NHL Scores and Matchups, Hockey Betting Recap
Last Night’s NHL Scores Gave key Matchups; 2 Days Before Deadline
Tuesday’s NHL matchups and predictions proved once again why betting on the National Hockey League favorites may cash tickets more times than not, but the moneyline is where bettors give it all back. Of the ten games on last night’s card, the favorites won six of them, but that wouldn’t have been good enough to earn a profit after the Buffalo Sabres (-210) and Tampa Bay Lightning (-170) both lost as massive favorites on home ice.
NHL Team stats show the Boston Bruins as the league’s most profitable team (+1536) after their thrilling road overtime win against the Calgary Flames, 4-3. Let’s get a closer look at some of Tuesday’s impactful results and a betting breakdown of where the public stands against the book to date.
Bruins One Win Away From 100
According to last night’s bet percentages, the public and the house split their puck line decisions on games where 90% of the money was on one side. That was good enough for the ‘Joes’ to take home some profit (+165). One of the games the books dodged a bullet on was the Boston Bruins one goal win at Calgary. 98% of the puck-line dollars wagered were on the Bruins who needed an overtime goal with just five seconds left in the extra session by Charlie McAvoy to give the B’s their 47th win of the season.
The public had some measure of revenge with 92% of the wagers coming in on the over, which cashed after Pavel Zacha’s power-play goal tied the game up at three at the 14:07 mark of the third period. Interesting to note that the Calgary Flames outshot the Bruins 57-20, and it wasn’t one of those games where Calgary had a bunch of shots from the perimeter. A look at the shot chart shows that most were grade-A chances down low, but Linus Ullmark made 54 saves, including seven power-play saves to preserve the win. Let’s continue our NHL scores and matchups review by checking in with the league’s second-most profitable team.
Montreal Canadiens Come Through Again for Bettors
You would likely go down a long list of teams who you would think are the second-best team to bet on before you would come to Montreal Canadiens. We would bet you would run out of teams to remember before the Habs would cross your mind.
However, Montreal did it again last night as a +135 dog at San Jose to add to their season total of $1182 won on a $100 moneyline wager. 87% of the bets were on San Jose (-1.5) +150, and that looked like a winner into the third period with the Sharks clinging on to a 1-0 lead. However, Montreal finally woke up with a goal to tie by Kaiden Guhle, his third, at the 8:07 mark of the third, followed by Jesse Ylönen’s second 1:52 later to give Montreal a 2-1 lead.
The Canadiens have won three of their last four and six of their last nine. Their current road trip will take them through Los Angeles, Anaheim, and Vegas before returning home to face Carolina, New York Rangers, and the New Jersey Devils. Outside of their date with Anaheim, there will be plenty of big plus money chances with the contests coming up. In fact, 11 of their next 12 games are against teams that will either make the postseason this year or did last season. We continue our NHL scores and matchups review by looking at the betting publics’ overall success last night with an update on the season-long trends.
Favorites Continue to Dominate Overall, Still far From Profitable
We discussed how the favorites did last night, another example of how the moneyline will grab you with the teams you think are obvious wagers. To date, favorites are 585-382 (.605), but your return on investment is -4.4% (-$4216).
Home favorites have been the toughest to bet with an ROI of -6.8%, despite winning 59.94% of the time. Let’s put a filter on that number to show you the impact of betting big favorites. Using -160 and up, favorites are 352-192 (64.71%) but have produced a loss of -$3157 for $100 bettors (-5.8% ROI). Home favorites are worse (-$3498), using the same -160 filter, even though bettors own a 235-137 (63.17%) record.
In contrast, when the moneyline is -150 or less, the public is 206-176 (53.93%) when betting the favorite but still failing to record a profit (-$1415). Home favorites are 116-100 (51.33%) -$895, using that filter. Clearly, the key to winning on the ice is to find live dogs. That does it for last night’s NHL scores and matchups review, best of luck with your wagers tonight.
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