Horse Racing stats man, Andy has contributed to OLBG for 18 years - An Ipswich fan and F1 fanatic, he also contributes EFL football and Motor Sport opinion.
The NHL is one of the most competitive sports leagues in the world and betting on it can be tricky, but you can improve your success rate by following these five tips.
You can test out this advice by placing NHL tips in the OLBG Tips Competition.
Once happy with your system or strategy you can place bets on NHL games.
Best Ice Hockey Betting Sites UK
1. Check The Goalie
This is probably THE first thing you have to do before making a bet.
The difference between goalies can be HUGE.
There are only a few teams in the league, who have two very good goalies, so the choice of the masked man is a big factor in the eventual outcome of a match.
You don't want to find yourself in a situation where you have backed a team to win, only to find out they have fielded their backup goalie, who is far from the standards of the number 1 glove.
Many sites do a great job tracking the starting goalies - these include dailyfaceoff.com and leftwinglock.com.
2. Study The NHL Schedule
The NHL season is hectic with 82 regular-season games to be played.
There are a number of back-to-back games during the course of the year and you have to be careful in these situations
First, because there's a 90% likelihood the team will play its backup goalie in one of those games, and second, one game could have higher stakes than the other.
A team might look flat on the first night as they are looking ahead to tomorrow when for example they play a hated rival or a divisional opponent.
The other important issue is traveling.
Historically Eastern Conference teams have always struggled to produce their best effort whilst playing against Western Conference teams, especially when they play on the West Coast and are forced to play a lot of games in quick succession.
There will be situations of three games in four nights which is a brutal schedule for the players.
There are also really long road trips featuring five+ games away from home.
The players are only human after all, factors such as homesickness can come into play and they can really struggle at the tail end of a long road trip.
3. Ride The Hot And Cold NHL Streaks
With such a busy schedule, there are bound to be hot and cold periods for all teams during the season.
If one team is winning, ride along with them! The same with losing. If a team is miserable, cash in on it!
It also applies to home and away records.
Value in Puck Line on Ice Hockey
There are teams that produce good results in front of their fans but just hate traveling and vice versa.
In 2019-20, the Buffalo Sabres had one of the best home records in the Eastern Conference but they produced the fourth-worst road record in the league.
4. Study NHL History
If Team A has a bad record against Team B, it's not a coincidence.
Long Losing NHL Streaks
For some reason, it's turned out that a certain opponent appears almost impossible to beat even though the results against others are good.
Of course, there are times when a pattern is broken, but these tend to be quite rare and one win doesn't change history.
5. Every NHL Dog Will Have Its Day
As in any league, there are NHL teams that simply are not up to the standard, but that doesn't mean you can totally discount their chances in individual games.
Yes, the underdogs will lose on most nights but there will be a couple of shocks along the way.
Can we crack the correct score market in the NHL?
Even the worst teams in the league tend to get 30 wins in a season, this means that they win over 35% of their games, which is around one in three.
They could be facing a team that is going through some injury problems or a team that has "gone cold" and that is your chance to grab a big odds bet and winner.
I hope you found the above useful - please always bet responsibly- further betting education is on offer via a host of articles on OLBG.com.
