2023/24 Week 1 NHL Betting Report

Week 1 of the NHL season has been logged into the history books, and I’m looking forward to closing this dark chapter of my life. This was not a good week for my picks, but my 2nd week of 2021 was substantially worse, so I’ve survived darker days. There’s more volatility early in the schedule when we’re still trying to figure out who is good and who is bad. For me more than anything it’s trying to asses the precise hot/cold barometers for every goalie. Who is on, who is not. Jordan Binnington was one of the best goalies to bet against last season, but has a .969 SV% in 2 starts. Goalies drive wins, losses, overs, and unders.
 
Before we go any further, it’s time for my obligatory *DISCLAIMER* it needs be noted that I’m not betting with real money. These are all fictional wagers in a spreadsheet. My mission is to engage in a mass betting campaign, picking a winner of every single game, every over/under, because it provides a complete dataset for macroeconomic analysis, which can be shared with you, shedding light on what worked and what failed. I’m also tracking the results of betting every outcome, to help me (and you) uncover previously unknown or newly emerging profit vectors. What started as a thought experiment has evolved into much more.
 
If you’d like to read more about the first 3 years of this thought experiment, I actually wrote a 330-page book outlining the results from every angle. It’s ostensibly a journal of my experience; 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 blog has been moved to Substack this season and I’ll be repeatedly encouraging everyone to sign-up for a free subscription to alleviate my dependence on Twitter for traffic. I’m concerned that Elon will follow through on his threat to charge everyone for Twitter and ostensibly destroy his own company. I wouldn’t put anything past him at this point, and I’ve got too many eggs in that basket. Subscribers receive an email notification each time a new post is published, and even if Twitter stays free, the algorithm likes to hide Tweets with links so you don’t leave.
 
My Weekly Profit: -$1,816           Tailing History Weekly Profit: $2,537
My Season Profit: -$1,816            Tailing History Season Profit: $2,537
 
This is an awkward beginning to my betting season, as it’s unclear whether I should proud or embarrassed. On one hand, I founded this betting portfolio that makes all its decisions based on historical precedence, and it absolutely crushed week one with $2,537 in profit. Meanwhile, me and my analytical brain was fully aware of all those picks when logging my own, but my “superior” intelligence decided that simple algorithm would make flawed decisions and largely ignored its attempted advice. That being said, if I start tailing the portfolio with all my personal picks, then I won’t be able to close the gap when it’s wrong.
 
This must be how Viktor Frankenstein felt when he built his own person out of spare parts and birthed a monster of unimaginable power. I don’t know what the minimum complexity threshold is to label a series of algorithms as “artificial intelligence”, but I’d like pretend this is an A.I driven portfolio that will eventually replace me as a handicapper and make my work obsolete. We’ll have to just wait and see. For a full description of how “Tailing History” (henceforth referred to as T.H) makes its wagers, it’s all laid out in my weekly previews out every Sunday. To read my Week 2 Preview, click here.
 
My Week 1 Preview pointed towards home teams as historically strong in opening weeks, and that was the case once again in 2023/24. My response was taking some big swings early trying to capitalize on history repeating, but sportsbooks were also aware of history and charged a higher price for those bets. The problem from my end was that I was leveraging more on the bigger favorites (at least -200) when it was the lesser faves who really drove the bus, but I lacked the confidence in the lesser favorites to cover -1.5 goals and avoided a profitable angle.
 
My rocky start kicked off on opening night when the Pittsburgh Penguins lost to Chicago in Connor Bedard’s first game, costing me a max wager on the puckline. The Boston Bruins got the job done against tired Blackhawks the next night, but then Toronto needed a shootout to beat Montreal, and I was fully leveraged on the puckline. It was the Vegas Golden Knights who emerged atop my Profitability Rankings this week, going 3-0. These were formerly called my “Power Rankings” but power is the wrong word when I’m profiting from a team’s futility.
 
This is an uncomfortable time of year for me and over/under betting, despite having some success in past week ones. There isn’t enough data to feed the algorithms that guide my decisions, so I’m basically using stats from the 2nd half of last season to estimate whether to bet over or under, and that was a failure in week one. Meanwhile, my Tailing History portfolio, that I was concerned would be a big loser on over/under wagers actually did very well. As mentioned in the preview, I disagreed with many of the T.S over/under picks, but it turned out that’s the algorithm I should have been using, not the second half of last season. ‘
 
Part of the problem for me is that when the total was 6.5, overs went 13-10, but when the total was 6, unders went 6-3. Whereas I was gravitating more to over 6 and under 6.5 because average week one goals per game was 6.3. I have already stopped looking at last year’s goal numbers to assist in my decisions, using instead the first 1-3 games of the current schedule. Generally, I’ll wait for teams to play at least 5 games each before I’ll start using algorithms for over/under decisions, but last year I couldn’t wait that long.
 
Goalie hot and cold streaks also inform my O/U decisions once the schedule is underway, but it’s still too soon to officially label anyone hot or cold. Well, Edmonton goalies certainly started ice cold, but otherwise I’m anxiously waiting for a sufficiently large sample to start declaring trends. Carolina averaged 9 goals per game (for + against), so that was one of the best bets. But the top of the leaderboard was occupied by unders, led by Chicago, Seattle, and Vegas. I’m sticking to minimum sized bets on O/U until my algorithm is officially activated.
 
