NHL Goalie Impact on Hockey Betting

NHL goalie play impacts hockey betting.

Key Points

– The goaltender has an impact on hockey betting like no other player in any other sport.

– Successful hockey betting starts with the goalie.

NHL Goalie Impact on Hockey Betting

Bettors that don’t wager on hockey often – and even those that do – frequently struggle to understand a goaltender’s contributions to game outcomes. Goalie play is one of the keys if you want to have success in hockey betting.

It’s kind of like baseball. The first and most crucial factor in a hockey game is the starting goalie for each team. Goaltenders have as much of an impact on a hockey game as pitcher’s do in baseball.

When considering the role of the goalie in hockey betting, here are some things that bettors should keep in mind. 

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Hockey Betting Starts with Goalies

Goalies should be your first point of focus when handicapping a game. Before analyzing offensive and defensive matchups, trends, streaks, and other factors; focus on the goalies. 

Are the starters playing? How are they performing? How have they done against this opponent in the past? 

The goalies alone cannot be used to make a wager, but they can serve as a good starting point. If there is a goaltending mismatch, you should look at the rest of the matchup to see if the advantage still holds up. 

Goaltending is essential because it is directly involved in every goal scored in a game. In this way, hockey betting is unlike that of any other sport. A goalie either stops a shot or he doesn’t. When he doesn’t, the other team scores. 

A goalie has the power to turn a win into a loss and vice versa more than any other position in any sport. A bettor’s online betting portal has the power to do the same. Choose wisely.

Always Be Sure of the Starter

Be certain of the starter’s identity. When betting on baseball, you typically know the starting pitcher a few days in advance. In hockey, that isn’t the case. 

Technically, coaches are not required to announce their starting lineup until the start of the game. However, in today’s information age, bettors can find out who is starting in goal for each team prior to a game. 

It’s crucial to know who the starting goalie will be before making a betting decision because there is a significant difference between the starter and the backup.That difference is usually a pretty big drop off in talent.

It pays to have a source to go to and find out which goalies will start in games that you are interested in betting. It can mean the difference between making money betting the NHL puck line and going home empty-handed.

Job Security

Job security isn’t what it once was for the NHL goaltender. There was a clear path to a career for goalies back in the day. A goalie would be drafted, spend a few years in the minors developing his skills, back up the starter for one or two years, and take over the starting position once it was determined that he was ready. 

Once given the starting job, he would probably hold it for many years. Simply put, that isn’t the case anymore. The tools are better. Plans for defense are superior. Training for goalies is better. 

The growth of hockey players in Europe is much better. Goalies are practically appearing out of thin air and entering the NHL prepared for action. Just a few years ago, no one had ever heard of some of the best goalies in the league today. 

If you are looking for a sports betting edge, get in tune with NHL goalies. Look for the next great one and make sure you know the backups.

A few years from now, it’s likely that nobody will recall who some of them were. The point is that there is a lot of turnover among goalies in the NHL. You can get yourself into a hole with your hockey betting if you are not staying on top of goalie performance.

Changes in Goalies

Goalies can change from year to year, or more accurately, from week to week. Bettors should not base a goalie’s current abilities solely on his past performance. 

When hockey betting, assess a goalie in three different time frames. Look at the entire season, the last ten starts, and then the last five starts. Doing so allows you to monitor a goalie’s development. This will help to determine whether a goaltender is improving or not.

It can also help you in betting NHL player props, specifically goalie props.

Ride Streaks in Hockey Betting

Streaks should be ridden because they are very real. It’s not at all unusual to see a player go on a hot streak and record a few straight shutouts or several over a span of games. 

Goalies sometimes become overconfident for a run of games for whatever reason, and it seems like they are stopping a beach ball. On the other end, goalies can also go through slumps where they are unable to stop anything, including that beach ball. That is valuable information when hockey betting. What is also valuable for hockey bettors is a top quality dynamic sportsbook.

Bettors should know that goalies are very streaky. It makes perfect sense to be aware of the streaks and to take advantage of them when possible.

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Evenly Matched

Goalies can be evenly matched. It is not unusual to see a game in which both goalies are reasonably competent and neither team has an advantage. 

If that’s the case, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t bet on the game. It simply means that in order to find an advantage, you must look beyond goalie play. While goaltenders have a huge impact on the outcome of hockey games, they are not the only factor to take into account when hockey betting.