Hockey Handicapping
Written by Jack Jones
Hockey is one of those fringe sports that do not get a lot of attention for most sports bettors, but that goes for the books too. With so many college basketball and NBA games going on each night, and getting more betting action, the books do not pay as close attention to the NHL odds. That means if you know what you are doing, hockey handicapping can put some extra dollars in your bankroll. Here are some of the sites that I frequent each day in order to get the inside track on betting the games on ice.
- Powerscout Hockey – Good predictor tool with matchup analysis on players to watch, head-to-head, and trend comparisons.
- Covers NHL Matchups – A good resources to look at head-to-head matchups and trends for the game.
- Hockey Analysis – Takes a deep look at the world of hockey with teams blogs, power rankings, and statistical information.
- Hockey Database – The world’s largest repository on hockey data from teams to individual players.
- Inside Hockey – In-depth articles and commentary from some of the brightest hockey minds.
- Super Stats – NHL.com’s stat machines that you can view interactively.
- Hockey Watch – Canadian site that keeps up to date with NHL information and news.
- Goalie Post – Want to know who is starting in net for tonight’s games? The only place I look for this info.
- Hockey News – Another great site for news and notes covering hockey.
What factors should you take into consideration when going over the hockey matchups?
1. Goaltending – How a team has been performing in net is a huge driver of whether they win or lose. Save percentage is the stat to look at here, because if a goalie is not giving up many goals simply due to a lack of shots attempted against him, that’s not as good of a sign of quality as if he is rejecting a high percentage of shots.
2. Shots on Goal – Offensively it is important for a team to spend time on their opponent’s side of the ice and to get quality shots off. If a team can have a higher number of shots on goal than their opponents, they will have more of an opportunity to get one past the goaltender.
3. Penalty Stats – How many penalties do each team tend to commit? How good are the teams’ powerplay success and killing rates?
4. Home/Away Splits - Some teams are above average at home but play very mediocre on the road. I like to break games down not only based on their overall stats but also based on how the team performs in from of their home crowd and in front of opposition.
5. Recent Play – Teams will go on streaks, so add a little bit of emphasis to a team’s recent play. Be careful here not to weight too heavily because with the small sample set you can get some statistical variance.
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