NHL daily betting guide: Opening moneyline projections for March 29

There's one rule to live by when it comes to grading your wagers in the wild world of NHL betting: If you bet on an underdog of more than a modest price, and that team finds itself in the near-coin flip of three-on-three overtime or a shootout, you've made a good bet regardless of the outcome.

Whether your 'dog got there by playing evenly with a more-heralded opponent or on the back of a hot goaltender, you got what you wanted when you made the bet. A +150 or better moneyline suggests you've bought something that has a 40% or worse chance of happening. If the game plays out closer to 50/50, you got a good deal.

So, we can take solace that the four valuable underdogs (Sabres, Blue Jackets, Senators, and Sabres again) that went past regulation this past weekend lost, including two in the shootout.

Despite the setback, our exercise in value-betting the NHL is still up almost 30 units since the post-All-Star break roster stabilization that came when COVID-19 testing policies were relaxed. With great success comes greater demand, and eventually greater supply. So, our once-weekly guide now becomes semi-daily.

How to use the guide

In this space, you'll find my fair price on the matchups before the sportsbook adds the vig (true moneyline), and the moneyline price I'd need to bet either side, a day in advance. With a particular day's lines opening the night before, the idea is to be able to jump on a valuable bet before the line adjusts.

For example, Monday's games opened Sunday night. A guide for those contests, would look like this:

Compare the "Price to bet" column with the prices offered by your various sportsbooks. From there, you'd compile a list of bets. The only reason to not make a bet would be if there was something that wouldn't be accounted for in how we've rated teams - like a star player being a surprise scratch - or if you've put a team on the "Do not bet list."

For example, the Capitals opened at +116 at home to the Hurricanes, but that line has dropped as of Monday morning. This matchup rates out to the truest of 50/50 games, so Capitals +110 would be worth a bet, barring new information.

After you make your bets, come back before puck drop on game night to compare the price of your opening bet to its current price to give you an idea of how much closing line value you may be getting.

Since many of these bets will be plus-money, you won't need to win at even a 50% rate to be profitable. However, you will need a little better luck after regulation, to take advantage of those valuable coin flip situations. Over the long term, the better the price you get, the more profit you'll accumulate.

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.

This season's on-ice predictive metrics make up 80% of our total rating. Basing 20% of the ratings on preseason "priors" allows us to emphasize team metrics without going all-in on what's happened during this elastic campaign with a still relatively small sample size that includes some tainted results from when COVID-19 ravaged lineups.

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.

The cheat sheet

What follows is my fair price on the matchups (true moneyline) and the moneyline price I would need to bet each 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. You can establish your own threshold. For for bigger underdogs, you may want a bigger cutoff like 6-7%. On games I've projected to be a near coin flip, a 2.5% edge is enough to make it a worthwhile wager.

Tuesday, March 29

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.