by big bets on the Jets and Islanders on Sunday.

 

My Team of the Week: New York Rangers, +$1,201

This was surely a tough week to be a New York Rangers fan, but it was a good week for anyone betting them to lose. I went in big on my New Jersey Devils when they played New York on Monday, which cashed. I was willing to bet the Rangers to beat Ottawa when they were a -125 favorite, and they won the game. In the rematch NYR was a -175 favorite, which was too rich more my blood, so I took the Sens and Ottawa won. It didn’t make any sense to me or my algorithms that the Rangers were -255 favorites against Chicago, so I bet the Blackhawks and cashed another ticket.

The Anaheim Ducks were my second best team of the week, with them going 0-4 and me going 4 for 4. Most of that money was on Ducks to lose, but I did take them +1.5 goals vs Minnesota (because they were offering plus money), and they lost in overtime. The Ducks have won 40% of their home games and 13% of their road games, so I’m getting really aggressive betting them to lose on the road, but being a little more cautious when they’re at home. Also be aware John Gibson has a .916 SV% in the last 2 weeks. He’s dangerous when hot.


My Worst Team of the Week: Nashville Predators, -$606

The Nashville Predators were the biggest obstruction to my profitability this week; first when they upset the New Jersey Devils, then when they upset the Islanders the next night on a back-to-back. Betting the Devils and Islanders to win was a big part of my blueprint for success in the first quarter, as was betting Nashville to lose (to a lesser extent), but shit happens. Nashville only tied that Devils game with 8 seconds left, otherwise I’d be telling a different tale here. Note to self: Nashville has now won 7 of their last 9 games.

I also struggled with Vegas this week, but the losses were pretty evenly spread between overs, unders, wins and losses. The biggest loss was their failure to beat Pittsburgh who had just lost Letang, which inspired me to put a little extra on the Knights. My algorithm also recommended betting double on that under, which missed by 0.5 goals. 80% of all my money lost on Vegas came from that game.

 
 
My 3 Best Market Bets of Week 8:                    Overall Best Market Bets of Week 8:
 
1) Road moneyline: +$1,434                                 1) Shorting back-to-backs ML+PL: +$1,356
2) Heavy favorites ML: +$1,172                           2) Road favorites -1.5 goals: +$835
3) Shorting back-to-backs ML+PL: +$1,171        3) Road favorites ML: +$597
 
My 3 Worst Market Bets of Week 8:                 Overall Worst Market Bets of Week 8:
 
1) Home moneyline: -$691                                    1) Home moneyline: -$1,323
2) Road favorites -1.5 goals: -$350                       2) Underdogs -1.5 goals: -$1,115
3) Underdogs -1.5 goals: -$150                             3) Underdogs moneyline: -$1,094
 
 
My Best Teams To Bet On In Week 8:               Overall Best Teams To Bet On:
(over/under/hedges not included)                          ($100 ML + $100 PL+1.5 + $100 PL-1.5)
 
1) Boston Bruins: +$615                                        1) Carolina Hurricanes: +$617
2) Edmonton Oilers: +$284                                   2) Nashville Predators: +$578
3) Colorado Avalanche: +$250                              3) Boston Bruins: +$462
 
My Worst Teams To Bet On In Week 8
(over/under/hedges not included)
 
1) Arizona Coyotes, -$300
2) Vegas Golden Knights, -$250
3) Vancouver Canucks, -$250
 
My Best Teams To Bet Against In Week 8:        Overall Best Teams To Bet Against:
(over/under/hedges not included)                          ($100 ML + $100 PL+1.5 + $100 PL-1.5)
 
1) New York Rangers, +$916                                1) New York Rangers: +$1,038
2) Anaheim Ducks, +$583                                     2) St. Louis Blues: +$854
3) Chicago Blackhawks, +$569                             3) New York Islanders: +$762
 
My Worst Teams To Bet Against In Week 8:
(over/under/hedges not included)
 
1) Nashville Predators, -$750
2) Pittsburgh Penguins, -$350
3) Carolina Hurricanes, -$350
 
Market’s Best Over/Under Bets In Week 8:  
($100 wagers)
 
1) Buffalo overs, +$373
2) Islanders unders, +$283
3) Minnesota overs, +$262
 

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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