Week 2 NHL Betting Preview
A summary of what worked and failed in week two of the last 4 seasons.
Week Two of the NHL season is upon us and I hopped into my DeLorean to review betting results from the 2nd week of the last 4 years (note: over/under data only goes back 2 years). While week one is historically dominated by home favorites, it doesn’t take long for the pendulum to start swinging back the other way. During the pandemic shortened 2021 schedule, road underdogs were big losers as visiting teams were quarantined in hotel rooms. The last two Octobers however, the dogs get frisky as Halloween approaches. I joked in a betting report last year that I planned to dress up as a big dog for Halloween (please note: I don’t dress up for Halloween, it was just a joke).
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.
If you’d like to read more about the first 3 years of this thought experiment, I actually wrote a 330-page book outlining the results from every angle. It’s ostensibly a journal of my experience; breaking it down by team, by category, by strategy, by season. There is plenty of useful information for bettors of all skill levels. It covers pre-pandemic, peak-pandemic, post-pandemic. What worked, what failed. Lessons learned, market trends, team-by-team analysis. What impact did the pandemic have on hockey betting? To read more, visit the Amazon store.
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. I wouldn’t put anything past him at this point, and I’ve got too many eggs in that basket. 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.
These previews are being used to guide the decision making of my new “Tailing History” portfolio (henceforth referred to as T.H, but sometimes I accidently call it T.S because my nickname for my Game Summary algorithms is “GS”), which had a strong week one with $1,323 of profit. Granted that does not count the 2 Sunday games (which haven’t started yet) and T.H has $500 on the Ottawa puckline -1.5 goals vs Tampa, and $236 on Anaheim +1.5 goals vs Carolina. It’s guaranteed to generate a week one profit, but it could be cut in half if those two games miss. The downside being, it really hyped home favorites -1.5 goals (so I did too) and that was the only category where it lost money (-$1,328). Four teams were listed at -110 ML, so technically not favored, but it bet $500 on all 4 pucklines, hitting twice on Detroit +215 and Winnipeg +200.
I was worried heading into the week that it was going to struggle with over/under because of a relatively small sample size, but it generated profit on both sides, performing best on under 6 goals, followed by over 6.5. Since my own O/U wagers differed significantly from T.H, then it stands to reason my results were poor, which they were. Under 6.5 was a terrible bet, one that I made far too often. T.H is leaning towards over 6 and under 6.5 in the week ahead, so it might be prudent for me to tail instead of flipping to over 6.5. Here’s the full list of T.H week one category results.
Update: I added a new image after the Sunday games, with T.H hitting both its bets.
Note that the favorite/dog data above does not include those -110 ML games, because technically neither team is favored. Going forward these previews will focus more on foresight than hindsight, but since this historical precedence strategy is new, it’s worth briefly touching on here. The primary post-mortem will be in my Monday report after the Sunday games are history. Let’s shift our gaze back to the future by looking at the combined second weeks of the last 4 seasons. There is a peculiar pattern with a potentially alarming risk premium.
What’s strange about the data is that last year, road dogs of +170 and up produced remarkable returns, both moneyline and puckline. The catch was, road dogs from +121 to +169 were big losers. It’s counter-intuitive to have such a drastic difference between these two ranges. That wasn’t replicated in either of the 3 previous seasons, so it was likely just a random confluence of freak upsets (like Arizona +850 vs Toronto, Buffalo +550 vs Calgary, and Buffalo +450 vs Edmonton) and not necessarily a pattern we should be tailing in the week ahead. But Tailing History has no concept of risk and is pushing all its chips into the middle. We’ll see how that goes…
It needs to be noted; there were 13 road dogs of +170 and up last week two, there were only 8 in the previous 3 second weeks. That tells us sportsbooks implemented a significant tax on home favorites last year (you can thank the 2021/22 Arizona Coyotes), so there were far more longshots than we had ever seen before. Buffalo hit 3 teams on a Western Canada trip, and I’m not yet sure which team would be the current equivalent of Buffalo last season. Could be Vancouver, Detroit, or Nashville, but looking at the schedule, they’re unlikely to have any longshot games (except maybe Nashville in New York vs the Rangers).
Looking at the schedule, there should be fewer road longshots than last year, but two of them are on Monday, Coyotes vs Rangers and Blackhawks vs Leafs. T.H laid max $500 bets on both alt pucklines -1.5 goals (which aren’t up yet on Draft Kings, but should be around +400 and +600). Chicago is in Colorado Wednesday, and Philly visits Dallas. Those 4 games for sure T.H will have max bets on the alt pucklines, but only one of them needs to hit to pull a profit. I won’t be tailing T.H on any of those, going instead with Toronto -1.5 vs Chicago. I might just take the Yotes vs Rangers to be adventurous, but I’ll decide later this afternoon.
Here is the full list of results from the last 4 week twos.
Sportsbooks might still be charging a tax on home favorites in the 2nd week, so have your guard up and perhaps don’t leverage too much.
Note that the Toronto Maple Leafs have historically been the best team to bet against in week twos, but more than half of that came from the one Arizona (+345 ML) upset last year. My money was on the Leafs that game. Also, I’ve done well in the past betting St. Louis in week two, and Binnington has started the season hot. Also, shout out to my 2021/22 Arizona Coyotes. That week was my second best week ever betting any one team to lose (trailing only Vancouver from week 4 in 2021).
Note that the table directly above is what’s used to derive my T.H picks. Which line range was more profitable, or lost less? If the profit/loss was less than $100, then it makes a minimum $100 bet. If it’s above $500, it makes a max $500 bet. If the profit is $410, it bets $410. Keep in mind too, it does like home dogs with moneylines of +120 and higher, taking the alt puckline -1.5 goals. It’ll have a few of those. Though Anaheim and San Jose have home games against Carolina, Dallas, and Boston twice. Don’t expect I’ll be tailing those, but may avoid the road favorite pucklines there just to be safe.