NHL Betting: Sharks!
Cue the theme from Jaws. With the NHL idle for a couple of days, the story so far this season has been San Jose who moved to 27-4-3 on the season with a 5-0 win at home on Tuesday against the Canucks. With a moneyline profit this year at nearly 15 units and counting, their backers are enjoying a happy holiday indeed. And those who bought futures on the Sharks when they were 10-1 earlier are looking for Christmas to come once again next spring.
The All-Star Game is the unofficial halfway point of the NHL season, but the two-day Christmas break is a more appropriate time to sit back and take stock of what’s happened on the ice thus far. And what’s happened has been outstanding for supporters of the San Jose Sharks.
At 27-4-3, the Sharks not only have the best record in the league, they’ve also supplanted the 23-6-4 Detroit Red Wings at the top of the Stanley Cup futures market. San Jose has moved from 10-1 to 4-1; Detroit’s betting odds have also improved, but only slightly, from 5-1 to 9-2. The 18-12-4 Pittsburgh Penguins remain the top threat from the Eastern Conference despite dipping from 11-2 to 13-2.
All fine and dandy, but is there value at the top of the futures market? The rule of thumb is to look further down the list at the second-tier teams – which was where you would have found Tampa Bay in 2004 and Carolina in 2006. Then again, just like you make exceptions for Tiger Woods and Roger Federer (at least until recently), there’s a certain air of inevitability with a monster team like the Sharks.
We can make our decision a little easier by looking at the playoff odds for each team and seeing which ones are underpriced in the marketplace. Sports Club Stats runs computer simulations to take a stab at who will make the postseason; according to their weighted projections (taking into account each team’s current record and home-ice advantage), San Jose has virtually a 100 percent chance of making the playoffs, as do the Red Wings, the 25-5-4 Boston Bruins and the 18-6-7 Chicago Blackhawks.
The real usefulness of these projections comes further down the line. For example, the 22-12-3 New York Rangers are pegged at 9-1 to win the Stanley Cup. Those are the fifth shortest odds on the futures market; however, according to Sports Club Stats, the Rangers only have a 75.5 percent chance to make the playoffs, which is No. 13 on their list. The 18-13-3 Anaheim Ducks are given a similar chance at 75.6 percent, but are ninth on the futures market at 12-1. And the Penguins are no playoff locks at 72.3 percent.
Making the postseason and winning the Stanley Cup aren’t the same thing, but the projections do point at the easier road the Rangers have traveled to this point. New York is also being given a 36-percent chance to land either a 7- or 8-seed in the East, while Anaheim is looking at a 28-percent chance of being saddled with one of those unfortunate low seeds in the West. It’s not much of a stretch to call the Ducks a value team based on those numbers – plus their very real Cup win two seasons ago.
Pittsburgh at New Jersey
Friday, Dec 26, 7:00 p.m. (ET)
What’s the problem with the Penguins? Injuries on defense: Sergei Gonchar (shoulder), Ryan Whitney (foot), Phillipe Boucher (upper body) and Hal Gill (shoulder) have all missed time this year, but at least Pittsburgh has Whitney and Boucher back on the blueline. The Penguins are No. 19 in the league with 30.4 shots allowed per game, and have dropped from No. 4 to No. 10 on the power play at an even 20 percent without Gonchar.
Then there’s the question of top netminder Marc-Andre Fleury. His save percentage is down from .921 last year to .905 this year, a figure that is more in line with his first three seasons in the league. Has Fleury “regressed to the mean,” or was he simply bothered by the groin injury that kept him out for a full month? And where Pittsburgh got shockingly excellent relief goaltending from third-stringer Ty Conklin (.923 SV%) when Fleury was injured last year, Dany Sabourin is punching the clock this season with a more typical .908 percentage.
Goaltending is everything in hockey, which is why it looked like the Devils were doomed when Martin Brodeur suffered a torn bicep tendon. But Scott Clemmensen (another third-stringer) has come to New Jersey’s rescue with a .921 save percentage, and the Devils are hanging in there at 19-10-3. Sports Club Stats has them at 85.6 percent to make the playoffs (45 percent to nail down a Top-4 seed), while the futures market has New Jersey at 18-1 to win the Cup. Brodeur already has three on his resume; he’s expected back on the ice before the playoffs.
