NHL Season Point total
St. Louis under 101½ +110
There are two ways to play this. One can choose to play it under 101½ points for the season at BET365 with a take-back of +110 or play total wins for the year. We like the +110 at 365 as opposed to laying juice at the other joints so that's how we'll play it. We would have no problem recommending going under 46½ wins either.
The Blue Notes finished with 107 points last year when many things went right but a dramatic turn for the worse here is almost inevitable and we’ll start with Ken Hitchcock. Hitchcock has already announced that this is his last year before retiring. That in itself is odd because most teams have long term plans and often take on the personality of their coach. The coach helps to define who you are but now St. Louis will play until Hitchcock gets fired or walks away without knowing who they are or what they’ll become. The mindset on the bench has to come into question too, as every player knows that Hitchcock will not be around next year so why work your ass off for someone that is leaving? Aside from that, Hitchcock is a career loser who wears his welcome out quickly. The Blues were on the verge of firing him anyway but a successful first round in last year’s playoffs saved him from that fate. Nothing will save him this time around.
Next we have the goaltending situation, which also has Hitchcock’s stamp on it. For whatever reason, Hitch loves Jake Allen ands never liked Brian Elliott. In last year’s playoffs, Hitchcock could not wait to replace Brian Elliott with Allen and the first time that Elliott stumbled (despite being absolutely outstanding in every other playoff game), Hitchcock made the switch but was forced to switch right back after Allen was shaky. Jake Allen has been handed the #1 job many times previously but failed to hang onto it. He’s been handed it again but this time there will be no Brian Elliott to bail the Blues out. Allen’s backup is Carter Hutton, a career stiff that backed up Pekka Rinne in Nashville the past three years while posting one of the worst save percentages in the game. If Plan A does not work, the Blue Notes are in big trouble. If Plan A does work, the Blue Notes are still in trouble.
Up front, Alexander Steen and Paul Stastny are getting old and David Backes signed with Boston. The Blue Notes have some nice pieces with Vladimir Tarasenko, Robby Fabbri, Jori Lehtera and Jaden Schwartz but Fabbri was a rookie last year and a sophomore slump is possible. Even without one, this group of forwards is not going to light the world on fire. They are good but every team that finished below St. Louis last year improved while the Blue Notes did not. Looking up and down the Blues roster, we see plenty of dead weight and not much leadership at all. The best teams in the NHL finish with 100+ points and there are only a handful of them. ISt. Louis is not one of the best. In the West, one must expect improvement from Arizona, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Calgary and Minnesota. That means regression MUST come from somewhere. It is of our opinion that the Blue Notes are a fringe playoff team at best, which means somewhere in the neighbourhood of 85 to 90 points and well below this point total. .
NHL season pt total
Carolina over 78½ points -110
CAROLINA over 34½ wins -141
CAROLINA over 78½ points -110
There are two ways to play this one, as each sportsbook offers something different. One could either bet total wins or total points for the season but we prefer total points because OT losses count for points, which helps us to reach our goal. Thus, the following write-up applies to both wagers. We did some shopping around and the best number we found is at bookmaker.eu which is at 78½ points -110, which is where we are going to play it.
We’ll start off with last year’s results in which the Hurricanes finished with 35 victories and 86 points and missed the playoffs by seven points. This year’s posted numbers say the Hurricanes are going to regress and we could not disagree more. The reason they missed the playoffs was because they lost a league high 16 games in OT. One could blame their goaltending and that would be accurate, as both Cam Ward and Eddie Lack finished with identical save percentages of .901. That has to improve and we trust it will because Lack has settled into his new surroundings and will be counted on more frequently. Ward signed a two-year deal in the off-season for much less money so he’s likely the backup with little to no pressure on him. Lack was tremendous in his years with the Canucks and he’s not past his prime. Give him the starting job and his confidence back and it could make a world of difference. The management group in Carolina is too sharp to allow goaltending to be the same issue as it was last year so we have to believe that they believe Lack is very capable of having a great year. Coach Bill Peters is in his third year in Carolina. The ‘Canes have missed the playoffs for seven straight years so the rebuild and all the work that has gone into it has to start paying off and we absolutely trust that this is the year it starts coming together. No question that Carolina is a better team this year than last.
Additions: Lee Stempniak, Teuvo Teravainen, Bryan Bickell, Viktor Stalberg,
Departures: James Wisniewski, Riley Nash, Nathan Gerbe, Brad Malone.
We don’t see the departures being better than the arrivals, especially when you consider the ‘Canes added three Blackhawks that know a thing or two about winning hockey games. Lee Stempniak is another veteran presence that has played everywhere including some pretty decent teams in Pittsburgh, St. Louis and New York. Dude can produce too.
Carolina was a top-7 puck possession team last year and we cannot overstate enough the importance of that metric. In other words, the ‘Canes have the puck almost always more than the team that they are playing. The teams that ranked above them last year in puck possession numbers were Pittsburgh, Dallas, San Jose, Los Angeles, Anaheim and Tampa Bay. That’s not bad company.
Led by 24-year-old Justin Faulk, the defensive group has three other d-men coming into their sophomore seasons in Jacob Slavin, Noah Hanifin and Brett Pesce. They’re building one hell of a core in Carolina that is on the verge of being scary good and might already be there. Incidentally, Faulk is a big-minute, franchise defenseman and the appreciation for his game league wide is about to explode. The Hurricanes will sport a young, revamped forward core this season. That, coupled with one of the league's best two-way blue-lines, makes this is a team that could be very dangerous when it comes to putting pucks in the net, which was another weakness last season.
