2014-2015 NHL Playoff Betting Preview
The NHL playoffs are just around the corner and there is a lot of value to be had if you are willing to go looking for it. Not only are there Stanley Cup winners value, but you can also find good money in Daily Fantasy Sports leagues as well.
The Winding Road of the NHL Playoffs
The NHL playoffs are a very interesting and intricate thing to dices, because they are unlike any other sports playoffs. Favorites are not that big of favorites, home ice doesn’t mean much and one really hot player can carry you to the end. In this breakdown we will look at teams to stay away from, the underdogs and daily fantasy sports value to be had. We are not going to look at the favorites to win the cup, because there just isn’t that much value to be had, and you can find great breakdowns of those teams elsewhere. We want to help you find the most value that you can get, and favorites just don’t provide that.
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The Pittsburg Penguins
The Pittsburg Penguins are a team that a lot of people know and feel comfortable with, but they are not smart bets going into this postseason, for the first time in a while. At 16/1 on Bovada and 17/1 on Intertops it’s clear that the public likes to bet on them, but smart money should be running from them big time. The Penguins struggled mightily down the stretch, especially when Kris Letang went down for the season with a concussion and other injuries have plagued the defensive lines. Defense has never been a strong suit for Pittsburg, but depending on very little defense and the exceptionally inconsistent Marc-Andre Fleury is a recipe for betting disaster.
They could win a series, and perhaps more, but that seems unlikely as they face the New York Rangers in the first round, a team that has been playing well and has something to prove after getting ousted in the early going last year. Sidney Crosby is still awesome and Evgeni Malkin is getting comfortable again after missing time with an injury, but the team is just too thin on the backline and even the firepower that they are known for has been understated this year with a measly +11 goal differential, which is the second lowest among playoff teams.
The Underdogs
We love the underdogs, we really do. We root for them, because it’s fun to watch the upstart team knock off the favorites, because normally the games are pretty exciting and unexpected. This year, there are a few underdogs that can make a run in the playoffs and might be worth a fun bet, or two. The following are the odds from sports.Intertops.eu. You might be able to find better odds from one of our other partners as well, it’s worth a look.
The two biggest value picks among the bottom teams hear are Washington and Winnipeg, both for different reasons. We will take Washington first. They have one of the biggest stars in the game on a team that can score with the best of them. They have converted on 25+% of their power plays this season, which is first by over 10%, the 3rd best goal differential in the Eastern Conference and have come on strong late. Washington also has one of the best road records with nearly identical home/away splits. Considering they will likely be the road team after the first round this could play huge dividends for them. While they are still not likely to win the cup, they can be a smart pick to get out of the Eastern conference or win it all, especially at the long odds they are being offered.
The other conference offers a similarly good pick with Winnipeg having the longest odds of any team period to win the cup. They are a strong and fast team that will control the puck well. This also marks the first time since moving from Atlanta that the team is in the playoffs and that won’t be lost on the crowd. Home ice in hockey isn’t like other sports. It basically means nothing, or at least very, very little (more on that later,) but that could be different here as this fan base is getting to root for playoff hockey for the first time since 1996. Overall, they are a good sleeper candidate at these odds, as a lot of experts think they can upset the Ducks in the first round and then the momentum can carry them.
Common Fallacies
Hockey might not be your main betting game, and such, you should know a couple of things going in that are different than most other sports. These fallacies are not set in stone, but they make the dynamic of playoff hockey a tradition unlike any other.
Home teams don’t win at nearly the clip that you think they should. According to FoxSports.com home teams are 12-12 in game 7’s since 2006 and 90 of 150 series have been closed out on the road. Those are some staggering numbers, especially if you are coming from other sports were home court can tip the balance in a series pretty easily. The reasons for this are hotly debated and not exceptionally clear, but the fact remains that home teams don’t have a distinct advantage and so taking that into account when betting on individual games can be huge to your win rate.
The goalie can matter more than any other person on the ice, by a lot. Hockey is very much a team game and defense can impact how good a goal looks on any given night, but having a hot goalie can take your team from 8th seed to Cup winners. The difficult thing about it though if figuring out which goalie is going to be hot and how long you can ride them for. When Jonathan Quick became the hero of a few seasons ago by dragging the formerly lowly Los Angeles Kings to Cup winners, not many had expected that heading into the playoffs. It wasn’t that Quick was inherently bad, but more that no one knew he was that good. Perhaps the best way to approach this problem would be to save one bet to make after the first round to see what you have available to you goalie wise and then ride the hot hand.
Since goalies can mean so much and home ice has much less of an advantage than other sports, seeding matters a lot less overall. Last year the Los Angeles Kings barely squeaked into the playoffs and yet, they hoisted the cup at the end of the year. This isn’t the first time it has happened, and it won’t be the last. If you like a team, but are unsure of betting on them, because they are a 4th seed, you should still do it. Being the number 1 team doesn’t mean much in the gram scheme of things compared to something like the NBA playoffs or even football. Any team can get hot and if you like the prospects of a team doing just that, then go with it, because it’s far from a guarantee that you will be wrong. If you have some skepticism about this statement you can just look at the odds for basketball and see. Right now 11 of the 16 teams in the playoffs (combining the Oklahoma City Thunder and New Orleans Pelicans) have worse odds than any team does in the NHL on Bovada, and other sites are exactly the same.
Daily Fantasy Sports
This wouldn’t be a section in the past, but it is something that needs to be looked at now, because the prize pools are so big that it’s missing value to not play. The two largest Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) sites are DraftKings and FanDuel and both have some pretty good action for the NHL. The two most notable tournaments are a $2 $20,000 guaranteed ($2k+ for first) on FanDuel and a $3 $12,000 guaranteed ($1,000 for first) on DraftKings. If you want something a little bigger buy-in wise each site has a full complement of tournaments for you to take advantage of. Also, you can have multiple entries, so these contests allow for maximum value.
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Summary
The NHL playoffs are not like most other sports. They are unpredictable and weird results are close to commonplace. Considering this we have tried to give you some great value ideas and hope that it will be a fun and hopefully profitable betting time. You can use our links in the article to get some extra bonus money to help improve your ROI.