MattyChucks' Must-Know NHL Betting Angle

Welcome back! Thank you all for your continued support! I posted an NHL Betting terms and tips article a week ago and now I am going to dive into a key piece of NHL handicapping that all bettors should be aware of when they bet on hockey. I will also be posting cheat sheets with these throughout the year!

This key piece of handicapping is going to be the “spot” that the team is in. This has to do with bad or good schedule spots for certain teams and exploiting them. In the NFL this is used with teams playing on Monday Night and then having a “short week” and having 1 less rest day than their opponent that they play on the upcoming Sunday.

This happens a lot in hockey. For example, I am on the Rangers against the Ducks as the Ducks are on game 2 of a 5 game road trip. The Ducks play the Rangers on Monday Night and then the Devils the following night. This means that their starting goalie will only most likely start 1 of these 2 games and you may be able to get a good price on the Ducks opponent that will face their backup goalie. This will be an even better angle if the Ducks start Gibson against the Rangers and then the Devils get to face the Ducks who will be on game 3 of a road trip and the 2nd night of a back to back with their backup goalie in the crease.

This can sometimes happen on game 4 or 5 of a road trip as well where a team just may be drained and ready to go home. This is almost the equivalent of getting an NBA superstar on a rest night before the line moves (if the starting goalie doesn’t play the next day). This can seriously give you a big edge during the season and If you are a new NHL bettor I would start to look at teams schedules and plan out when you want to attack certain teams. I would plan it out a few days in advance and wait for the line to come out and you will most likely get some serious CLV.

The Coyotes start off on a 6 game road trip this season. It would be very wise to attack them anyways as they are a bottom 5 team in the league, but it is even wiser to attack them in games 4, 5, or 6 of that road trip. I would target other bad teams where the lines may not be as crazy and you will get great value on a home team that would be ready to feast on a tired Coyotes team.

The NHL is concurrent with the NBA. There are 82 games in the NHL just like in the NBA and there are a lot of long road trips where you can exploit. 2 big spots to attack are back to backs and a team playing 3 games in 4 nights. For example, a team may play in Boston on Monday, have a rest day traveling to New York and then play the Devils and Rangers the next 2 days. That is not a lot of rest and a huge toll on your body. There will be more spots to attack throughout the season, but I just wanted to write this article to help you look for the most common good and bad schedule spots.