Finding profit in the NHL on the puck line
Down 1-0 early on the road to the New York Islanders last Saturday, Patrick Marleau got the Sharks going with a second period goal to ignite San Jose to a 4-1 win to cash not only the -200 moneyline tickets but also the +160 puck line tickets. Picking and choosing the right spots to play the puck line in hockey can be tricky, just as it is with the run line in baseball, but the payoff is oh, so sweet.
So the New York Islanders turned out to be the best team in the NHL last year.
That’s what I love about handicapping – you can make money off any team, if you pick the right circumstances. We’re talking about the puck line in this case; the Islanders led the league at 52-30 against the spread, even while posting the poorest won-loss record at 26-47-9.
How does this happen? If you’re relatively new to betting on hockey, you might only be familiar with the standard moneyline. But just as baseball has its run line, hockey offers the same opportunity to bet on whether the favorite will win by at least two goals – or whether the underdog will avoid losing by at least two goals. The Islanders managed to lose by a single goal 11 times last year as the underdogs, so they got paid.
Still confused? Here’s an example from this past Saturday’s tilt at the Nassau Coliseum between the Islanders and the San Jose Sharks:
Moneyline
Sharks -200
Islanders +175
Puck line
Sharks +160
Islanders -180
You might also see something like “Sharks -1.5” when you log into your account and look at the betting odds. It looks and cooks just the same as a baseball run line, such as Yankees -1.5. Notice the Islanders were carrying a fair amount of chalk Saturday on the puck line at +1.5 goals. Hockey games are generally lower scoring than baseball, so it’s much more difficult to win by at least two goals. The Detroit Red Wings were the anti-Islanders last year, finishing third overall in the standings at 51-21-10 and last against the puck line at 28-54. Detroit won 24 one-goal games as the favorite. That’s 24 ATS losses, and since the Wings were favored so heavily, they ended up losing a total of 17.08 units on the puck line.
Learning and understanding the puck line is simply a sharp way to do business. There are going to be times when betting the puck line is going to give you superior value than the moneyline. In the case of favorites, you’re looking for undervalued teams with very high margins of victory. The surging Boston Bruins fit the bill last year at 49-32 with an NHL-best 0.98 margin; that’s their average over the course of the entire regular season, adding up all the wins and losses. They earned an amazing 34.49 units on the puck line for their efforts.
The Islanders were a bit further behind in ninth place with 7.16 units. It would have taken a lot of nerve to bet the Isles even with the extra +1.5, knowing that they were going to give up a lot of goals and not score very often. They had the worst margin in the league last year at –0.93. But that’s still well below a goal-and-a-half. And being a consensus bad team (without No. 1 goalie Rick DiPietro for nearly the whole season) prevented anyone but die-hard fans from overvaluing the Islanders.
It is possible, though, for a bad team to be way too bad even for the puck line. The Islanders are still making money this year at 4-2 ATS with a record of 0-3-3, but consider the hapless Toronto Maple Leafs. They’ve started the 2009-10 season at a perfect 0-7 ATS with an average scoring margin of –2.57 goals. The main culprit: goaltending. The decision to start Vesa Toskala (.891 save percentage last year) over promising Swedish import Jonas Gustavsson was curious enough. Now both are injured, leaving the Leafs with one of last year’s fill-ins with the Islanders, Joey MacDonald. He should actually be an improvement over Toskala given last year’s .901 save percentage, although MacDonald has given up eight goals after two games wearing the Maple Leaf.
On a brighter note, both the New York Rangers (7-1) and the Colorado Avalanche (6-1-1) have started the season at a perfect 8-0 ATS. The re-tooled Rangers have the best winning margin in the NHL at 2.12; Colorado is third at 1.25 and vastly improved in goal with undervalued Craig Anderson (.913 lifetime SV%) taking over for Peter Budaj (.902 lifetime SV%). The Avs should continue to carry betting value after finishing last in the Western Conference last year at 32-45-5. The Rangers? That depends on the health of Marian Gaborik (six goals, six assists), who played 17 games last year with Minnesota.
