Locky’s First Period NHL Model 3/11: Those Sneaky Islanders
Brad Penner, USA Today Sports. Pictured: Mathew Barzal
Good morning!
It was a pretty quiet day yesterday overall, as a 5%-ish edge in Detroit-Florida lost, and two smaller edges won. Meh.
One thing I want to mention briefly that I brought up on a Canadian radio show yesterday (yes, there is interest in first-period betting in Canada, because of course there is) is how goalie news can sort-of sabotage my attempts to get information to you early in the day.
In Vegas-Calgary I was doing projections as if Marc-Andre Fleury was starting, when obviously as the day went on that was not going to be the case, and the projection was altered.
I can do a better job about disseminating really obvious changes like that on Twitter or something, but just understand that goalie info early in the day isn't great. However, the lines are the "softest" (at least I think they are) at open so it's a worthwhile trade-off for me.
Anyway, as for today, some small edges on teams that have been very profitable "over" teams this year (San Jose, Tampa) and no edge on Chicago because the juice on basically every one of their games is a turn-off.
A Reminder
If you’re new here, I built a model to handicap first-period over/unders in the NHL.
To provide the greatest value to you the bettor, each of these articles will include a downloadable Excel file at the bottom. In it, you can insert the line at your sportsbook of choice and see the bets that are — and aren’t — offering value, according to my model.
Columbus Blue Jackets at New York Islanders
7 p.m. ET
Today's largest edge comes from the meeting of Columbus and the Islanders, and for good reason.
If you assume that any derivative market is just a certain percentage of the full-game market, the first-period total in New York-Columbus SHOULD be juiced the way it is. What is unique is that these are two teams whose distributions of goals are way out of whack from what is "conventional."
The Islanders, although they do not have a prolific offense in general, score a larger-than-average percentage of their goals in the first, and allow a larger-than-average percent.
They are a great first-period over team within the construct of my hypothesis and model. Columbus is even better. They allow 35.8% of their goals in the first (as much as the Blackhawks! Except look what you're paying for THEIR overs).
The game itself may not be that high-scoring but the distribution of goals in it seems to lean heavily to the first period.
Locky’s First-Period NHL Over/Unders: Full Slate Projections
Download the Excel doc to input odds from your sportsbooks. The table below is best viewed on a desktop computer.
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