MattyChucks' NHL Betting Terms + Tips To Know

What’s up everyone! The time has finally come! The 2022-23 NHL Season is officially underway!

Last year I ended the season +138.83 units after a terrific year while we took advantage of different lines that various sportsbooks offered. For those of you that are new here, I will take this article to go through popular bet types and terms to help you understand hockey analysis better and hopefully help you better understand the sport. Let’s get into it.

Hockey is played with 5 skaters and 1 goalie at a time. It isn’t played in quarters or halves, it is played in periods. These periods are 20 minutes long and there are 3 periods in 1 game. This is a full 60 minutes of hockey in one game. In the regular season, if the score is still tied at the end of 3 periods it will go to overtime. Overtime is 5 minutes and instead of 5 skaters per team it goes down to 3 skaters. When the game goes to overtime, both teams get 1 point in the standings and whoever wins overtime gets 1 more point for a total of 2 points. Now, if the game is still tied at the end of the overtime period, these 2 teams will go to a penalty shootout to decide the winner.

That basically sums up the game of hockey, let’s get into the terms.

60 Minute Line

A.K.A the 3-way moneyline. This is a personal favorite of mine. This is a bet on a team winning the game at the end of regulation. So after the end of the 3rd period your team must be winning. If it goes to overtime, you lose. This is why it's called a 3-way, because you can win, lose, or tie in hockey at the conclusion of regulation.

Moneyline

You should know what this means. This bet is for your team to win, even if it goes to overtime or penalty shootout. You just need them to win.

Puck Line

This is similar to the run line in baseball. This is for a team to cover the 1.5 line. This is what most books will have. The favorite will be -1.5 and the underdog will be +1.5. For example if you have the Devils puck line or Devils -1.5 they would need to win by 2 or more. If you have an underdog for example the Stars +1.5 they must either win, or lose by less than 2 goals. This is a popular bet for favorites as teams tend to pull their goalie to get an extra skater if they are down by a goal in the final minutes. This allows for an “empty net” for the teams up by 1 where if they get the puck they can shoot it down and try to seal the deal with a goal and most importantly cash the -1.5 puck line.

1P over or 1P under

If you see people betting this it just means 1st period over goals or under goals. You can bet 2P over or under and 3P over under goals. This is just to clarify that if you see a number before P you probably are betting that specific period.

SOG

“Shots on Goal” - this would be for a player prop. For example if someone says Jack Hughes over 2.5 SOG it means Jack Hughes to have 3 or more shots on goal. These shots must either go in the net, or hit the goalie. If he misses the goal or it hits someone it will not count.

Tie no bet

This is self explanatory. This can be used for a 60 minute line tie no bet on some books where if you tie you just push instead of losing. You will get worse odds though. This can also be used for a moneyline in a certain period. A common bet could be 1P tie no bet which would be for your team to win the 1st period and if they tie you push as well.

These are the majority of bets that you guys should see. There are other props like goalie saves made, goalie goals allowed, team totals and more. I just wanted to touch on some basics. There are other terms that aren’t bets that you need to know.

PP or “Power Play”

This is when a team commits a penalty and the skater who commits the penalty goes to the penalty box which leaves his team playing 4 v 5 for the duration of the penalty. The Power Play would be for the team who has the 5 skaters and will look to take advantage of the few minutes that they have against only 4 skaters.

PK or “Penalty Kill”

This is the term used for the team who is down a man against the power play. This would be their penalty kill as they are trying to shoot the puck down the ice and stop the other team’s power play unit from scoring. Their goal is to “kill” the power play by not allowing a goal for the duration of the penalty.

Empty Netter or Empty Net Goal

This was talked about previously. This is when a team scores a goal on an empty net because their opponent pulled their goalie to get another skater on for more offense. This really only happens in the final minutes of a game. If the Bruins are playing the Penguins and the Bruins are up 3-2, then in the final minutes the Penguins will pull their goalie to get an extra attacker and leave their net open. If the Bruins can get the puck basically defending 5 v 6 skaters they will try to score on the empty net and basically score the dagger to go up 4-2.

All in all the NHL season has trends and schedule spots to take advantage of and the more you understand about the game the better you will be! I hope this article helps! Best of luck on your NHL betting journey!