2022/23 NHL Week 15 Betting Report

Welcome to my Week 15 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 14 Betting Report.
 
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My Weekly Profit: -$343
My Season Profit: $10,964
 
The All-star break is fast approaching, at which time I’ll be doing a statistical deep dive into over/under betting to iron out some lumps in my algorithm, which had a disappointing performance in the 2nd quarter of the season after getting obliterated in the final two weeks of the half (for a full breakdown of the second quarter, click here). Though I found myself in a similar situation last year around this time, when my current algorithm was born during the All-star break and crushed the remainder of the second half. I’m hoping that history will repeat itself, though my over/under hardship might have already come to an end.
 
Over/under wagers have been weighing me down the past few weeks, so my algorithm was demoted to a purely advisory role, which seemed to reverse my misfortune. A second simple formula was put into practice, simply counting the number of times those two teams went over or under that total in their last 7 games. I’m only taking the advice when both methods agree, then looking at the game logs (with starting goalies) and making a judgement call when they disagree. They actually agreed quite a lot, and I didn’t even execute very many overrides.
 
There were only two things that saved me from a cataclysmic performance, over/under and betting against back-to-backs. Those life-preservers generated $2,015 for my portfolio, losing -$2,359 on everything else. Shorting those tired teams against rested opponents continues to pay dividends. They haven’t all been home runs for me, losing a few large wagers here and there, but on the whole it’s been among my best categories following a bad first quarter. You’ll still get a better number on the opening line than the closing line vs tired teams.
 
This was a stunningly good week for favorites -1.5 goals, despite only producing a small profit on the moneyline. Favorites won 35 games, and covered -1.5 goals in 27 of them. If you bet $100 on every favorite moneyline, you only walked away with $40, versus $1,130 on the puckline. The opposite was true for me though, as the favorites that seduced me into making large wagers -1.5 goals were awful, covering just 2 of 6 bets. The two that hit were on San Jose and Arizona opponents, the 4 that missed were all Montreal and Chicago (totaling -$1,145 in losses from the puckline alone).
 
The Habs and Blackhawks going 5-2 was a massive blow to my profit margin, engineering some big upsets. Though I might only have myself to blame, as the Hawks started heating up last week but that did not deter me from making large wagers on two non-playoff teams (Buffalo and Philadelphia) to crush them by at least 2 goals. Montreal’s reversal is the product of Sam Montembeault catching fire, so perhaps I can be forgiven for being skeptical that was sustainable. Hawks-Habs now have a combined 8-4 record in the third quarter of the season (hence my bad start to Q3).
 
While Montreal and Chicago seem to be turning their seasons around, the Arizona Coyotes had lost 9 of their last 10 games before beating the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday. The Yotes have had a few nice little profitability streaks this season that were lucrative, but it looks like the tank is finally taking hold. When they finally start selling off their assets, the futility should intensify (especially if Vejmelka is moved). Problem is, the line prices on their opponents have been absurdly expensive for most of the season, so you’re not getting a lot of value there.
 
The Los Angeles Kings went 1-2, and I took a big loss by betting too much on them to beat Dallas, who was on a back-to-back with Scott Wedgewood in goal. The Stars won 4-0, so in retrospect it was a bad decision to make another big bet on Kings to beat Nashville Saturday, which was another loser. The team I should have been betting to win this week was Colorado, who won all 4 of their games despite losing Cale Makar to injury. That scared me away from betting Avs, and an opportunity was lost. Losing Makar even helped improve their line offerings.
 
The Vegas Golden Knights went 1-3, and you could have had a good week betting them to lose. I was ready to jump all over their opponents when they lost Mark Stone to injury, and did profit from their first 2 losses. Then they beat Washington on Saturday costing me some money, so I made a big bet on the Knights to beat the struggling Coyotes on Sunday, and Arizona won convincingly. Despite that loss, I still had a strong week betting against Arizona thanks to Washington getting the job done.
 
 

My Week 15 Results

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

 
As discussed above, my biggest saving grace this week was over/under betting, and it’s always a good feeling when I’m able to generate a good profit on both sides. While my algorithm might have been reduced to an advisory role, it still would have banked $923 had all the recommendations been accepted. My oversight was able to spawn an extra $110 profit, going 4-3 on my manual overrides. Investigating game logs for patterns and anomalies when it’s “too close to call” was mildly effective, but there’s no guarantee that will continue.
 
Game logs and season stats are automatically imported into my “Game Summary” worksheet where all my betting decisions are made, but sometimes I’m in a rush and don’t take the time to engage in a full investigation. My biggest issue has been outlier high scoring games, leading to incorrect over recommendations in the aftermath. Unders went 29-27-2 as there was a slight decrease in goal scoring. The dominant under teams were Boston, Arizona, Ottawa, Colorado, Dallas, Winnipeg, and Vegas. Those are the cautionary teams if you love betting overs (and who doesn’t).
 
