We’re back for another season of NHL Hockey!
Last year we finished 82-74 (+4.5U) for our 3rd consecutive winning season.
Since we started this site we are 660-584 (+39.5U) and we’re looking forward to building on that record this year.
We’ll be announcing changes for this year in the next few days but tonight we wanted to put out our picks to everyone as we get going on a new season – we couldn’t be more excited!
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We’ll be treading lightly early, as we have in prior years, as we gather data in order to make stronger picks. We just find that early season betting is more of a guessing game than we’d like and we’ll adjust accordingly as the season progresses.
There are just four games on the card for opening night and we’ll be involved in two of them. That’s more picks than we’d typically play this early but we feel good about getting involved in these two affairs – both at plus money.
Good luck with whatever you play. Odds below are at the time we made the pick.
Another banner-raising ceremony, another chance to fade the defending Stanley Cup
champions.
Granted, that didn’t work that well for us last year when we bet the Bruins +115 First Period
Moneyline against Washington. (The Capitals scored twice in the opening two minutes en route
to a 7-0 blowout win.) But previous to that, defending Cup champs had held the lead after 20
minutes in just one of their previous 12 home openers. We cashed a +144 moneyline winner on
the Blues in the 2017 opener in Pittsburgh (a lot of the rationale in that writeup still applies
today), and one loss last year isn’t going to completely discourage us from taking that similar
approach here.
We will, however, change it slightly. Rather than fading the Blues in the first period alone, we’ll
take a shot at a fatter price by backing the Capitals to pull off the outright upset. Even if St.
Louis is at an emotional disadvantage tonight after reliving last spring’s Cup championship, it
takes more than a +118 return to get us interested in betting against a Blues team that was
dominant in the first period last year on home ice. And if Washington does jump out to an early
lead, we like our chances of the Caps pulling out the full-game victory as well, this time with a
chance at a +134 payout.
Bet this game at Pinnacle – The best NHL odds online!
Think the Knights have had this one circled on their calendar? In addition to being their season
opener, tonight also marks Vegas’ first chance to avenge last year’s devastating Game 7 loss to
San Jose in the opening round of the playoffs. You know, when this happened:
San Jose’s four power-play goals after a bull-shit major to Vegas left the Golden Knights
seething, not to mention wondering what could have been after seeing the Sharks go all the
way to the Western Conference Finals. The animosity spilt over into a preseason game last
week that saw the teams combine for 114 penalty minutes (resulting in the suspension of
Evander Kane), but we think Vegas will be even more fired up now that the results actually
matter.
The Knights dominated San Jose in this venue during last year’s playoffs, winning two of the
three games in Sin City while outshooting the Sharks 59-29 in a 2-1 OT loss. We’ll admit that the
value isn’t great as we’re only getting even money on a regulation win, but the situation at least
justifies a half-unit shot on a fun bet. (If you’re feeling a Vegas blowout, Knights -1.5 pays +155.
Just saying.)
Bet this game at Pinnacle – The best NHL odds online!
Good luck!
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