Brad Penner, USA Today Sports.
Good morning!
Yesterday was not particularly busy in this market. We had one pretty good edge, on the Devils over, which won. The Blackhawks, who were more than -200, went over yet again, because that’s kind of what they were supposed to do.
Today there are 10 games, a busy Thursday night, but only a couple edges really stand out, and one in particular.
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.
Montreal Canadiens at New York Islanders, 7 p.m. ET
The Islanders are a frequent “over” edge according to the model for a very understandable reason: They play games with low full-game projections but they score a lot of goals in the first period.
It’s really kind of the perfect combination, assuming the period totals are just derivatives of the full-game total. The Isles score 33.1% of all their goals in the first (league average 29-ish%) and allow about 30% of their goals in the first.
Their opponent, Montreal, is also prone to playing higher-than-average scoring firsts. It’s a combination that will hopefully yield goals!