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Before You Place That Hockey Bet - Aug. 1 2018 - Murray Townsend
NEW BETTING legislation in the United States will have little effect on fantasy sports. How do we know?
Canadians have lived with government-operated sports betting for decades now and fantasy sports are stronger than ever north of the border. And while Americans may have been legally shut out of hockey betting, they know all their football point spreads for a reason and still love to play their fantasy sports.
They’re two completely different types of wagering. Sports betting is gambling on whether a team wins or loses, while the challenge of fantasy sports involves how players within those teams perform. Fantasy sports requires more intricate knowledge, provides more social interaction, is more about our own performance as a fictitious team manager against a group of friends, and involves the pride of virtual ownership of a fantasy team.
Of course, you could participate in both and be happy. Here at The Hockey News we like our readers to be happy so we put together a betting guide, not just for Americans but also for Canadians tired of losing. Consider these before dipping your toe in the pool.
BACKUP GOALIES
A common misconception is that when a team uses its backup goalie you should bet against them. It makes sense, because if he was better than the team’s No. 1 he wouldn’t be the backup. Over the long haul that’s no doubt true, but on a game-to-game basis it’s a different story.
For one thing, getting a start is a big deal for the backup so he’s going to be stoked for that particular game, as opposed to the starter for whom it would just be another night.
Moreover, players on the team are aware their No. 1 goalie isn’t playing so they’ll compensate by being more careful in their own zone, and better defensively. Here are a few examples of backup win-loss records in 2017-18:
HOME-ICE ADVANTAGE
The NHL records losses in overtime or shootout in their own special category, not acknowledging that they’re actual losses because the loser gets a point. Unless you’re doing three-way betting (wins, losses and ties at the end of regulation) or provincial government betting (the score at the end of regulation), then a loss is a loss is a loss in the betting world.
Home teams were 716-427-128 according to the NHL, which looks pretty amazing, but here’s something more amazing: road teams also had a winning (I use that term loosely) record of 555-548-168.
Only in the NHL can home and road teams both have winning records. It’s not a terrible strategy for the league because it makes teams look a lot better than they are. Your team at two games over .500 looks better to the hometown fans than eight games under .500.
For betting purposes, it’s easy enough to get a better perception of a team’s record by adding their overtime losses to their regulation losses. Carolina was 36-35-11 last year, a winning record, not bad. Add in their overtime and shootout losses and their record was 36-46, not very good.
Not to further complicate matters, although it does, note the NHL lists regulation and overtime wins in the ROW column in the standings. Carolina had 33 regulation or OT wins and 35 regulation losses, which is back to being OK if you’re only betting to the end of regulation time.
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LOSING A KEY PLAYER
This follows a similar thought process as playing the backup goalie, except there are more people involved.
The top-line left winger has an upper-body injury, not serious but he won’t play that night. Somebody takes his spot on the first line and everybody moves up a notch, including the guy who was sitting in the press box who now gets to play. So you’ve got four highly motivated players, all looking to make an impression. Again, like the backup goalie, it only works over the short term. After the dust settles, the motivational value wears off and players return to their talent level. Usually.
STREAKING TEAMS
Every team gets hot and cold. Every team. Nashville had the league’s best record last year. They lost four of five at one point, and had two three-game losing streaks.
Buffalo had the worst record. They, um, OK, they’re the exception to the rule.
The thing is, watch for the hot and cold teams. Run with them either way while it lasts. When the streak ends, it often completely reverses itself. Calgary had a seven-game winning streak. That was followed by a six-game losing streak.
BATTERED TEAMS
One of your best bets is to pick a team after it has taken a beating. Embarrassment is a highly effective motivator.
Last season, there were 23 games in which a team lost by at least six goals. One of those games was the final one of the season for both teams, so throw that out and we’re left with 22 such games that were followed by another game. Now, keep in mind it’s more likely to be a weak team that loses by that much. The losers of those games compiled an impressive 16-6 record in their next game.
As well, the winning team, a team so good it won by six goals, wasn’t so dominant in their next game, compiling a 12-10 mark.
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PLAYOFFS
Most teams get about five months off at the end of the season, but for some reason a week off between the Christmas break and the all-star break was negotiated into the schedule by the NHL and NHLPA.
In the first year of the week-off experiment, teams had a rough time coming back from the break. Supposedly they were rusty, but judging by the Instagram photos, some players might have just been tired after having too much holiday fun.
Last season, the league tried to balance it out and scheduled the week-long breaks around the same time in January, and had teams face other teams that were also coming off a break.
Three breaks in a one-month period may or may not be ridiculous, but for betting purposes you might as well ignore it in January because everybody is getting lots of time off.
TIRED TEAMS
Every team has busy times in their schedule. In the first month of the season it probably doesn’t matter, but later it might. There could be other factors, such as how the team is playing at that time, but we can assume a tired team isn’t going to play as well and have that built-in excuse for it.
HOMECOMING
We hear this a lot, about how a team that returns home from a long road trip loses that first game back. But is it true?
Turns out that we just hear about it when it happens, not when it doesn’t. Each team’s first game home after at least four consecutive games on the road was considered. Consecutive games interrupted by the Christmas break, all-star break and each team’s mid-season vacation in January were not included.
In the first game after at least four uninterrupted games on the road, NHL home teams had a spectacular record of 56-22-6 last season.
So much for that myth.
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LIVE BETTING AND THE DUMBEST STAT IN HOCKEY
You’d be hard-pressed to watch a hockey game when seconds after the first goal is scored, the broadcast doesn’t trot out the team’s record when scoring the first goal.
Yawn.
While it’s true that teams have good records when scoring first, they have very similar records when scoring the second goal, the third goal, the fourth goal or any goal.
It’s simple math. Let’s say seven goals are scored in a game. The winning team has to have at least four of the seven goal slots every time. In fact, you could make a case that the first goal is the least important of the game because there’s more time to get that goal back.
If the betting site has live betting, which means the odds change depending on the score of the game, then this is where you can do well. If a superior team goes down early by one goal or two goals, jump all over that and get great odds while you wait for the comeback.
Watching the game will help. You can see if one team is outperforming the other, even though they’re losing. Although, momentum is a funny thing in hockey because you only have it until you don’t. Then the other team has it until they don’t.
BET WITH YOUR HEAD, NOT YOUR HEART
Oh, you can go ahead and bet on your favorite team every night, no problem with that, as long as you’re not expecting to win. You’re too close, you can’t be objective.
The best thing to do is to ignore your home team unless you have a reason not to, or you don’t care if you lose.
Sometimes you can see that your favorite team is playing well, so go ahead and bet on them. Sometimes you can see they’re playing poorly, so don’t bet on them.
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