Locky’s NHL First Period Model, 3/25: Holding Your Nose in Toronto

Good morning!

Saturday, the last time I published NHL projections, they did quite well vs. the opening numbers: 6-1. Today there are fewer games, but some perceived edges have still emerged.

Let's dive into today's slate.

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.

Florida Panthers at Toronto Maple Leafs

7 p.m. ET

The most interesting edge is in Toronto, where the Panthers and Maple Leafs are playing in a game that the market thinks will be the highest-scoring of the day (as of now). As a result, the first-period juice on 1.5 is the largest imbalance of any of the games on the slate.

The distribution of goals for each team is what's compelling here. As I've said here many times, the Panthers are remarkable in that they are consistently excellent defensively in the first period.

They allow just 22% of their goals in the first, EASILY the best in the league. Toronto, meanwhile, has a substandard first-period profile, scoring only 25% of its goals in the first.

This combination is producing a projection — or really a distribution of how about 6.5-6.6 goals are going to be scored — that leads me to believe there is value on the first-period under at the current market price.

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.