Is There Any Futures Value in NHL Teams Down 0-2?
Looking to Back Teams Down an 0-2 Hole?
Is There Any Futures Value in NHL Teams Down 2-0 in a Series?
The Stanley Cup Playoffs in the National Hockey League (NHL) is one of, if not the toughest postseason tournament to navigate in all of professional sports.
After a grueling 82-game season, 16 clubs embark on a nine-week journey with hostile crowds and physical play. All this while most players deal with nagging injuries sustained from the previous 28 weeks of seasonal action.
When a club takes a 2-0 series lead, it presses the club that’s trailing into a mode where every minute and every period becomes more dire, more stressful, and with enough pressure to make some teams fold, while other NHL Power Ranking clubs can rise above the adversity and perform to a higher level.
And thanks to the advancements in sports betting, and adjusted series prices between each contest in a playoff series, there are opportunities to cash in when teams find a way to pull themselves back into a best-of-seven battle.
In this article, we will highlight some factors to help bettors look for those particular spots.
Location, Location, Location.
The NHL has been utilizing a best-of-seven series format for all of their postseason series in each round going back to 1987. The record for teams that lose the first two NHL games of a series is 54-340 throughout 394 playoff series All-Time.
With all playoff series running a 2-2-1-1-1 format, this means that often, the club that is starting the series on the road ends up losing the first two games in enemy territory.
That’s not always the case, for example, just last year in the First Round of the 2023 playoffs, the New York Rangers took a 2-0 lead winning both games on the road, just across the Hudson River taking on the New Jersey Devils, before returning to Madison Square Garden and dropping both home games, eventually NHL Playoffs losing teams four straight contests as the Devils advanced to the next round in six games.
When you see teams that are playing well in a certain atmosphere, that change of scenery and location can play a big role in what betting numbers are posted and how those teams head into those contests.
Sometimes, the pressure of playing in front of the home supporting fans can be more overwhelming for clubs rather than being on the road, where teams have a more business-like approach with the travel and can carry themselves with an “Us Versus The World” mentality, which you can gauge sometimes by listening to player and coach quotes as a team shift scenes, be it home or road.
Also keep an eye on prices as they adjust from game to game. It’s commonplace for teams NHL betting lines at home to be favored in a game or series just because the sportsbooks know that people lean toward betting home clubs more often in general.
Contrasting Styles
There’s more than one way to win a hockey game, as far as style of play goes. Some teams like to utilize an approach of speed and skill, relying on offensive firepower to overload their opponents, while other clubs tend to lean on their defense and goaltending play, which is much more common in the postseason.
You will have matchups in rounds where these two clashing styles meet together, and clubs will have to use their coaching strategy to adjust and often, adapt to a different style than what they are normally accustomed to.
When you see NHL teams trying to fit themselves into a “Standard Box” of how Playoff Hockey normally goes, which often is a more defensive game, anchored by solid puck possession, timely hitting, and being able to avoid taking penalties, you sometimes see squads get so far away from the sets that got them to that playoff series, and they end up making mistakes, especially if it’s in regards to physical play, which can end in taking bad penalties and giving opponents extra NHL stats Power-Play time or turning a man-advantage situation into a Four-on-Four spot of even strength.
Look closely for teams who stick to their usual styles and just make changes within those systems, rather than clubs that look to make wholesale adaptations towards their opponent. Often, teams in that latter category don’t end up making the push to get back into a series.
Reacting to Goaltending “Controversies”
In the modern setup of the National Hockey League, teams truly need two goaltenders who are fully capable of being in the starter role whenever called upon.
The days of having starting goalies play upwards of 65 to 75 games in an NHL season, with the backups only getting starts on the second night of back-to-back games have gone the way of the dodo bird and hockey games ending in ties.
The more successful teams over the last decade-plus have used a 1A/1B system, which keeps both netminders fresh during the long 82-game regular season, however, this sometimes can pose a problem once entering the playoffs.
Teams can end up having a starter who might have had a strong first half of the season and then started to falter down the stretch, giving more time for the backup, and now the coaching staff has to make a tough decision on who to start to begin a series.
Some clubs, like the Boston Bruins, are starting their first-round series against the Toronto Maple Leafs, continuing to rotate their tandem of Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman.
Where last year, the Bruins rolled with Ullmark for most of their first-round upset loss against the Florida Panthers, in which it was revealed that Ullmark, the Vezina Trophy winner, was playing through a lower-body injury that required minor surgery in the off-season.
Keep an eye on netminders who might have battled through any NHL injuries or issues during the regular season, as some of those issues, especially involving lower-body injuries, can re-occur at times during a playoff run, and teams may not disclose that information while a series is in progress.
Check out more on NHL Playoffs Losing Teams and more over at Point Spreads.
