January 20th, 2018 NHL Betting Tips

Yesterday was an example of one of the hard lessons you learn from gambling. Good bets can lose and bad bets can win. Knights was a good bet in my opinion, whilst admit the Caps previous performance made that pick a little less ‘good’. That being said, nothing would have made me pick Habs yesterday, and Niemi in net definitely wasn’t going to attract me. Some little voice in my head after I lost those two games told me to throw a bunch of money on the Ducks to win in reg, and this was after a scoreless 2nd Period. That was a very bad bet- but yet it won and bailed me out big time from the earlier losses. It isn’t a tactic I would advise, and one I am still telling myself off for. It was reactionary, and usually going for broke will leave you broke so whether or not I won it was giving in to a bad practice. I was confident yesterday, and it bit me in the arse, but I’m going to keep going and wrestle the money back from the bookies-

Early Games –

POTD 1. (early pick) Avalanche Reg/ML (75%/80%) – The Avs have scored the first goal in their last 8 games, and outscored their opponents 34-13 in their 8 game winning streak. I’ll say it again, that Rantanen-Mackinnon- Landeskog line is superb. The Avs win tonight, and they put themselves 2 points ahead of the THREE teams who could take that spot away from them right now. If that isn’t motivation, then I’m not sure what is. The Rangers on the other hand are without Hayes, Shattenkirk, Staal and Kreider, and a team that has struggled with consistency especially on the road is going to struggle to win games against hot teams without a full roster (that being said Staal sucks ass and is a handicap more than anything). The bookies are no longer giving us underdog prices for the Avs, but the odds are still nice enough for me to jump on board. Avs have won 6 of their last 8 in reg, so I have also placed some on the reg win as I see it probably ending that way. Ignore the historical data, because this Avs team is a world away from years past.

Stars ML/Reg (85%/80%) – I’m not going to go deep here. The Sabres have won just 5 of their last 20 – so have a 20% win rate. That’s more than enough to illustrate how bad this team is. The Stars are the better team, and fading the Sabres is a solid strategy (you’ll win 80% of the time) and the odds are nice on Dallas. Forget road stats, home stats blah blah – the Sabres are bad and the Stars are by far the better team (they’ve won 8 of the last 11 meetings too).

POTD 2. (Early pick) – Flames ML/Reg (85%/80%) – The Flames left the bye week hot as anything – on a streak of 7 games, and I don’t step in the way of streaking teams. I ride them until they lose. the Jets are just 7-13 overall on the road and 3-11 in their last 14 on the road, and are not the same team on road ice simple as that. Calgary has already dished out a 6-3 beating to the Jets at home, and that was back at the beginning of the season before Calgary found their legs. Hellebuyck has struggled on the road and Mike Smith has been superb all around lately. With no Lowry or Scheifele this seals the deal for me. Not to mention the Jets have gone 1-10 on the road against winning teams. There is no bye week advantage for anyone here, and I see Flames managing the Jets just fine.

Later games- (will add reasons later)

Bruins Reg/ML – This is another strong pick of the day contender.

Penguins ML/Reg- Good value, and Sharks have been poor even in the games they’ve won. I am bad at picking Penguin games but Pens have dominated the Sharks in years past, and the Sharks can’t keep the puck out the net. Plus money on the Pens is great.

Blues Reg- Coyotes are pesky to pick against on reg, but Blues have handled the Coyotes pretty well over the years, and beat up on the Sens enough to give me confidence they take this in reg. Will play this small- odds stink.

Hawks v Islanders over 5.5 – Wanted to take Hawks (due to historical dominance) but Hawks are so unpredictable its not worth it. With awful goaltending and defence, over 5.5 is the play again with the Islanders.

Senators ML – Call me crazy, but I’ll ride the Sens who have dominated the Leafs who have won 13 of the last 15 meetings. Leafs really don’t look good at all offensively. Sens are at an underdog price again.

Wild ML – At a slight underdog price, I’ll take the Wild who have dominated the Lightning at home. The Bolts are not looking as good as they were lately, and Ill take the side that was won 9 of the last 11 games against the bolts played on their home ice.

Canucks ML- Oilers aren’t good enough to back at reg and I’m not about to take -180/ 4/7 type odds to win on ML for them. Canucks have shown they can put up spirited performances and are looking healthy and good again. Oilers are probably without Lucic and Nugent-Hopkins , and I like the great value on a Canucks side that was a lot of attitude and fight.

I will add confidence ratings later, after I’ve decided what later games I will be taking.

Good luck everyone, and lets hope we cash not crash today!

I lost on the Caps as well. They are very annoying. Always playing to the level
Of the competition. To Only score a goal against Anti Niemi who’s been awful last couple seasons is not good for a great offense. They got a BS 6-5 goal with a minute left but it was already over after Max P scored an EN goal.

As far as Stars/Sabres I stayed away but of course if I had to bet I would lean Stars. But these are the weird games Buffalo wins when they have a few losses in a row. Lean U5.5 early game start.