Coyotes visit Tampa with shot at sixth straight win

Hockey Betting Lines

03/16/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - A flurry of recent moves have paid instant dividends for the Phoenix Coyotes, who'll be trying to run their current winning streak to six games in this evening's matchup with the Tampa Bay Lightning from the St. Pete Times Forum.

Since making a startling seven deals prior to the March 3 trade deadline, the Coyotes have ripped off five consecutive wins to further solidify their chances for a first playoff appearance since 2001-02. The tear has given Phoenix 89 points for the season, good for fourth place in the Western Conference and just seven behind top-seeded San Jose for the Pacific Division lead.

With a victory tonight, Phoenix would match a club record for wins in a single season set in 1984-85, when the franchise was located in Winnipeg.

Lee Stempniak has played a major part in the Coyotes' surge, scoring six goals in five games since being acquired from Toronto earlier this month. Fellow forward Wojtek Wolski (2 goals, 1 assist, plus-three rating) and veteran defenseman Derek Morris (plus-four rating), brought in from Colorado and Boston, respectively, in deadline swaps, have made a noticeable impact as well for a Phoenix squad that has outscored the opposition by an 18-6 margin over its present streak.

The Coyotes received a big lift out of one of their holdovers in their most recent win, with reserve goaltender Jason LaBarbara making 39 saves in Sunday's 3-2 shootout decision over Atlanta. Adrian Aucoin came up with the game-winning goal in the fourth round of the deciding phase.

"I thought we were sluggish for most of the game, but the biggest thing is we found a way to get two points and a win," said LaBarbera, who also turned aside 3-of-4 Thrasher skaters in the shootout. "The guys played great in front of me."

Stempniak, named the NHL's Second Star of the Week on Monday, had one of Phoenix's two regulation goals and has notched eight points (6 goals, 2 assists) during a six-game scoring streak.

LaBarbera will likely yield tonight to regular backstop Ilya Bryzgalov, another who's been sensational for Phoenix down the stretch. The 29-year-old has surrendered just four goals and posted two shutouts over his last four starts and is coming off a 29-save performance in a 4-0 victory over Carolina in Saturday's opener of a four-game road trip.

While the Coyotes have been red-hot as of late, Tampa enters tonight's clash having dropped eight of its last 10 tilts following Sunday's 2-1 home setback to defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh. Despite their rough stretch, the Lightning stand just four points back of Boston for the eighth playoff seed in the Eastern Conference.

Steven Stamkos has helped Tampa Bay remain in postseason contention, although the second-year center has been kept off the scoresheet in two straight outings following a franchise-record 18-game point streak. The 20-year-old ranks third in the NHL with 42 goals this season, trailing only superstars Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin in that category.

Ryan Malone, who stands third among Lightning players with 21 goals, sat out for the second time in three games in Sunday's loss and is day-to-day with an undisclosed upper-body injury.

Vincent Lecavalier scored the lone Tampa goal against the Penguins, with Antero Niittymaki stopping 37-of-39 shots on the night. The Finnish netminder had been working on a shutout until Pittsburgh put up a pair of goals within a three-minute span in the third period.

"It looked like we had things under control, and then we take back-to-back penalties," said Bolts forward Martin St. Louis of the Penguins' rally. "You give them an opening and it's over because they start feeling good about themselves."

The loss kicked off a four-game homestand for Tampa Bay, which owns an 18-9-6 record at the St. Pete Times Forum this season.

The Lightning have prevailed in three straight and five of their last six meetings with the Coyotes held in Florida, as well as seven of the past eight overall encounters between the teams. Phoenix will be making its first trip to Tampa since a 5-3 defeat on February 13, 2007.

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How to bet pro football

There is little doubt that the NFL is where the sportsbooks see the most action and also make the most loot. The NFL possesses betting friendly attributes that are unlike any of the other major sports. First off, there are relatively few teams to keep track of in comparison to college football betting or college basketball. And second, these teams play only once a week which makes staying on top of the results much easier than it is in the daily leagues such as the NBA, NHL, and MLB.

These dynamics, along with the sheer excitement of watching and wagering on football, brings more square action to the table than any of the other sports. Almost every Tom, Dick and Harry in America is an NFL expert in their own mind and that is precisely what the oddsmakers prey upon.

Understanding who bets the games is just as important as understanding which teams are playing the games. The market at times will dictate price, which in the betting world means the oddsmakers cater to the public rather than reality.

Knowing the market inside and out is the basis of our NFL handicapping model. That is, our approach to NFL handicapping is of the contrarian or value seeking variety. We will at times place a higher premium on public sentiment than on the fundamentals. This strategy dictates playing dogs and/or lesser competent teams, or teams the public wants nothing to do with. Or better yet, fading the teams the oddsmakers want you to bet on.

Along these same lines, we carry a similar notion that the first week of the NFL season presents one of the ripest opportunities for the astute gambler. This conflicts with conventional wisdom and/or handicapping lore, as most would say it is better to watch a few games and assess each team before jumping in with both feet. That’s all fine and dandy, but there are some interesting trends to exploit in Week 1 and we’d be remiss to ignore them. Let us quickly explain.

Gone are the days of dynasties, where the same core players stay intact and dominate the league year after year. Free agency and player movements can completely transform teams from one season to the next. In today’s parity-driven NFL, poor teams typically don’t stay poor for all that long and excellent teams must constantly reinvent themselves to stay on top.