If you do like those overs, the best teams were Anaheim, San Jose, Tampa, and Florida. The Lightning were among my best O/U teams (#2 behind the Blue Jackets), as I went 8-0 on Tampa and Columbus O/U wagers (and would have been a net loser overall if not for those two squads). The team that confounded my new method the most was Chicago, going 0-4 as my worst over/under team (losing more than my 2nd and 3rd worst combined). Of course that means there was an even split, with a mix of high and low scoring games that just weren’t predictable.
 
 
My Team of the Week: Edmonton Oilers, +$863
 
One bandwagon that I hopped on board this week was the Edmonton Oilers with the return of Evander Kane. They were already on a 3-game win streak entering the week, extending that to 6 by defeating Seattle, Tampa, and Vancouver (with me on the right side of all 3). There was a nice price offered on their first two wins, and even -155 on the road against a tired Canucks team was a good price. They had lost 4 of their previous 5 before this run. It was starting to look bleak, but now that Kane is back, they seem to have rediscovered their magic.
 
While the Toronto Maple Leafs let me down big time the past 7 days, the Boston Bruins sustained dominance and cashed tickets going 4 for 4, covering -1.5 goals in all 4. There was one blip where I bet the Rangers, but only because the Bruins played the night before, which didn’t seem to be a problem. The league’s best team has now won 9 of their last 10 games, covering -1.5 goals in all but 2 of those wins. Granted, they had a relatively easy schedule in that span, playing half of those games against the weaker western conference.
 
 
My Worst Team of the Week: Chicago Blackhawks, -$1,413
 
You can probably already guess my worst teams of the week from my introductory paragraphs, as the Habs and Blackhawks had a big lead on third place. Chicago had the league’s worst record in the second quarter, and my Q2 Betting Report congratulated myself for great work betting them to lose. I went “all in” on their first two opponents, where the Hawks pulled off big upset victories. It was enough that I bet them +215 to beat St. Louis on Saturday, despite investing heavily in their opponents the last 2 months. To make matters worse, I went 0-4 on their over/under.
 
Forgive me for not anticipating that Sam Montembeault would be in Vezina form the last 2 weeks, but my eyes were opened by upset wins against the Rangers and Jets. I became a believer and bet them to beat Florida, which they lost 6-2. That made me think “okay, Sammy turned back into a pumpkin” let’s go “all in” on Toronto Saturday. He made 36 saves for the win. The Habs also had just lost Cole Caufield for the season, easily their best sniper, so betting the Leafs to win that game still feels smart in retrospect, luck just bounced the wrong way. One of my “line value” algorithms tried to warn me that Toronto line was way too expensive, but the warning was enthusiastically ignored to my own peril.
 
 
My 3 Best Market Bets of Week 15:                  Overall Best Market Bets of Week 15:
 
1) Shorting back-to-backs ML: +$982                  1) Favorites -1.5 goals: +$1,131
2) Unders: +$546                                                   2) Shorting back-to-backs ML: +$430
3) Overs: +$488                                                     3) Home favorites moneyline: +$207
 
My 3 Worst Market Bets of Week 15:              Overall Worst Market Bets of Week 15:
 
1) Road underdogs moneyline: -$720                  1) Underdogs +1.5 goals: -$1,009
2) Favorites -1.5 goals: -$613                               2) Underdogs -1.5 goals: -$910
3) Heavy favorites moneyline: -$364                   3) Underdogs moneyline: -$699
 
 
My Best Teams To Bet On In Week 15:            Overall Best Teams To Bet On:
(over/under/hedges not included)                         ($100 ML + $100 PL+1.5 + $100 PL-1.5)
 
1) Edmonton Oilers: +$722                                  1) Chicago Blackhawks: +$1,460
2) Boston Bruins: +$665                                       2) Colorado Avalanche: +$923
3) Washington Capitals: +$416                             3) Edmonton Oilers: +$842
 
My Worst Teams To Bet On In Week 15
(over/under/hedges not included)
 
1) Los Angeles Kings, -$628
2) Toronto Maple Leafs, -$598
3) Philadelphia Flyers, -$569
 
My Best Teams To Bet Against In Week 15:      Overall Best Teams To Bet Against:
(over/under/hedges not included)                          ($100 ML + $100 PL+1.5 + $100 PL-1.5)
 
1) Vancouver Canucks, +$474                               1) Vegas Golden Knights: +$849
2) New York Islanders, +$369                               2) Vancouver Canucks: +$681
3) Arizona Coyotes, +$344                                    3) Los Angeles Kings: +$606
 
 
My Worst Teams To Bet Against In Week 15:
(over/under/hedges not included)
 
1) Montreal Canadiens, -$1,150
2) Chicago Blackhawks, -$1,128
3) Dallas Stars, -$600
 
Market’s Best Over/Under Bets In Week 15:  
($100 wagers)
 
1) Anaheim overs, +$364
2) Boston unders, +$279
3) Rangers unders, +$191

 
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.