Penguins, Red Wings favored once again
The puck drops on the 2009-10 NHL season tonight with four contests, including the All-Canadian matchup in Toronto between the Leafs and Habs. Once again it's the case of 28 clubs chasing two with last year's champs from Pittsburgh and the previous champions from Detroit drawing the preseason chalk. Will one ofthe up-&-comers like the Blackhawks and Bruins upset the Pens and Wings?
The real Boys of October have arrived.
The NHL still doesn’t carry the same cachet as Major League Baseball, but the way the two sports are diverging in popularity, the day may come. Only four MLB teams had over 90 percent capacity in attendance this year, with 16 teams below 60 percent. Last year’s NHL attendance numbers had 12 arenas filled to 100 percent capacity or greater and none under 75 percent.
Hockey still remains a distant fourth among the four major sports when it comes to gambling. But that just means the betting odds are as soft as the ice at old Mellon Arena – entering its last season as home of the current Stanley Cup champions, the Pittsburgh Penguins. They’re listed at 7-1 to defend their title, second to the team they beat last season, the Detroit Red Wings (6-1).
Understandable that the two finalists from the last two seasons (Detroit beat Pittsburgh for the Cup in 2007-08) are also the top two favorites on the NHL futures market. But speaking of soft lines, it appears the oddsmakers have whiffed on the fastest-rising team in the league, the Chicago Blackhawks. They’re No. 6 on the list at a bargain-basement price of 12-1, even after poaching Marian Hossa, Tomas Kopecky and others from the Red Wings in the offseason.
It’s very rare you’ll hear me suggest the oddsmakers have gotten something wrong. These are very sharp people who (generally speaking) are simply trying to balance the betting action on either side of a matchup. But the futures market provides a bit of a challenge – we’re dealing with 30 teams here, after all.
More importantly from a value perspective, the guys in Vegas on the whole don’t know nearly as much about hockey as they do football, basketball and baseball. If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool hockey fan, especially from the prime markets in the northern United States and Canada, you’re already on the good side of the knowledge gap.
So why jump on the bandwagon of a team that hasn’t won the Stanley Cup since 1961? Besides the betting value, there’s the sheer amount of talent on the Blackhawks roster. Jonathan Toews (34 goals last year) and Patrick Kane (25 goals, 45 assists) are the nucleus up front. Brent Seabrook and Duncan Keith are both Norris Trophy candidates on defense. There’s depth at both ends of the ice. The big question, as you’ll hear time and time again this month, is Cristobal Huet (.909 save percentage) in goal. We’ve heard that question asked everywhere Huet has played, yet he continues to produce solid results.
That includes the Washington Capitals (10-1), who lay in wait as the team most likely to overtake Pittsburgh in the Eastern Conference – with all due respect to the Boston Bruins (9-1). Washington has the league’s reigning and two-time Hart Trophy winner as league MVP, Alexander Ovechkin (56 goals). Four other players scored at least 20 goals for the Caps last year, defenseman Mike Green (31 goals, 42 assists) among them. And in net, you have last year’s playoff hero, rookie Semyon Varlamov (.918 SV%). Washington took Pittsburgh to seven games in the second round last year in a series that could have gone either way. As long as you can stomach the fact that the Caps haven’t won the Stanley Cup since their inception in 1974, this is your best betting value in the East.
The Bruins certainly have a shot at the Cup – which would be their first since 1972. But Phil Kessel (36 goals) is now a member of the rebuilding Toronto Maple Leafs (60-1), and Vezina Trophy-winner Tim Thomas (.933 SV%) is 35 years old and a likely candidate to come back down to earth somewhat. With the Capitals trending upward and the Bruins arguably peaking last year, it’s again not too difficult to take the team with the longer odds. Just don’t forget about the NHL trade deadline in March. You need to handicap the league’s general managers as well; the best deadline dealers will put their teams even closer to spending the summer with Lord Stanley.
