NHL betting: More bark than bite for home underdogs?

Sean Allen, Special to ESPN.comDec 3, 2024, 01:22 PM ET

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A division leader has home cooking against the team that sits fourth in their division — a team they’ve already beaten 4-2 this season on the road — so of course they would open as home underdogs… right?

The Vegas Golden Knights sit atop the Pacific Division and welcome the Edmonton Oilers into Sin City on Tuesday with an opening line that had the Oil as -130 favorites on the road. Such a description of the event is a tad misleading of course, as the Pacific is tight with the separation between the teams (five points) and the Oilers holding a game in hand. However, this line is an example of the “what have done for me lately” influence on sportsbooks. The Knights are losers of two of their past three, including a 6-0 drubbing at the hands of Utah Hockey Club on Saturday, while the Oilers have reeled off three straight victories, which happened to include a victory against the Utah squad.

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Among the top 10 teams in the overall standings right now, which includes the Golden Knights, there have only been 19 times this season when they were considered an underdog at home. And very few of those occurrences have featured a road favorite below the home team in the standings. Those situations also tend to have special circumstances, such as when the Oilers were road favorites against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Nov. 16. Connor McDavid was coming to play in front of family and the Leafs were without captain Auston Matthews.

The home underdog pulled off the victory on that occasion, as has happened nine of the 19 times these top teams have not been favored on home ice. That 47.4% winning percentage outpaces the overall home underdog win percentage this season (62 out of 152 for 40.8%).

Playing into this storyline is the Golden Knights still missing their captain, Mark Stone, while the Oilers might be getting one of their 50-goal scorers from last season, Zach Hyman, back.

The spread results for this specific situation are separated a little more, as the home underdog has covered 13 of those 19 games for the top teams, a 68.4% cover percentage that is only moderately better than the overall home underdog spread this season (95 covers of 152 occasions for a cover percentage of 62.5).

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It is the second time this campaign the Golden Knights will be labeled as a home dog, which is notable for a team that leads their division and started 8-0 at T-Mobile Arena. The other time they were home underdogs? Their first loss at home on Nov. 11 against the visiting Carolina Hurricanes.

So do we back the books and expect the Oilers to pull out the victory, but probably not beat the spread? Or do we think the Golden Knights make them sorry for doubting them in their own rink against a division rival? Or do the betting trends between now and puck-drop flip this line on us?

For my money, as much as I like momentum, I like global trends more. The slight uptick in success by home underdogs when it is a team among the league’s elite — even in a small sample — is enough for me to get behind the Knights at home.

Featured games

Michael Rasmussen of the Detroit Red Wings. Gerry Angus/Icon Sportswire

Detroit Red Wings at Boston Bruins

7 p.m., TD Garden, Watch live on ESPN+/Hulu

Latest odds as of publication. For latest odds movement, go to ESPN BET.

Bruins (-1.5, +130), -195 money line
Red Wings (+1.5, -155), +165 money line
Total 5.5: (Over -125, Under +105)

The Bruins took a 2-1 victory as visitors to Detroit on Nov. 23. Since then, the Red Wings have lost two goaltenders. Alex Lyon and Cam Talbot won’t be available for this game, with Ville Husso lacing them up and prospect Sebastian Cossa getting a call to back him up.

For the Bruins, the wins are coming just as intermittently with interim coach Joe Sacco behind the bench as they were with Jim Montgomery, and they shouldn’t take too much solace in beating up on the New York Islanders and Montreal Canadiens this past week. Neither team has a host of momentum behind them at the moment.

With Patrick Kane still out, Michael Rasmussen is a sneaky candidate for power-play production on the first unit for Detroit, which remains a top-10 team on the advantage. Morgan Geekie looks to still be getting ice time on the top line with David Pastrnak for Boston.

My same-game parlay: Red Wings +1.5 Game Spread; Over 5.5 Total Goals; Over 0.5 Morgan Geekie Total Points (+516).

