Week 14 NHL Betting Preview

Week fourteen of the NHL season is nearly upon us and my gaze is already focused on what worked best this time of year in the previous 2 seasons. These previews began to strike a somber tone in December because history stopped repeating and crashed my “Tailing History” model, which had a good first quarter. Well, it would seem that Santa delivered historical replicability into “Tails” stocking on Christmas eve, because it’s been déjà vu all over again since returning from the break. Okay, at least until Saturday. Tails was having a great post-Xmas until crashing all over again on Saturday. Sigh…

Before we go any further, it’s time for my obligatory *DISCLAIMER* it needs be noted that I’m not betting with real money. These are all fictional wagers in a spreadsheet. My mission is to engage in a mass betting campaign, picking a winner of every single game, every over/under, because it provides a complete dataset for macroeconomic analysis, which can be shared with you, shedding light on what worked and what failed. I’m also tracking the results of betting every outcome, to help me (and you) uncover previously unknown or newly emerging profit vectors. What started as a thought experiment has evolved into much more.

My blog has been moved to Substack this season and I’ll be repeatedly encouraging everyone to sign-up for a free subscription to alleviate my dependence on Twitter for traffic. I’m concerned that Elon will follow through on his threat to charge everyone for Twitter and ostensibly destroy his own company. Subscribers receive an email notification each time a new post is published, and even if Twitter stays free, the algorithm likes to hide Tweets with links so you don’t leave. Subscribers will also receive weekly picks emails that are not posted on my blog. If you like what you see in the picks below, you can have many more delivered directly to your inbox.

My big job on Friday and Saturday (aside from another subscriber exclusive picks email) was going back and re-running my “Game Summary” macro (which automates all my models) for all 230ish games since Dec 3, except this exercise was about collecting all my model input data that informs their bet selection to see if there was a better way to operate these models over the last month. There were also a few new models that were just created, but instead of me arbitrarily deciding a bet selection matrix, I built up a month of input data first, now I’m in the process of fitting the best possible model to that data.

Here’s the problem with my model recalibration. I can optimize new bet selection based on what worked best in December, but that was a month were favorites pucklines crashed. Suddenly they’re making a comeback, and if the bad teams start aggressively selling off pieces leading up to the trade deadline, and favorites start surging -1.5 goals, those December recalibrations might do more harm than good. Having already tried to optimize Tails bet selection based on December when it crashed, there was no optimal formula, aside from just making minimum bets to minimize losses. At least I haven’t been sharing Tails picks since the collapse began, but I’m still rolling out historical data in my previews.

We’ll see, my mind still hasn’t decided whether I’m better off leaving the models in their current form hoping what happened in December won’t define the second half. Because if pucklines -1.5 goals start cashing again, Tails 1.0 will be superior to Tails 2.0. How the current week unfolds will affect my final decision. In the meantime, I’ll once again provide a look back at history. The data below is looking roughly at Dec 31 to Jan 14 of 2021/22 and 2022/23, and the previous 7 days of the current season (so 20% of those numbers are recent).

Looking at my own past results from “this time of year”, my performance is outstanding on favorites ML and road ML. What’s interesting is that “big faves” (at least -150) at home were one of my best bets on the ML, but my single worst bet -1.5 goals. There’s no guarantee that repeats, but it will be in the back of my mind, except that faves -1.5 is one of my best categories in week 13. The best bets overall are mostly different permutations of road teams (and shorting back-to-backs ML), which will be dominating Tailing History’s picks this week. Though keep in mind, this won’t be the Tails input data for the entire week. That actually shifts with each passing day, + and – 7 days from this “day of the season”.

This is a good time of year to bet the Seattle Kraken, the Winnipeg Jets, and the Philadelphia Flyers. It should be noted that Seattle has won 6 consecutive games so a reasonable chunk of that number you’re seeing up there is from the last 7 days. Ironically my worst team to bet both on or against is Arizona and some of that is from the last 7 days thanks to a pair of losses on home ice, where they’re supposedly a much better team (or they had been until recently). The Ducks are one of the best teams to bet against in early January, and they happen to be on the road this week against Nashville, Carolina, and Tampa. Note to self.

