Locky’s First Period NHL Model, 2/28: Another Dallas Under?

Good morning!

No large edges last night, even vs. the openers, but what did pop out went 1-3.

There was actually one number which moved away from the projections (a rarity), which was the Under in Chicago-Anaheim. This was possibly due to the return of Corey Crawford for the Blackhawks and the stability the market believed he would provide.

After allowing 0 goals in the first, the two teams combined for seven total goals the rest of the game. So I guess the stability was only for the first 20 minutes.

Today there's one number that really stands out above all others, and it's yet another under in a Dallas Stars game.

Dallas has been in and out of the write-ups, because sometimes the quality and profile of their opponent means there isn't any perceived value on the under.

Tonight, however (much like with the Stars game against Nashville last week), the opponent is also conservative early on. And that means the projection is in the basement.

The Kings score just 24.4% of all their goals in the first period (league average about 29%), and allow goals in the first at basically a league-average rate.

They also aren't a prolific goal-scoring team in general so (much like with Anaheim last night) so their full-game projection isn't great either. As the first-period is usually a derivative of that, this number was going to be low before even considering how the goals would be distributed across the periods.

There are other smaller edges vs. the openers (Florida under again, Edmonton over again, both small) but the success of tonight's bets will ultimately be decided by what happens in Los Angeles late.

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.

For more info on my model, check out the story below.

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.