Cue the theme from Jaws. With the NHL idle for a couple of days, the story so far this season has been San Jose who moved to 27-4-3 on the season with a 5-0 win at home on Tuesday against the Canucks. With a moneyline profit this year at nearly 15 units and counting, their backers are enjoying a happy holiday indeed. And those who bought futures on the Sharks when they were 10-1 earlier are looking for Christmas to come once again next spring.
The All-Star Game is the unofficial halfway point of the NHL season, but the two-day Christmas break is a more appropriate time to sit back and take stock of what’s happened on the ice thus far. And what’s happened has been outstanding for supporters of the San Jose Sharks.
At 27-4-3, the Sharks not only have the best record in the league, they’ve also supplanted the 23-6-4 Detroit Red Wings at the top of the Stanley Cup futures market. San Jose has moved from 10-1 to 4-1; Detroit’s betting odds have also improved, but only slightly, from 5-1 to 9-2. The 18-12-4 Pittsburgh Penguins remain the top threat from the Eastern Conference despite dipping from 11-2 to 13-2.
All fine and dandy, but is there value at the top of the futures market? The rule of thumb is to look further down the list at the second-tier teams – which was where you would have found Tampa Bay in 2004 and Carolina in 2006. Then again, just like you make exceptions for Tiger Woods and Roger Federer (at least until recently), there’s a certain air of inevitability with a monster team like the Sharks.
We can make our decision a little easier by looking at the playoff odds for each team and seeing which ones are underpriced in the marketplace. Sports Club Stats runs computer simulations to take a stab at who will make the postseason; according to their weighted projections (taking into account each team’s current record and home-ice advantage), San Jose has virtually a 100 percent chance of making the playoffs, as do the Red Wings, the 25-5-4 Boston Bruins and the 18-6-7 Chicago Blackhawks.
The real usefulness of these projections comes further down the line. For example, the 22-12-3 New York Rangers are pegged at 9-1 to win the Stanley Cup. Those are the fifth shortest odds on the futures market; however, according to Sports Club Stats, the Rangers only have a 75.5 percent chance to make the playoffs, which is No. 13 on their list. The 18-13-3 Anaheim Ducks are given a similar chance at 75.6 percent, but are ninth on the futures market at 12-1. And the Penguins are no playoff locks at 72.3 percent.
Making the postseason and winning the Stanley Cup aren’t the same thing, but the projections do point at the easier road the Rangers have traveled to this point. New York is also being given a 36-percent chance to land either a 7- or 8-seed in the East, while Anaheim is looking at a 28-percent chance of being saddled with one of those unfortunate low seeds in the West. It’s not much of a stretch to call the Ducks a value team based on those numbers – plus their very real Cup win two seasons ago.
Pittsburgh at New Jersey
Friday, Dec 26, 7:00 p.m. (ET)
What’s the problem with the Penguins? Injuries on defense: Sergei Gonchar (shoulder), Ryan Whitney (foot), Phillipe Boucher (upper body) and Hal Gill (shoulder) have all missed time this year, but at least Pittsburgh has Whitney and Boucher back on the blueline. The Penguins are No. 19 in the league with 30.4 shots allowed per game, and have dropped from No. 4 to No. 10 on the power play at an even 20 percent without Gonchar.
Then there’s the question of top netminder Marc-Andre Fleury. His save percentage is down from .921 last year to .905 this year, a figure that is more in line with his first three seasons in the league. Has Fleury “regressed to the mean,” or was he simply bothered by the groin injury that kept him out for a full month? And where Pittsburgh got shockingly excellent relief goaltending from third-stringer Ty Conklin (.923 SV%) when Fleury was injured last year, Dany Sabourin is punching the clock this season with a more typical .908 percentage.
Goaltending is everything in hockey, which is why it looked like the Devils were doomed when Martin Brodeur suffered a torn bicep tendon. But Scott Clemmensen (another third-stringer) has come to New Jersey’s rescue with a .921 save percentage, and the Devils are hanging in there at 19-10-3. Sports Club Stats has them at 85.6 percent to make the playoffs (45 percent to nail down a Top-4 seed), while the futures market has New Jersey at 18-1 to win the Cup. Brodeur already has three on his resume; he’s expected back on the ice before the playoffs.