Down 1-0 early on the road to the New York Islanders last Saturday, Patrick Marleau got the Sharks going with a second period goal to ignite San Jose to a 4-1 win to cash not only the -200 moneyline tickets but also the +160 puck line tickets. Picking and choosing the right spots to play the puck line in hockey can be tricky, just as it is with the run line in baseball, but the payoff is oh, so sweet.
So the New York Islanders turned out to be the best team in the NHL last year.
That’s what I love about handicapping – you can make money off any team, if you pick the right circumstances. We’re talking about the puck line in this case; the Islanders led the league at 52-30 against the spread, even while posting the poorest won-loss record at 26-47-9.
How does this happen? If you’re relatively new to betting on hockey, you might only be familiar with the standard moneyline. But just as baseball has its run line, hockey offers the same opportunity to bet on whether the favorite will win by at least two goals – or whether the underdog will avoid losing by at least two goals. The Islanders managed to lose by a single goal 11 times last year as the underdogs, so they got paid.
Still confused? Here’s an example from this past Saturday’s tilt at the Nassau Coliseum between the Islanders and the San Jose Sharks:
Moneyline
Sharks -200
Islanders +175
Puck line
Sharks +160
Islanders -180
You might also see something like “Sharks -1.5” when you log into your account and look at the betting odds. It looks and cooks just the same as a baseball run line, such as Yankees -1.5. Notice the Islanders were carrying a fair amount of chalk Saturday on the puck line at +1.5 goals. Hockey games are generally lower scoring than baseball, so it’s much more difficult to win by at least two goals. The Detroit Red Wings were the anti-Islanders last year, finishing third overall in the standings at 51-21-10 and last against the puck line at 28-54. Detroit won 24 one-goal games as the favorite. That’s 24 ATS losses, and since the Wings were favored so heavily, they ended up losing a total of 17.08 units on the puck line.
Learning and understanding the puck line is simply a sharp way to do business. There are going to be times when betting the puck line is going to give you superior value than the moneyline. In the case of favorites, you’re looking for undervalued teams with very high margins of victory. The surging Boston Bruins fit the bill last year at 49-32 with an NHL-best 0.98 margin; that’s their average over the course of the entire regular season, adding up all the wins and losses. They earned an amazing 34.49 units on the puck line for their efforts.
The Islanders were a bit further behind in ninth place with 7.16 units. It would have taken a lot of nerve to bet the Isles even with the extra +1.5, knowing that they were going to give up a lot of goals and not score very often. They had the worst margin in the league last year at –0.93. But that’s still well below a goal-and-a-half. And being a consensus bad team (without No. 1 goalie Rick DiPietro for nearly the whole season) prevented anyone but die-hard fans from overvaluing the Islanders.
It is possible, though, for a bad team to be way too bad even for the puck line. The Islanders are still making money this year at 4-2 ATS with a record of 0-3-3, but consider the hapless Toronto Maple Leafs. They’ve started the 2009-10 season at a perfect 0-7 ATS with an average scoring margin of –2.57 goals. The main culprit: goaltending. The decision to start Vesa Toskala (.891 save percentage last year) over promising Swedish import Jonas Gustavsson was curious enough. Now both are injured, leaving the Leafs with one of last year’s fill-ins with the Islanders, Joey MacDonald. He should actually be an improvement over Toskala given last year’s .901 save percentage, although MacDonald has given up eight goals after two games wearing the Maple Leaf.
On a brighter note, both the New York Rangers (7-1) and the Colorado Avalanche (6-1-1) have started the season at a perfect 8-0 ATS. The re-tooled Rangers have the best winning margin in the NHL at 2.12; Colorado is third at 1.25 and vastly improved in goal with undervalued Craig Anderson (.913 lifetime SV%) taking over for Peter Budaj (.902 lifetime SV%). The Avs should continue to carry betting value after finishing last in the Western Conference last year at 32-45-5. The Rangers? That depends on the health of Marian Gaborik (six goals, six assists), who played 17 games last year with Minnesota.
