In this article, we will touch on how NHL line movement works, how oddsmakers set opening prices, and some general NHL betting thoughts and tactics, including some thoughts on player prop betting.
Many of these subjects are quite intricate, and this could easily have been a 10,000-word guide, but these explanations are intended to be concise while providing pertinent and useful overlying thoughts.
How Does NHL Line Movement on Sides and Totals Work?
As with markets across all sports, the fairly common belief that oddsmakers move lines in order to keep money split evenly on opposing outcomes is generally inaccurate. Oddsmakers will move lines based on positions taken by respected bettors, which, therefore, makes them willing to reconsider what accurate prices on a game are.
Sportsbooks are comfortable with an uneven split on a game if they are not given a legitimate reason to believe their prices are wrong, and in general, as it relates to the NHL, I've never seen cause to believe public bet percentages are an effective predictive indicator.
New information becoming available will always lead to line movement regardless of prior action, which furthers the point that, generally, oddsmakers are simply trying to set the sharpest prices, and it is an important note regarding betting NHL sides and totals in particular.
Relative to other sports, such as the NFL, it is a little easier to find spots where opening prices on sides and totals are clearly mispriced on the NHL and always likely to offer closing line value, as is the nature of betting on sports with a smaller handle.
Utilizing your edge to make meaningful returns can be more difficult, though, given lower opening limits and sportsbooks' increased efforts to limit sharp action.
Tips for Gaining Line Value Betting the NHL
The first and most obvious way to gain CLV when betting on the NHL is to bet into markets that are likely to be adjusted due to needle-moving lineup news, though this strategy will not help your betting accounts stay healthy for too long.
The most obvious instance of this is backing sides or totals based on the assumption that a backup goaltender will play. Over the last several seasons, it has become an extreme rarity for NHL teams to go back-to-back with their top option.
Despite that fact, it's still quite common for recreational books to post opening prices in spots where a number-one goaltender was never likely to play as they were playing, a fact that is then proven correct once confirmation breaks that the backup is confirmed and the numbers ultimately move.
Back-to-back spots are the most obvious, but with some experience, bettors can learn to pick off other logical spots where backups will start and bet into that belief to gain superior prices.
Opposed to other sports, it is also easier to get bets in immediately following significant lineup news in terms of futures and game-by-game prices. Again, this tactic is not ideal for account health but is much more effective compared to higher-handle markets such as the NFL.
How Oddsmakers Originate Lines
Compared to years past, NHL lines have become sharper, as oddsmakers pour more and more money into creating models that create a more accurate depiction of how effective a team's recent process truly is, while also weighing potential situational advantages.
NHL teams can easily end up with inflated records and/or worse-than-expected results over a small sample of play, as with teams in any sport. Attempting to truly assess a team's level of play aside from simply their record is most important, and then using that rating to assess what a fair price should be in the upcoming matchup.
Personally, I am a believer that there is an edge to be gained using the "eye test" in conjunction with analytics to help power-rate NHL sides, but with the caveat that bettors should not let the ultimate result curve their perspective on what they saw in a previous matchup.
It is also a big commitment for bettors to watch enough games in a short span for the manual observations to hold merit.
Bounces and puck luck play a huge role in determining which team wins a game at the NHL level.
There will always be a crowd that says the results are what they are, but it's a close enough league that teams can earn marginal results simply by earning a few timely bounces and or the other team missing some should-be goals at the right moments.
When handicapping the NHL, we always want to try to evaluate a team's process based on how well they are controlling play and the type of chances they are creating on average and not overweighing results.
Whether you are entirely doing so based on analytics or weighing some personal thoughts on what you have seen, it's most important to try to evaluate how strong a team's process seems to be, and evaluate any meaningful changes as opposed to simply betting on prior results.
Rest and situational advantages are also important when evaluating NHL markets, as even the most talented team's expected advantage can dry up in a hurry on nights where the opponent is winning the vast majority of puck battles and is able to play at a greater pace.
Paying attention to a team's recent schedule is important, as well as other extenuating factors that may lead to an abnormally poor or weak performance.
As with betting on any sport, it's important to pay respect to the randomness and volatility of professional hockey. It's difficult for any team to entirely control the result, and it's always possible to suffer a loss on a bet that followed a strong process.
Good bets can lose, and bad bets can win, and keeping an even stake based on expected edge and sticking with a sound process is important.
NHL Player Prop Betting Tips
Sportsbooks' odds on NHL player props have become much sharper in recent years, and the period of time when you can lock in bets that clearly hold an edge based on lineup adjustments has become much shorter than when I initially started handicapping the NHL.
Still, there's definitely lots of value to be had betting on NHL player props, and I'll attempt to outline some useful information below.
First and foremost, having accounts with numerous sportsbooks is important if you are moderately serious about betting.
This is obviously not an uncommon tip, but it's particularly important for betting NHL player props, as the disparity between the most popular books on markets such as anytime goalscorer and/or shots on goal is often quite significant, even for bettors who aren't entirely price sensitive.
Outside of that, many of what I would consider to be the most important tips to finding edges would be similar to those involving betting sides. Simply looking at a player's game logs is not enough to create a legitimate edge.
Oddsmakers' models weigh a lot of factors, and while NHL player prop prices are not currently unbeatable by any means, it's important to try to come up with context that those models might be missing.
The easiest way to find an edge betting into NHL player props is by targeting markets that do not seem to quantify a player who has an adjusted role in the lineup.
I'll use a past best bet on Sam Malinski to record a point as an example, as the opening price versus closing price gives credit to the fact that Malinski's adjusted role with Cale Makar sidelined was not originally factored into the original number.
Malinski opened at +110 (or higher in some spots) to record a point but closed at -135. Whether the bet wins or loses, this is a very strong indicator that we locked in a position that holds strong eventual value.
By knowing that Malinski was the most logical candidate to overtake Makar's role on Colorado's top pairing and power play, we gained a fairly simple edge.
My overarching point would be that attempting to keep a strong understanding of which skaters would plug into certain spots following meaningful injuries can be rewarding for bettors and is a realistic way for even fairly casual bettors to find an edge, but with the asterisk that some understanding of a given skater's typical prop prices is important.
I'll use one more personal example from a recent article of mine to try to outline two additional types of context that can be useful when betting NHL props.
In this piece, I detail why a price of +160 for William Nylander to record over 2.5 shots on goal in an upcoming game appeared to be way too long.
At the time, Nylander was coming off an abnormally high stretch of games in which he either left early or played fewer minutes than usual.
Nylander is obviously a known product at the NHL level in being an elite scorer with reasonable shot volume, so it seemed to be a good time to take advantage of models that were seemingly lacking context.
The Nylander example also works for my next point, which is that putting some weight into a player's historical results and skill set is important.
Shots and goals can be fairly random at the NHL level and for a brief period of time, it may work out where a player, with no real change in style or form, gets an abnormal amount of chances and/or easy goals.
It's important to try to evaluate reasons why a given player's recent production and shot volume may be sustainable, or if it seems to be more so a case of favorable puck luck.
Obviously, this is a process that is easier said than done, but in general, when evaluating prices that hold value, we always want to be thinking in terms of what percentage of a team will this outcome happen in the upcoming matchup, and not centering our ideas on the rate that it has been happening previously, without understanding why.
