Before you can make an NHL betting prediction, it is necessary to know what the competition we are going to bet on is like.
The NHL is the professional league that hosts the best professional teams in the USA and Canada.
The games last 60 minutes divided into 3 periods of 20 minutes each.
A total of 31 teams compete in the competition, divided into Western Conference and Eastern Conference.
A total of 82 games are played in the regular season, after which the top 8 teams from each conference play each other in playoffs for the Stanley Cup title.
How are hockey predictions different from other sports?
Ice Hockey is not really very different from any other North American team sport, i.e. where a large number of games are played and therefore rotations are very present.
In this sense, perhaps the NHL requires a deeper knowledge of the teams’ squads in order to be able to start betting on hockey games.
In addition, as an American sport, unexpected outcomes are more common than in other sports.
Strategies for making your NHL Betting Predictions
Let’s take a look at what we should consider when developing a strategy for our NHL predictions.
- The importance of rotations: As we mentioned earlier, the NHL, like all North American sports, has a large number of games each week. Therefore, player rotations in the line-ups are quite common.
- The goalkeeper also rotates: In hockey, goalkeepers are the life insurance for certain teams, and some teams base their entire strategy around a well-covered goal. In fact, a very important aspect to consider for an NHL prediction is that the goalie is the one who starts the game. Related to rotations and unlike other sports such as football, in hockey the goalie position also undergoes frequent rotations. Therefore, knowing which goalkeeper will play which game is crucial, as there can be a big difference between the starter and the substitute.
- A very tight competition: The NHL is an eminently evenly matched competition, meaning that matches usually end in a draw, with overtime having to be played to resolve them in the end. This fact translated into hockey betting means that handicap or goal margin wins are usually quite close.
- Understand the stats: Bookmakers often base their odds on the statistics of individual teams, which is why it is so important to build your own NHL statistical record that you can compare it to and thus make sure that certain markets are really likely or not. There are a multitude of hockey betting websites on the internet, such as Goaliepost, where you can access a multitude of hockey information as well as NHL predictions. There are also others more focused on statistical issues such as Covers or SportsLine, which can be considered almost obligatory to review before making the decision to bet on hockey.
How to bet on the NHL?
To place a bet on the NHL we simply need to access our favourite Spanish bookmaker and, once there, select the “ice hockey” section and choose the competition we want to bet on, in this case, the NHL.