By Chewy and Lewy
First rule of thumb is…nobody and I mean nobody picks all winners. And I’m not saying that to make excuses for our picks that don’t payout, all I’m saying is, it’s just not possible to go 100%. But if you listen to these guys on YouTube or on the radio who tout their winning strategies, their win streaks, or their “Stone Cold Locks” of the night, you’d think that the money is pouring in. Well, that ain’t happening. Here are however a handful of “Things to Consider” when deciding on a team.
- Goalies – The NHL has absolutely screwed the betting public each night, by not mandating each team declare who’ll be in net that night at a reasonable time prior to the puck drop. Who ends up in net will make a huge difference on the outcome of a game. There aren’t that many NHL teams with a #2 goalie who you can rely on. Just look at Toronto and the troubles they’re having in net! God knows what’s going on there! Is it going to be another early exit for the Maple Leafs? Campbell and Mrazek are leaking oil bad!
- Injuries – You have to keep track of who’s in and who’s out. Earlier this year when Covid was wreaking havoc on rosters it was important to know if your star players are going to be out on the ice. Especially when you’re betting the Puck Line. You can even dig deeper with line setups. A team like Edmonton manipulates their lines a lot. Are McDavid and Draisaitl going to skate together, I know I’d like that information going into a game.
- Schedules – Keeping track of the length of road trips, West Coast going to the East, Saturday morning games and Back to Back games all are important trends to monitor and to take advantage of. The New York Islanders have to play 18 back to back games this season, that being said, you will need to rely on your backup goalie a minimum of 18 times. Unfortunately for the Isles Varlamov sitting at 4-12 this season is a major disappointment compared to his 19-11 stint last year. Teams like Winnipeg, San Jose and Edmonton who only play 10 back to backs can ride that #1 goalie. Too bad Edmonton’s defense couldn’t play better in front of their tender, because Skinner’s future could be quite good in the Great White North.
Some of the difficulties about monitoring these categories are the craziness of the past few seasons. Back in 2018, it was easy to look at the four previous seasons to compare schedules or playoffs. But they’ve changed the schedule make up the past three seasons that you can’t use historical data like you used to. For instance, last season teams only played within their division. Now that was great because there were so many Home and Home series that we could see trends forming. But unfortunately, that didn’t translate to this season. We’re back to a club playing each team in their division 4 times, in their conference 3 times and outside of their conference twice. So back to the drawing board. I’m a spreadsheet guy, so I like keeping track of info by entering it in by hand: scores, odds, over/unders, home/away and a handful of other criteria. This allows me to not only calculate and arrange info quickly and efficiently but because I don’t download the info, I get to see trends and consistencies as the season progresses.
