The Stanley Cup Playoffs start Wednesday and you don’t need a betting preview to tell you Tampa Bay has been the NHL’s best team this…
The Stanley Cup Playoffs start Wednesday and you don’t need a betting preview to tell you Tampa Bay has been the NHL’s best team this season and ran away with the Presidents’ Trophy for most points.
The Lightning are the 12/5 favorite at William Hill to lift Lord Stanley’s Cup. They are followed by the Sharks at 8/1 and Golden Knights at 17/2, but the odd thing is those two teams face off in the opening round, and at William Hill, it’s the Golden Knights who are favored.
I prefer to pass on the futures to win it all and instead will concentrate on who is going to win each series and how it will go game-by-game. For those who have been following on Twitter @ViewFromVegas and VSiN.com or who read my piece in The Post on Feb. 25, the 800-pound octopus in the room is whether we should continue to bet First Period Over/Unders in the playoffs.
For the uninitiated, the #FollowtheMoney6 Over teams (the FTM6) were the Lightning, Blackhawks, Blue Jackets, Sharks, Devils and Penguins as they were hitting better than 67 percent with First Period Overs (more than 1.5 goals scored in the first period) much of the season and thus still beating the increased vig the books were charging the deeper we got into the season.
I’m not so sure the switch to playoff hockey will change this dynamic much. Teams that made the postseason by playing wide-open hockey aren’t suddenly going to go into shells. Also helping us is the fact we could see some lower vig on the First Period Totals as the books go with conventional wisdom, so I believe it’s worth it to see if this continues.