Sunday night one of my Twitter colleagues (shout out Nizzy) noted that he wanted to start betting home teams in home openers, after San Jose nearly beat Colorado and Anaheim beat Carolina. That’s an easy filter to punch into my historical database for a profitability review.  In the previous 4 seasons, home teams were 80-46 in their first tilt in front of their fans and if you bet $100 moneyline on all of them to win (even the longshots) you banked $1,691. It just so happens we have a few home openers left, and I’m planning to bet them all. Scroll down to the bottom for some upcoming picks.
 
 
My Team of the Week: Vegas Golden Knights, +$1,022
 
The defending Stanley Cup champion had a very easy schedule in week one, and they were the one favorite who really delivered, at least for me. They beat Seattle handily on opening night, then beat the Sharks by the same 4-1 score on Thursday. I actually bet the Kraken in the first game, but a minimum bet because they’re a solid road dog, at least they were last year. Then I put a max bet on their puckline -1.5 goals Saturday vs Anaheim, winning by…you guessed it…4-1. This might be the team I’m riding early, but we’ll see how they do against adversity. No evidence of a Stanley Cup hangover yet.
 
My second best team of the week was the Florida Panthers, betting them to lose on their opening road trip, mostly inspired by their injuries on the blueline and Bobrovsky’s history of bad starts. Granted, all the winnings came from their opening 2-0 loss in Minnesota. I was a net loser in their Jets game thanks to betting Winnipeg +1.5 goals (because I’m not entirely confident in them yet) and incorrectly betting under. Note to self, Florida overs might be a fantastic wager in the coming weeks, or at least until Bobrovsky settles down.
 
 
My Worst Team(s) of the Week: Edmonton and Vancouver, -$950
 
The Edmonton Oilers and Vancouver Canucks played nobody but each other in week one, and it could not have gone worse for me. I went big on the Oilers to beat them in the first game, remembering that the Canucks have a history of bad play in the first quarter of the season and expecting the Oilers to be awesome. It was a massacre, but not with the expected victim. So I doubled down on Edmonton the next game, based on the law of good teams coming out hard after blowout losses, but the law was broken, Canucks won again. Good teams avenging blowout losses was long believed to be carved in stone tablets by the Hockey Gods…
 
The Toronto Maple Leafs are a team that has given me difficulty in the past, and week one was no different. They’re typically bad when I bet them to win, and unstoppable when I bet them to lose. It’s strange. Sometimes it legitimately feels like my betting choices have an impact on the outcome of the game. I’m pretty sure the laws of physics have proven the butterfly effect is real, but don’t quote me on that. I went big on the Leafs puckline -1.5 goals at home vs Montreal, and they needed a shootout to win. Then I put a small bet on Minnesota to win the next game because +140 felt like a nice number, and Toronto blew them out.
 

My Week 1 Results

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

 
Home teams did produce a strong week one return, both moneyline and puckline. Some of the heavier home favorites struggled covering the puckline, while those offering the higher payout produced a much better return. If the home moneyline was between -110 and -199, then the puckline -1.5 goals produced a large return (if you bet $100 on each, you banked more than $1,200). Home dogs -1.5 goals snuck onto the leaderboard after the last game of the week after Anaheim embarrassed Carolina, hitting the alt puckline at +475. The category leaderboard was very grim for me, and I’d rather not talk about it thank you very much…
 

Vegas it turns out was not the best team to bet overall, that was actually the Vancouver Canucks, and I did not board that train when it left the station, but I’m running behind to catch up. Tochett might be a good coach. If he gets Demko in a zone, that’s a dangerous team. Note to self. My best team to bet against was Washington, with most of that coming in their home loss to Pittsburgh, a pick I actually made before the season started because Draft Kings had opening week lines. I may not have done that if the bet had been logged after Pittsburgh lost to Chicago.
 

68% of the betting totals this week opened at 6.5 goals. Last year week one that was only 38%. It felt like a trap that all the totals were inflated, but if you bet over every time the total was 6.5, you made a profit. As you can see, I’m playing closer attention to “line ranges” this season, and also have a historical database to see all the ranges from the previous seasons in various permutations. That’s feeding my “A.I”.
 

Team By Team Profitability 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.
 

Me vs Myself

 
Below is a side-by-side look at me vs my portfolio. It’s humbling, but at least its success gives me something to be positive about. The only category my Tailing History portfolio lost money betting was home favorites -1.5 goals, but it more than made up the difference on the home teams listed at -110 on the moneyline, hitting Detroit -1.5 goals vs Tampa at +215 and Winnipeg vs Florida at +200. You can extrapolate what all it’s picks will be this week using my preview (where the formula is explained).
 
I don’t think it will have a good week two. It has max bets on Arizona and Chicago -1.5 goals (+425 and +600) vs New York and Toronto. I’m betting the home teams for those. It put 1.2 units on Detroit -120 vs Columbus and LA -110 vs Winnipeg, both of which I’m tailing. Tuesday it has a max bet and an almost max bet on San Jose vs Carolina, and Montreal vs Minnesota, both -1.5 goals at home as dogs. I’m NOT tailing either of those. My confidence in Carolina is shaken after the Anaheim loss, so I’m going mostly puckline.
 
I also have small bets on the Philly, Seattle, and Chicago home openers, with some larger bets on the Florida, Arizona, and Rangers home opener (spread between moneyline and puckline). I’m betting all the remaining home openers, we’ll see how that goes. Panthers opening road trip has been a struggle and it looks like it could be another slow start for Bobrovsky, but it’ll also be the Leafs first road game and it’ll be hostile territory. I won’t be going all in though, because the injuries on Florida’s defense looks like it’ll be a big problem until Montour and Ekblad get healthy.