Whether scouring the internet for the best NBA picks and parlays or watching a live sports broadcast, you’ve likely noticed a significant increase in betting advertisements. As online sports betting becomes increasingly legalized in the United States, state-by-state, professional sports are embracing sports betting to previously unheard-of levels.
While football takes the spotlight, many people find increased enjoyment and become more engrossed in their sports of choice from placing wagers on game results and player performances. Increased enjoyment of a sport should lead to a person becoming a fan regardless of their entry into the sport.
The NHL is the North American professional sports league that could benefit most from the increased legalization of sports betting. In this article, we’ll spotlight the NHL and highlight a few aspects of the game that can help people make successful bets along the way.
Learning The Sport of Ice Hockey
Lifelong hockey fans know there is no faster professional stick and ball professional sport on the planet. New or potential new fans of anything will have a learning curve when they start their fandom. Fortunately for new fans, they may find similarities between the sports they are passionate about.
It can also help to have someone who knows hockey introduce someone who doesn’t understand the rules of hockey to the game, as J.J. Watt humorously attempted to do with Arizona Cardinals’ linebacker Zaven Collins in Hard Knocks In Season: The Arizona Cardinals.
Ice Hockey is more simple than it may appear.
Much like soccer, you have a goaltender to guard the net. The aim is to score goals. Each side has five skaters, usually three forwards and two defensemen. There are three 20-minute periods. If a regular season game is tied after sixty minutes, the teams play three-on-three in an overtime period, leading to a shootout if the teams are still tied.
This changes in the NHL playoffs, where teams ties after regulation play in sudden death overtime, where the next goal wins until someone scores. Multiple-overtime games are common in the Stanley Cup playoffs, which is regarded as the toughest trophy in professional sports to win.
When a player commits a foul, they receive either a two or five-minute penalty or 10-minute misconduct punishment. Rather than sending a player to the free-throw line for a foul like in basketball or being carded by the referee in soccer, when a player commits a foul in hockey, they are sent to the penalty box, giving the opposing team a player advantage, also known as a powerplay.
Hockey teams’ receive powerplays mostly of 2 minutes, although if a stick cuts a player, his team can receive a double minor, giving the opposing team a four-minute powerplay. Much more significant penalties receive a five-minute penalty and powerplay. Powerplays are not awarded for ten-minute misconducts or five-minute fighting majors.
You read that right; fighting is an accepted but punishable offense in hockey.
Powerplays can end in two ways: time running out or the team on the powerplay scoring. This holds true on all powerplays, except for five-minute “major” penalties, where the team with the man advantage maintains that advantage for the full five minutes and can score as many goals as possible.
There is an accessible and fantastic way to learn the game of hockey that goes beyond learning from a life-long fan or playing the game yourself: play the officially licensed NHL video game from EA Sports. These video games will teach you the sport’ ins and outs with tutorials geared toward new fans and introduce you to the teams and their rosters.
Still, the stats given to the players and teams are actually really accurate to their real-world counterparts.
If you want to get into the fastest, most aggressive stick and ball sport on the planet and to make successful bets on the NHL, you need to know the basics of the game. Once you know the basics of the game, you can better assess statistical data and wheel, snipe, celly to the bank.
Understanding Goalies…Well Attempting to Understand Goalies
There might not be a more important position in team sports than goaltending in hockey. A goalie who is solid and consistent throughout the year will help get his team to the playoffs, while some goalies can come from seemingly nowhere and help their teams’ stack wins and build winning streaks.
At the same time, every goalie has bad nights. Even recent Vezina Trophy winners – awarded to the NHL’s best goalie – like the New York Rangers’ Igor Shesterkin (2022), Winnipeg Jets’ number-one goalie Connor Hellebuyck (2020), and the Tampa Bay Lightning’s franchise goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy (2019). Each of these goalies is elite and can be brilliant and shut out a team one game while being pulled and replaced in their next game for poor performance.
All NHL teams carry two goalies, and fans and bettors alike should pay attention to who is starting for which team. Not all goalies are equal, and teams often play differently in front of their goalie, depending on which member of the tandem is starting the game. By paying attention to who the starting goalie is, you may have an inside track on how the game will play out.
For example, when the New York Rangers play Shesterkin’s backup, currently Jaroslav Halak, the Rangers’ lose more often as Halak makes fewer saves per game (lowering his save percentage) and gives up more goals (raising his goals against average) compared to Shesterkin.
By paying attention to the Rangers’ starting goaltender for any game, you will better understand how the game could play out and which way to place your bets.
You also might find a Shesterkin vs. Vasilevskiy battle on the NHL schedule that night, which can be a must-see. It could also be a one-sided victory for one team while the other team pulls one of the elite, game-changing goalies in the league for giving up too many goals.
The Importance of Statistics in the NHL and Sports Betting
Powerplay statistics are among the most important stats in hockey and for successful sports betting. Professional sports teams, oddsmakers, and bettors alike use the same statistics and data analytics.
Whether you are picking a team to win the Stanley Cup on a futures bet, a game to hit a certain goal total, or building your roster – be it NHL, NHL video games, or your fantasy team – statistics and data matter!
Statistical data is used to create probability models on which betting odds are based. This same data and advanced analytics play significant roles in player personnel decisions in the NHL.
Unlike an NHL General Manager, you don’t need to worry about advanced analytics or run a python script to find the best bets to make. Once you know the game of hockey, you’ll know that goalies and powerplays can make the difference in a game, while a team’s recent performances and season-long averages can give you great insight into each team and finding the best bet possible. And you are using much of the same data as oddsmakers and NHL teams to do so.