Looking at the table above, Tailing History will be investing heavily in road favorites, which is good news considering Boston, Edmonton, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Vancouver combine to play 17 road games (Boston is not favored vs Colorado tomorrow). Tails is also going to have a few big bets on road dogs -1.5 goals that are >= +150 ML, which is a bad omen with Anaheim and San Jose playing 6 road games. If manually overruling my model picks were part of my mandate, that’s one example where intervention might be warranted, if not required. The modification for turning off max bets on dogs -1.5 might be coming this afternoon. Stay tuned.

If you are new here and don’t know how the models work, you may want to click this link before proceeding. Though many of the newer and underperforming models aren’t having their picks shared anymore, unless they prove themselves worthy or provide an interesting insight. Max Profit (aka Maximus) absolutely destroyed the competition this week with over $5,000 profit as of Sunday morning. Betting Venues had posted back-to-back good weeks after crashing earlier in the December, but was once again sunk by too much invested in dogs -1.5 goals (later today I’ll be investigating whether betting the minimum on dogs -1.5 goals the whole season makes B.V a better model).

Below are my picks for tomorrow. This is the same format as my weekly picks emails exclusively sent to my free subscribers. I’m growing tired of my dependence on Twitter for traffic, and this has been a nice work-around. Subscribe if you’d like all my betting picks delivered directly to your inbox.

VAN @ NYR:

In the picks email sent to subscribers on Saturday, I said that one of my biggest bets was Rangers moneyline, but that’s not going to be an “official” pick because the Rangers have a tendency to choke as heavy favorites when I place large wagers on them to win. They lost to Montreal. The flip side to that coin is that they play their best hockey when I bet an underdog opponent. A large majority of my models like Vancouver (mostly +1.5 goals), but most lack confidence in their picks (except Maximus who loves laying the maximum). I’m going to take Canucks ML at +136, though both fair line estimators don’t think there’s any value and that Van should be bigger dogs. Canucks +1.5 goals is the safer play. Frankly, fading the Canucks might be the smarter pick given the Rangers dominance when I bet their opponents. The problem is if I flip flop and take New York, then they’ll choke. It’s difficult making a choice when your decision can affect the outcome of a game. Somehow the hockey Gods have cursed me with this burden. I’m taking over 6.5 goals, but there was opposition among my advisory team of algorithms (aka the OU Council).

PIT @ PHI:

My favorite bet in this game is under 6.5 goals, with a 9-0 vote from the OUC. Otherwise, I’m taking the Flyers moneyline +100 because both fair line estimators think they should be a mild favorite. If Pittsburgh was +100, they might be my pick (take that into consideration if the line moves). Last 30 days, Philly has won 60% of their home games, while the Pens have won 43% of their road games. My models were divided on the best bet, including my two expected goal models betting opposite sides. I just like the higher payout in this one, wherever the line may close.

DAL @ MIN:

Mark-Andre Fleury’s heroics at the end of the Columbus-Minnesota game Saturday cost me a nice little prize, but that’s not enough to discourage me from continuing shorting the Wild until they get Kaprizov back on the ice (and preferably one or both of Spurgeon-Brodin). Jake Oettinger might be back for Dallas (hopefully with no rust), who are also missing a pretty big piece in Miro Heiskanen. It will be hard to love Dallas in the absence of Miro, so I’ll make a modest bet on their moneyline -130. The Fleury will be unleashed on Dallas, so his newly discovered mojo does inject me with some doubt, but this is his 5th consecutive start, so those old legs won’t be entirely fresh. It does improve my confidence that my models overwhelmingly support Dallas here. I really wanted to take under 6.5 with those offensive pieces out of the line-up, but under 6.5 has not been a profitable wager with these teams the last 30 days. So, I’ll reluctantly take the over, but lack confidence in the pick.

BOS @ COL:

This is a tough one, or at least it was at first glance. Once my models weighed in with their opinions, my choice became much clearer, especially the expected goals models both making max bets on Colorado (they don’t make max bets often). Max Profit loves the Avs moneyline (which is also my pick at -125), but is less confident in over 6.5 goals (which has 7-2 support from the OUC). Sadly over 6.5 has not been a profitable wager with these teams in the last 30 days (I’m betting it, but reluctantly). The Avs lost their last game 8-4, so we should get angry Nathan MacKinnon in this one. You know how much I love betting on angry Nate-dog! Avs are 3-0 when I mention “angry MacKinnon” in my game notes. Boston is 5-5 in their last 10, Colorado 7-3.