The temptation might be to assume prior year results are the best indicator of who is going to cover in Week 1. To Joe Public, playoff teams from the prior season, home teams, favorites, and so one, look even more enticing than usual since there is no current season performance to judge them against. But the question begs: are the oddsmakers setting a trap?

To find the answer, we culled five years worth of Week 1 NFL data. As always, all of our analysis is done from an ATS perspective. The purpose here is to share the most important angles we unearthed and try to explain the logic behind them. So strap on your helmet, throw on your shoulder pads, and follow our lead as we expose some rare holes in the oddsmakers’ line of defense.

Home vs. Away Teams

Over the past five seasons, NFL home teams in Week 1 are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). This of course implies that roadies are a 58 percent winning proposition during this time. The public at large has a tendency to overvalue home teams and this is especially true in Week 1 when there is no current season data to make predictions from. Consequently, the oddsmakers almost surely shade the home teams, by and large making road teams the choice for the value player.

Conclusion: Look long and hard at road teams first when handicapping the opening week.

Price ranges

Favorites are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent) in the opening week over the past five NFL seasons (Coincidentally, home teams hold the same ATS record as noted above). This means that underdogs bark at a 58 percent clip. Mid-range favorites performed the worst among our specified price ranges. In particular, favorites priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 are only 8-15 ATS (35 percent) during this time.

The same basic pattern holds true when looking at home favorites (road favorites gravitate towards a 50 percent mean). Home favorites indeed are just 21-32-3 ATS (40 percent) in the first week of NFL action since 1999. Again, mid-range favorites are similarly the poorest performers when we look at home teams. Consider that home teams priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 have stumbled to a 6-13 ATS (32 percent) mark in Week 1 games the past five seasons.

Conclusion: Like home teams, favorites and particularly mid-range favorites are generally overvalued in Week 1.

Playoff teams

It might surprise you to learn that playoff teams from the prior year versus non-playoff teams from the prior year are a mere 16-23-3 (41 percent) ATS in NFL Week 1 games over the past five seasons. Home teams which made the playoffs versus teams which did not make the playoffs from the prior season drop to a meager 7-14-1 ATS (33 percent) during this time.

Why are playoff teams, and in particular those at home, such bad bets the past five openers? Just as the case with home teams and with favorites, oddsmakers intentionally overprice playoff teams in the opening week to compensate for the public’s propensity to over bet them.

This theory holds true just looking at straight-up records from the past season as well. That is, home teams with winning records from the prior season vs. road teams with losing records from the prior season are just 8-13 ATS in Week 1 NFL games since 1999.

Conclusion: Playoff teams from the prior year and in particular, home playoff teams, are overvalued in Week 1 NFL games.

Scoring defense and scoring offense

Do good defenses and for that matter good offenses from the prior season fare better against the number the following year in Week 1 games? Well, sort of. Generally speaking, teams with a solid offense or defense from the prior season tend to do well in the opening week so long as they are on the road. As a host, however, the best offenses and best defenses from the prior year tend to be overvalued in Week 1.

Consider that the top five scoring defenses (i.e. points allowed) from the prior season are a nice 8-4 ATS (66 percent) on the road in NFL openers the past five seasons. Meanwhile, the top five scoring defenses from the prior season are just 3-8-2 ATS (27 percent) as a host in Week 1 during the same time period.

There is no discernable advantage or disadvantage for teams with a top five scoring offense (i.e. points scored) in Week 1 games. However, when we look at scoring offenses from the bottom up (isolating the five worst offenses from the prior season), the results are rather interesting. In particular, teams ranked in the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are 9-4-1 ATS (69 percent) when on the road in Week 1.

The logic is simply that the public perception is a poor scoring offensive unit from the year prior will have little chance of winning on the road in Week 1. In turn, the oddsmakers compensate for this perception and these poor offensive teams from the year prior carry extra line value on the Week 1 trail.

Conclusion: Teams with top-ranked defenses from the previous season are good bets when playing on the road, but poor bets when playing at home. Also, teams ranked among the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are generally a good value in their Week 1 openers, provided they are playing on the road.

Scoring margin

An exceedingly straightforward way of measuring scoring offense and scoring defense together as a whole is to look at a team's “margin." Margin is simply scoring offense minus scoring defense, which is a fairly clear-cut measure of how a team does on both sides of the ball. Typically, the higher the margin, the better the team.

In this regard, it might seem counterintuitive that teams carrying the higher margin from the prior season in week one matchups are merely 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). Furthermore, road teams with the higher margin are 14-20-6 ATS (41 percent), while home teams with the higher margin are 17-22-1 ATS (44 percent). Once again, these results line up with the theory that better teams from the prior year are overvalued come opening day of the following season.

Conclusion: “Better” teams, which often boast a higher margin than their opponent, are overvalued the following season in NFL openers.

In sum

Oddsmakers cater NFL betting lines to match public perception and also to bait the public into poor bets. The temptation to use the prior year’s success as a buy sign for how a team will perform against the spread in Week 1 of the following season is an enormous trap.

The fact is, isolating road teams, road dogs, non-playoff teams vs. playoff teams, teams with a losing record or low margin vs. playoff teams or ones with a high margin from the previous year is where the line value resides. Quite simply, taking the road less traveled is your surest path to NFL betting profits.

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