We’re now more than halfway through the NHL regular season, which means we’ve now got a sample of 688 games to sift through. Here are some trends that hockey bettors can use to shape their process for picking winners, powered by NorthStar Bets:
- Home teams (368-320 SU) have a 53.5% win rate this season, but that jumps up to 57.1% in games where the home team has more rest than the road team. Alternatively, when the road team has more rest than the home team, the home win rate drops to 49.3%.
- Consider betting road teams to win in regulation because they win almost as much as home favourites do, but their odds are longer. Recreational bettors shouldn’t be in a hurry to make regulation bets on big favourites, though. Try taking a chance at longer odds.
- If it feels like a lot more games are going to overtime, they aren’t. Last season, 23% of games went to extra time, and this season, approximately 22% have needed more than 60 minutes to find a winner.
- Bettors win less than 40% of the time backing teams to cover -1.5 goals on the puckline, so don’t reach on big favourites to blow out weak teams. Even big moneyline favourites with odds of -150 or higher have covered the puckline just 42% of the time this season.
- In games where the total is 5.5 goals, the over has hit 55.3% of the time. This would not be all that interesting if it wasn’t for the fact that the average odds are around 52.6%. It’s a small sample size, though, as just 37 games have had a total lower than six goals. The over has hit in 16 out of 23 games with a total of 5.5 since the start of December.
- Sticking with totals. Yes, bettors will often get plus-money on over 7 goals, close to +110 on average, but the over has only hit 21 out of 64 times this season, or 32.8% and those games have landed on exactly seven goals 20.3% of the time. Nearly 68% of the time, bettors who need eight goals or more to cash their ticket are pushing or losing.
Updated NHL betting trends as of Jan. 16
As you can see, there aren’t many inefficiencies present here. The hockey betting market does a great job betting games into shape. By and large, the market is efficient, and the odds are usually where they should be by the time the puck drops.
NHL updates from the CSB team
- Canada Sports Betting’s Greg Warren did a great job covering for Jeff Veillette by analyzing this week’s NHL schedule. Check out the article here to see a breakdown of rest days and tired spots.
- Watch the latest episode of Canada Sports Betting’s daily hockey podcast, The Puck Portfolio, to get picks for Wednesday and Thursday.
- Get updated projected NHL standings and Stanley Cup playoff odds here.
