Week 8 NHL Betting Preview

A summary of what worked and failed in week eight of the last 4 seasons (last 2 for over/under).

Week eight of the NHL season is nearly upon us and my gaze is already focused on what worked best in past week eights. The two biggest winners at this stage in the schedule are overs and road favorites. It was around this time in 2021/22 that a league-wide scoring surge took hold at the same time as the Omicron variant when a big chunk of the players ended up in Covid protocol, forcing the NHL to extend the Christmas break. Tailing history will be betting every over except when the total is 7. The problem for “Tails” is those conditions were unique and doesn’t mean another surge is inevitable.

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 wrote a 330-page book outlining the results from every angle. What worked, what failed. Lessons learned, market trends, team-by-team analysis. 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. 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.

Overs beat unders for the last 3 weeks, but they are tied for week 7 at the moment I’m writing this (unders will take the lead if St. Louis Chicago is under 6.5 (it was)). The reason I’m not going to be pushing my picks towards overs hoping Dec 2021 repeats itself is because scoring was down in week 7. The recent scoring surge might be losing steam, so I’ll mostly be following the majority opinion of my advisory team of algorithms (aka: the OU Council). Some of the painfully leaky goalies have been improving, but a few others are falling apart. The quality of the goaltending collective rarely stays in a steady-state equilibrium.

One thing I’ll be keeping an eye on this week is being a historically bad time to bet underdogs -1.5 goals (except for 1 specific line range), which also means favorites +1.5 goals has been fruitful. I’ll confess that favorites +1.5 are not a bet I make very often, nor have I done any kind of a profitability analysis to potentially uncover which are the best ones to bet consistently. It seems likely there’s a few sharp bettors out there who lay large volume on faves +1.5, and that it might be worth a profitability deep dive at some point in the future. This week may be a good time to experiment when my models are hitting them too, though both Tailing History and Betting Venues are net losers on faves +1.5 this season

It does feel like a contradiction that dogs ML and home ML are both really bad, and that’s almost entirely because home dogs (especially between -109 and +120). Home favorites were much better +1.5, while home fave ML produced a small loss. Road ML has been my best category at this juncture of the season, with favorites -1.5 goals being my worst. I’m already pretty cautions betting teams -1.5 goals unless they’re playing San Jose, and even that one has been declining in profitability. I’m only aggressive on pucklines when my models agree.

While this has been a historically good week to bet Colorado and New Jersey to lose, I’m not entirely confident in the replicability. Colorado is 5-8 this week in my historical database, and their struggles span multiple seasons. This wasn’t all because of injuries last season, but looking at my game notes from this sample, injuries were mentioned multiple times, including “dangerously depleted” when they went 1-2 last year. The Devils went 2-1 last year in week 8, going 2-10 in the previous 3 week eights when they were a much worse team.

The above table is what Tailing History uses to make its picks, and if you’d like to know more about how all my models work, click here. All the past success with road favorites -1.5 goals came within the -110 to -149 ML range. Tails will be making max bets -1.5 in that ML range, but otherwise will be leaning more on +1.5 goals for home favorites of at least -150 ML. There will be a few home dogs between +121 and +169 ML that Tails will be betting max -1.5 goals, but those will be the only dog -1.5 goals bets on the agenda.

Note, Tails is having the best week of anyone by far, my own picks included (the week isn’t over). Betting Venues finally struggled, allowing me to gain some ground (the biggest reasons being favorites -1.5 goals and over/under). Sadly, many of my largest bets were tailing B.V, which hurt my week. But I wasn’t going all in on the pucklines, so my losses were smaller. If you read my subscriber exclusive picks email yesterday (it’s free to join), then you can skip the next part and go right to my Monday picks.

This was written yesterday to my free subscribers: There are some interesting developments in the world of the Over/Under Council. Below is everyone’s profit in week 7. Note the Prime (last 8 GP) results below do not include the “bet double” feature because none of the other models have one (bet double is only programmed into my picks). I mostly followed Prime’s picks, but went 6-3 on the bet double, and went 1-0 when disagreeing.

Some of you may have seen my recent Tweets about how this “Prime Line Value” algorithm was picking too many unders and it seemed like a flaw that would require a diagnostic. It’s suddenly my best performing over/under algorithm on the whole season despite picking 151 unders and 31 overs (note overs are up 151-141 on the full season). Overs are 21-10 when it bets over, for $1,221 profit on $100 wagers. It’s losing money on unders, but has the best return on unders because it’s betting line value. That doesn’t mean bet under when it bets under, but it’s the least worst at unders and is crushing overs. I’ll continue monitoring the situation.

If I haven’t explained the “fair line estimator” it’s a simple concept. If home team is 6-3 at home and the road team is 3-6 on the road; add home wins to road losses, and you get 12 in 18 games. 12/18 is a .67 probability of victory. Flush that into the line converter and that should be -200. Same deal for the pucklines.

