NHL weekly betting guide: Evaluating the ghosts of pre-Christmas games past

Whether it's at the end of the regular season or during some obvious break in the schedule, you'll hear about the most, and least, profitable teams in a given league. But it's largely irrelevant.

What is worth a quick investigation - during this hiatus in the hockey season - is how the best and worst teams in the NHL have done for their bettors, who were either willing to lay a price to back the good teams or were able to hold their nose and bet on the bad ones.

We were given a hint before the season as to who would be good this season. The Hurricanes, Devils, Avalanche, and Maple Leafs were all expected to push for more than 106 points, or 1.3 points per game, in the standings.

We were also given a hint as to who might be bad this season. The Blackhawks, Ducks, and Sharks were lined at 71 points or worse (0.86 points per game).

Here's how blindly betting on those six teams has fared this season.

Why is hockey so difficult to bet on? Blindly betting on both the good and bad teams can be a losing proposition.

With a high rating coming into the season, the Avalanche have needed to win 62% of their games to be marginally profitable.

At the other end, getting big underdog moneyline prices on the low-rated teams hasn't guaranteed profits, either.

The Sharks lost their first 11 games, making them profitable at +7.1 units since a disastrous start. What's even wilder is that, before heading into the Christmas break with a five-game losing streak, San Jose had an 18-game stretch of winning 12.1 units for their bettors.

The dirty little secret in the betting world is that, while there are no bad bets at the right price, the discovery process of what a good price looks like is hidden.

Each week, we balance market information from regular-season point totals and in-season advanced metrics - with an even-strength focus - to determine the win probability for each team and the moneyline needed to bet on either side. The idea is to remove the cognitive bias of win-loss records, which can be skewed by outliers like special-team results, poor goaltending performances, and other unreliable events.

You can use whatever parameters you like to decide how much of an edge you need to trigger a bet, but here are mine:

• True line favorite of -111 or longer: 1%
• True line between -110 and +110: 2.5%
• True line underdog of +111 or longer: 4%

I also have a 5% win probability consideration for a team playing in the second game of a back-to-back with travel and a 3% consideration for the second leg of a home back-to-back. When it comes to injured players, an estimation is made on the player's impact on their team's win probability.

When the betting markets open up the night before, you can compare those prices with our "price to bet" column to see if you're getting any value with either side's moneyline. There's a possibility that a moneyline moves into a bet-friendly range at some point between the market opening and puck drop.

Matt Russell is the lead betting analyst for theScore. If there's a bad beat to be had, Matt will find it. Find him on social media @mrussauthentic.

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