NHL weekend betting guide: True moneylines for March 18-20

It's not that different from any other sport, but betting on hockey rests on a metaphorical edge the width of a skate blade. And not just on the ice during a game, but in the 24 hours before puck drop.

For the uninitiated, moneyline prices are opened by sportsbooks the night before a contest is played. It's the first chance for bettors to weigh in on their opinion of a game at relatively low limits. Oddsmakers then shift the price toward the more heavily bet team.

Value-based betting is when you aim to bet on a club at a specific minimum price. That move can push a team from qualifying as bet-worthy to no longer worth it. There are also occasions when a squad becomes valuable after there's enough action on the other club.

With just one game Monday, let's look back at the Coyotes and Senators contest and see how the pricing in that matchup might have changed our perspective on it.

	OUR PRICE TO BET	SUNDAY NIGHT	CLOSING LINE (Mon.)
Coyotes	+144	+147	+128
Senators	-118	-167	-148

With our bi-weekly guide posting Monday morning, we couldn't jump on the Coyotes at +144 or better. Bettors saw the value in Arizona and modestly bet them down into the +120s. That value disappeared.

If you're an intrepid hockey handicapper, perhaps you were willing to blindly bet on the Coyotes anyway, and you'd have been rewarded. However, over the long term, it's a prudent betting practice to be disciplined enough to bet when the number is in your range and pass when it's not.

Of course, the thin line still exists after the bet is made. The following night, three valuable underdog bets at an average price of +165 went to the 50/50 coin flip of overtime. The Sharks and Blackhawks lost during 4-on-4, and the Islanders fell in a shootout. Sometimes good bets don't go the right way. In other cases, timing keeps you off a winner. Either way, you can rest easy knowing you have a plan.

The recipe

Before the 2021-22 campaign, we devised a three-part series on how to use the regular-season point-total market to create team ratings, how to interpret home-ice advantage, and then how to use those to create your own moneylines.

We made a small adjustment to our formula a couple of weeks ago, moving this season's on-ice predictive metrics to 75% of our total rating. While our ratings are weighted to this season, basing 25% of the ratings on preseason "priors" allows us to emphasize team metrics without going all-in on what's happened this campaign. That's important because this season is still a relatively small sample size that includes some tainted results from when COVID-19 ravaged lineups.

The stabilization of rosters at the All-Star break has meant that underdogs, or favorites that aren't favored by enough, are priced that way due to less quantifiable reasons, like public perception or short-term variance.

The cheat sheet

What follows is my fair price on the matchups (true moneyline) and the moneyline price I would need to bet either side. I just need a 1% edge for a favorite if we're getting better than a fair price on the team more likely to win. For the underdog, I'll need 4% or better to make it a bet. On games I've projected to be a near coin flip, a 2.5% edge is enough to make it a worthwhile wager. I also have a 5% win probability consideration for a side playing in the second game of a back-to-back with travel and 3% for without travel.

DATE	GAME	TRUE ML	PRICE TO BET
March 18	WSH@CAR	+110/-110	WSH +122/CAR +100
	PHI@OTT	+131/-131	PHI +155/OTT -126
	BOS@WPG	-111/+111	BOS -107/WPG +131
	BUF@CGY	+267/-267	BUF +330/CGY -254
	FLA@ANA	-135/+135	FLA -130/ANA +159
	COL@SJS	-145/+145	COL -139/SJS +171
March 19	DAL@NYI	+119/-119	DAL +140/NYI -114
	CHI@MIN	+126/-126	CHI +148/MIN -121
	NJD@EDM	+152/-152	NJD +181/EDM -146
	LAK@VGK	+141/-141	LAK +167/VGK -135
	STL@CBJ	-119/+119	STL -114/CBJ +140
	PIT@ARI	-134/+134	PIT -129/ARI +158
	OTT@MTL	+142/-142	OTT +168/MTL -137
	TOR@NSH	-115/+115	TOR -110/NSH +135
	NYR@TBL	+135/-135	NYR +159/TBL -130
	DET@SEA	+127/-127	DET +150/SEA -122
	CGY@VAN	+129/-129	CGY +152/VAN -124
March 20	NYI@PHI	+114/-114	NYI +134/PHI -110
	DAL@WSH	+133/-133	DAL +157/WSH -128
	NYR@CAR	+139/-139	NYR +164/CAR -133
	ARI@SJS	+131/-131	ARI +155/SJS -126
	WPG@CHI	-112/+112	WPG -108/CHI +132
	BUF@VAN	+206/-206	BUF +248/VAN -197

Matt Russell is a betting writer for theScore. If there's a bad beat to be had, Matt will find it. Find him on Twitter @mrussauthentic.

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