BOS @ CBJ:

The Columbus Blue Jackets are playing Carolina today, so if I ran the game summary later today, these numbers would be different. Elvis is starting vs Carolina, which means this should be Spencer Martin tomorrow (.889 SV% last 30 days). The Bruins have only covered -1.5 in 2 of their last 7 road games (costing me a couple bets), so even with Martin I’m unable to put my trust in Bruins PL. Even Boston -258 ML is expensive considering the fair line estimator thinks it should be -175. If Martin were starting today and Elvis tomorrow, I might take the BJs. But Martin starting tomorrow and the skaters playing today against a good Carolina team (flying back to Columbus tonight), gives me the confidence to put a mid-sized wager on Boston ML -258. I’m more confident in over 6 goals.

FLA @ OTT:

My models have all converged on the Florida Panthers -1.5 goals, but at least 2 of the 3 barely like that option. I’m going to tail at +185 with a minimum bet. Joonas Korpisalo is out with an injury and Anton Forsberg has an .833 SV% in the last 30 days. It’s plausible Korpisalo could return, but unlikely as the starter. That brings us to the next problem, the over/under opened at 7 on Draft Kings with the under at -140. Both my line value algorithms like over 7 goals at +120, and Prime Line Value has produced a remarkable return when betting overs. Forsberg overs are 5-1 this season, but the average total goals in his starts is exactly 7. Sogaard hasn’t played yet but was a great over bet last year. In Florida’s last 5 games the total goals were 3, 3, 8 (Edmonton), 4, 3. Seems likely the total move to 6.5, at which time the line value algorithms probably won’t like the over. Note: it has already moved to 6.5 since I wrote this write-up an hour ago.

BUF @ NYR:

Normally seeing the Buffalo Sabres at +180 would be irresistible to me, as they’ve had a good rate of return the last 5 quarters as underdogs. That being said, I’m starting to get comfortable on this Rangers bandwagon and was very impressed by their 7-4 victory against Boston. Shesterkin is back and has a .927 SV% in his last 6 games. The fair line estimator thinks the Rangers ML should be -260, so there’s even a little value at -218. All my models like the Rangers and Tage Thompson is still injured, so NYR ML is my bet. This should be Shesterkin and UPL (.917 SV% last 30 days), so give me under 6.5 goals as well.

TB @ COL:

These 2 teams have played 6 games in Denver since October 2019 and the series is tied 3-3 (some of those being Stanley Cup final games). Andrei Vasilevskiy is back for Tampa, and they just blew out the otherwise defensively responsible Carolina Hurricanes 8-2. Nikita Kucherov is in beast mode, scoring 24 PTS in his last 12 GP. Betting Venues is playing it safe with Avalanche +1.5 goals, while Tailing History is making a max bet on the TB ML at +120. The Avs are -142 and the fair line estimator thinks they should be -217. It was difficult making up my mind between a small bet on either moneyline, but settled on the Avalanche due to high altitude. It was easy picking over 6 goals (7-1 support from my team of algorithms), as I’m anticipating it may take Vasy a couple weeks to fully find his rhythm.

VEG @ CGY:

The Vegas Golden Knights are 3-5 in their last 8 games, costing me a few big bets in the process. My trust in this team has been eroded in the last 2 weeks. The Flames haven’t been much better, going 4-4 in their last 8. Flames at home have produced a net profit -1.5 goals, while road Vegas opponents are also in the black -1.5. That’s why Game Sum is betting Flames -1.5 goals, but I’m not there yet with this team. They seem to be better than my early impressions, but both goalies have sub .900 save percentages the last 30 days, whereas both Vegas goalies are above .915. Not that it matters, this should be Adin Hill, who has been the better of the two. So, I’ll take the Vegas ML -120 because the fair line estimator thinks that should be -143, but it also thinks their PL -1.5 goals should be +240 instead of +195 because they’re not covering too often. Calgary just returned home from a 4-game road trip travelling 7,400 km, so Shorting Travel is going to take the Vegas ML too. If you bet $100 ML on every Flames opponent when CGY is returning home from similar trips since October 2019, you’d be up nearly $400.

WSH @ SJ:

My “big short” of San Jose continues, but it was a net loser in week 7, with their opponents going 1-2 on the PL -1.5 goals (which was 0-2 in San Jose). This has injected some doubt into my choice, but two of my models making max bets on Caps -1.5 is compelling to go max again. Washington was effective -1.5 in San Jose when the Sharks had better players (outscoring them 17-5 in 3 games). We also have 6-2 support for under 6 goals, but their previous meetings in this city averaged 7.3, so Betting Venues is taking the over. For the full season these teams have gone under 6 goals 23 times and over 11 times.