The puck drops on the 2009-10 NHL season tonight with four contests, including the All-Canadian matchup in Toronto between the Leafs and Habs. Once again it's the case of 28 clubs chasing two with last year's champs from Pittsburgh and the previous champions from Detroit drawing the preseason chalk. Will one ofthe up-&-comers like the Blackhawks and Bruins upset the Pens and Wings?
The real Boys of October have arrived.
The NHL still doesn’t carry the same cachet as Major League Baseball, but the way the two sports are diverging in popularity, the day may come. Only four MLB teams had over 90 percent capacity in attendance this year, with 16 teams below 60 percent. Last year’s NHL attendance numbers had 12 arenas filled to 100 percent capacity or greater and none under 75 percent.
Hockey still remains a distant fourth among the four major sports when it comes to gambling. But that just means the betting odds are as soft as the ice at old Mellon Arena – entering its last season as home of the current Stanley Cup champions, the Pittsburgh Penguins. They’re listed at 7-1 to defend their title, second to the team they beat last season, the Detroit Red Wings (6-1).
Understandable that the two finalists from the last two seasons (Detroit beat Pittsburgh for the Cup in 2007-08) are also the top two favorites on the NHL futures market. But speaking of soft lines, it appears the oddsmakers have whiffed on the fastest-rising team in the league, the Chicago Blackhawks. They’re No. 6 on the list at a bargain-basement price of 12-1, even after poaching Marian Hossa, Tomas Kopecky and others from the Red Wings in the offseason.
It’s very rare you’ll hear me suggest the oddsmakers have gotten something wrong. These are very sharp people who (generally speaking) are simply trying to balance the betting action on either side of a matchup. But the futures market provides a bit of a challenge – we’re dealing with 30 teams here, after all.
More importantly from a value perspective, the guys in Vegas on the whole don’t know nearly as much about hockey as they do football, basketball and baseball. If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool hockey fan, especially from the prime markets in the northern United States and Canada, you’re already on the good side of the knowledge gap.
So why jump on the bandwagon of a team that hasn’t won the Stanley Cup since 1961? Besides the betting value, there’s the sheer amount of talent on the Blackhawks roster. Jonathan Toews (34 goals last year) and Patrick Kane (25 goals, 45 assists) are the nucleus up front. Brent Seabrook and Duncan Keith are both Norris Trophy candidates on defense. There’s depth at both ends of the ice. The big question, as you’ll hear time and time again this month, is Cristobal Huet (.909 save percentage) in goal. We’ve heard that question asked everywhere Huet has played, yet he continues to produce solid results.
That includes the Washington Capitals (10-1), who lay in wait as the team most likely to overtake Pittsburgh in the Eastern Conference – with all due respect to the Boston Bruins (9-1). Washington has the league’s reigning and two-time Hart Trophy winner as league MVP, Alexander Ovechkin (56 goals). Four other players scored at least 20 goals for the Caps last year, defenseman Mike Green (31 goals, 42 assists) among them. And in net, you have last year’s playoff hero, rookie Semyon Varlamov (.918 SV%). Washington took Pittsburgh to seven games in the second round last year in a series that could have gone either way. As long as you can stomach the fact that the Caps haven’t won the Stanley Cup since their inception in 1974, this is your best betting value in the East.
The Bruins certainly have a shot at the Cup – which would be their first since 1972. But Phil Kessel (36 goals) is now a member of the rebuilding Toronto Maple Leafs (60-1), and Vezina Trophy-winner Tim Thomas (.933 SV%) is 35 years old and a likely candidate to come back down to earth somewhat. With the Capitals trending upward and the Bruins arguably peaking last year, it’s again not too difficult to take the team with the longer odds. Just don’t forget about the NHL trade deadline in March. You need to handicap the league’s general managers as well; the best deadline dealers will put their teams even closer to spending the summer with Lord Stanley.
