NHL weekly betting guide: True moneylines for every game (Oct. 10-16)

The NHL season is back, and with it come our moneyline projections for every game this week as we search for valuable hockey bets.

Since it's the first week of the season, there are two issues with our projections:

1. Many sportsbooks have already posted odds for the games from Tuesday's opening game to the first big Saturday slate of the season. So there's no guessing. We already know what the odds are.
2. We don't have any metrics from on-ice play this season to parse through to build our ratings.

Last week, we broke down how to take the regular season point total market, turn that into market ratings for each team, and subsequently translate those into moneylines for each matchup. It shouldn't come as a surprise that using our formula has resulted in prices very close to what is currently available.

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 take advanced metrics - with an even-strength focus - to determine my fair price on each game and the moneyline I'd need 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%

As the season goes on, 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, I do my best to estimate the impact on their team's win probability.

Normally, 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.

Depending on when you look at the lines, you might be hard-pressed to find a valuable bet based on market inequity - a team that is rated differently in moneylines than it was in regular season point totals.

So, how do we make a bet? Take it with a grain of salt, applying what you know of each team's offseason, but here's a list of squads rated significantly higher or lower than they were when last season ended.

If you think a team on the left didn't have an offseason worthy of a rating boost, they may be worth fading. If you like what a team on the right did this summer, they may be worth an early-season bet.

As always, game odds off of power ratings are a starting point. For example, while every team gets the same schedule consideration, sometimes teams start their backup goaltender in the front end of the back-to-back.

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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