Locky’s First Period NHL Model, 2/26: Sticking with Reliables on 11-Game Slate

Good morning!

A mixed bag last night, as the largest edge at open (Avalanche-Panthers under) won, and then a smattering of wins and losses came across the other edges vs. openers. For a six-game slate, last night was particularly busy.

Tonight is really busy, with an 11-game slate. Although Tampa Bay and Chicago (the two most popular over teams) are not playing, Dallas (the most popular under team) is, and according the openers I have a reasonable edge on the under at -145 (a little less than 6%).

Most of the edge on this game is due to the fact that Dallas' opponent, Vegas, is about an average first-period team in terms of the percentage of goals it scores and allows, so Dallas' profile skews the projection pretty heavily.

Also, this game is low-scoring in general — I project just 5.02 goals, listed total is 5.5 with the under -115 —  so even if you were just taking 30% of the full-game total to do a first period handicap, you're going to get quite a low projection anyway. So once again, Dallas' under has a little bit of value.

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.

Florida Panthers at Arizona Coyotes

9:05 p.m. ET

The largest edge, though, comes from the Arizona-Florida under. You'll remember Florida, the team that went under against Colorado last night at a great price with a huge edge, and caused me to make "Anchorman" references in yesterday's column.

The Panthers have a pretty conservative first-period profile, and Arizona's is below league-average as well, hence you get a distribution of goals that leads to a play on the under.

Locky’s First-Period NHL Over/Unders: Full Slate Breakdown

Download the Excel doc to input odds from your sportsbooks. The table below is best viewed on a desktop computer.