Edmonton Oilers at Vegas Golden Knights

10 p.m., T-Mobile Arena, Watch live on ESPN+/Hulu

Oilers (-1.5, +175), -130 money line
Golden Knights (+1.5, -225), +110 money line
Total 6.5: (Over -105, Under -115)

Further to the above reading, the Oilers are 5-4 on the moneyline when they are road favorites and 3-6 against the spread in those situations. The home underdog has covered the spread the past three times the Oilers were preferred travellers, outright winning two of those games. As mentioned, the Golden Knights are 0-1 for both spread and moneyline the one time they’ve been labeled a home dog this season.

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Hyman’s status will be a major factor for prop bets, not so much because he is a target, but his lack of presence opens up other avenues. If he’s not in the lineup, Kasperi Kapanen will get five-on-five minutes with Connor McDavid throughout the night, while Corey Perry will get to be the net-front nuisance on the Oilers advantages. The power play has looked just fine with Perry, generating 4.93 shot attempts per two minutes across the past three games (well above average) and a pair of goals.

While we don’t expect to see Stone yet, Victor Olofsson finally returned to the Golden Knights on Saturday, but he didn’t get the power-play time he was getting before he was injured on Oct. 15. It seems Pavel Dorofeyev has fully supplanted him there, with William Karlsson still keeping Stone’s seat warm on the top unit.

But it’s a couple others I would target for props on the advantage for both teams: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins for over 0.5 power-play points at +375 and Tomas Hertl for the same at +450. Those odds are out of scope with the opportunities both players will have on the advantage.

A team full of adept shot blockers in any matchup, look for some extra juice in this one with the Oilers ranking second in the league for most blocked shots by opposing blue-liners. Brayden McNabb should have a field day.

My same-game parlay: Golden Knights +1.5 Game Spread; Over 2.5 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins Total Shots On Goal; Over 0.5 Tomas Hertl Total Power Play Points (+1353).

Betting trends

Road underdog, home favorite; road favorite, home dog — these dynamics are starting to give us enough data this season to evaluate how well sportsbooks are forecasting outcomes. First and foremost, the sportsbooks are happily collecting their vig across the board when it comes to the spread. Let’s break it down with the trusty $1 bet tests:

Putting $1 on every home favorite to beat the spread would have grossed: $136.02 on 92 wins and lost $147 for a net result of $-10.98.
Putting $1 on every road underdog to beat the spread would have grossed: $83.60 on 147 wins and lost $92 for a net result of $-8.40.
Putting $1 on every home underdog to beat the spread would have grossed: $49.29 on 95 wins and lost $57 for a net result of $-7.71.
Putting $1 on every road favorite to beat the spread would have grossed: $91.87 on 57 wins and lost $95 for a net result of $-3.13.

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It’s hard not to focus on road favorites, like the Oilers this Tuesday, as one of the more promising areas to search for value. In terms of gross results, road favorites trail only home favorites in total profit, even though they’ve covered the spread the fewest times among the four categories. It’s tempting to think about weeding out some of the chaff from those 95 times a road favorite didn’t cover, while focusing on the very profitable 57 times they did, but finding those opportunities is rarely as straightforward as it seems.

As it happens, the Oilers aren’t alone with that label on Tuesday.

The Colorado Avalanche are 2-3 against the spread as road favorites as they play their sixth game with that label in Buffalo. They also happen to be 5-0 on the moneyline as road favorites.
The New York Islanders roll into Montreal as road favorites for the fifth time this season. They lost all four previous occasions and failed to beat the spread each time.
The Florida Panthers travel to Pittsburgh as road favorites. They are 3-4 as the preferred team when in the visitor’s room.

History suggests we may get one or two of the road favorites among the Oilers, Avalanche, Islanders and Panthers to beat the spread, which should all come with advantageous lines. If I was given these four lines to consider, I’d immediately toss out the Islanders, while backing the Avs given their respective perfect and inverse-perfect records as road favorites. As mentioned above, I have the Golden Knights taking the spread against the Oilers. Which leaves a coinflip for me to take the Panthers – but how can we not trust them to handle Pittsburgh after breaking their slump wins against the Maple Leafs and Hurricanes?

There are a host of other factors to consider, but focusing on categories of bets like this can help visualize which games to consider and compare, rather than taking each contest in a vacuum.

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