Hurricanes general manager Ron Francis went out this offseason and added size, skill and speed. The ‘Canes are going to roll out three scoring lines this year with Jordan Staal (huge second half last year) and Victor Rask centering two of the lines. One of a number of others will center the third line. The addition of Teuvo Teravainen and Lee Stempniak and the expected emergence of Sebastian Aho give the ‘Canes so many more scoring options than they had a year ago. The so-called experts will try and get you to believe that the ‘Canes will be offensively handicapped but don’t buy it. Between Staal, Rask, Elias Lindholm, Aho, Faulk, Jeff Skinner, Andrej Nestrasil, Teravainen, Stempniak, and perhaps the best group of puck moving defensemen in the league, there is plenty of offense to go around.
The Hurricanes had a PDO of 98.2 last year, which ranked 29th in the NHL.PDO is the sum of a team's 5v5 shooting percentage (the number of goals they score divided by the number of shots on goal they generate) and their 5v5 save percentage (the number of shots their goalies stop divided by the number of shots on goal they allow). PDO is a luck driven stat that reveals that Carolina was unlucky in converting their significant territorial advantage into results. A low shooting percentage combined with a low save percentage and Carolina still had 86 points last season. There is no regression here. The ‘Canes are being hugely underestimated, as they are a playoff team that is almost certain to surpass last year’s point total of 86. We understand that many of you do not have accounts at all these places but we're always shopping for the best number and since this is a 4 unit play. we are betting it at the best place. We still recommend betting over 80½ or over 34½ wins but for our record, we are going over 78½ at Bookmaker and franky, we can't get ourt bet in quick enough. This is a bad number that is influenced by the media predicting Carolina to miss the playoffs again. That is such hogwash. Bet this one with confidence.
St. Louis under 101½ +110
There are two ways to play this. One can choose to play it under 101½ points for the season at BET365 with a take-back of +110 or play total wins for the year. We like the +110 at 365 as opposed to laying juice at the other joints so that's how we'll play it. We would have no problem recommending going under 46½ wins either.
The Blue Notes finished with 107 points last year when many things went right but a dramatic turn for the worse here is almost inevitable and we’ll start with Ken Hitchcock. Hitchcock has already announced that this is his last year before retiring. That in itself is odd because most teams have long term plans and often take on the personality of their coach. The coach helps to define who you are but now St. Louis will play until Hitchcock gets fired or walks away without knowing who they are or what they’ll become. The mindset on the bench has to come into question too, as every player knows that Hitchcock will not be around next year so why work your ass off for someone that is leaving? Aside from that, Hitchcock is a career loser who wears his welcome out quickly. The Blues were on the verge of firing him anyway but a successful first round in last year’s playoffs saved him from that fate. Nothing will save him this time around.
Next we have the goaltending situation, which also has Hitchcock’s stamp on it. For whatever reason, Hitch loves Jake Allen ands never liked Brian Elliott. In last year’s playoffs, Hitchcock could not wait to replace Brian Elliott with Allen and the first time that Elliott stumbled (despite being absolutely outstanding in every other playoff game), Hitchcock made the switch but was forced to switch right back after Allen was shaky. Jake Allen has been handed the #1 job many times previously but failed to hang onto it. He’s been handed it again but this time there will be no Brian Elliott to bail the Blues out. Allen’s backup is Carter Hutton, a career stiff that backed up Pekka Rinne in Nashville the past three years while posting one of the worst save percentages in the game. If Plan A does not work, the Blue Notes are in big trouble. If Plan A does work, the Blue Notes are still in trouble.
Up front, Alexander Steen and Paul Stastny are getting old and David Backes signed with Boston. The Blue Notes have some nice pieces with Vladimir Tarasenko, Robby Fabbri, Jori Lehtera and Jaden Schwartz but Fabbri was a rookie last year and a sophomore slump is possible. Even without one, this group of forwards is not going to light the world on fire. They are good but every team that finished below St. Louis last year improved while the Blue Notes did not. Looking up and down the Blues roster, we see plenty of dead weight and not much leadership at all. The best teams in the NHL finish with 100+ points and there are only a handful of them. ISt. Louis is not one of the best. In the West, one must expect improvement from Arizona, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Calgary and Minnesota. That means regression MUST come from somewhere. It is of our opinion that the Blue Notes are a fringe playoff team at best, which means somewhere in the neighbourhood of 85 to 90 points and well below this point total. .
NHL season pt total
Carolina over 78½ points -110
CAROLINA over 34½ wins -141
CAROLINA over 78½ points -110
There are two ways to play this one, as each sportsbook offers something different. One could either bet total wins or total points for the season but we prefer total points because OT losses count for points, which helps us to reach our goal. Thus, the following write-up applies to both wagers. We did some shopping around and the best number we found is at bookmaker.eu which is at 78½ points -110, which is where we are going to play it.
We’ll start off with last year’s results in which the Hurricanes finished with 35 victories and 86 points and missed the playoffs by seven points. This year’s posted numbers say the Hurricanes are going to regress and we could not disagree more. The reason they missed the playoffs was because they lost a league high 16 games in OT. One could blame their goaltending and that would be accurate, as both Cam Ward and Eddie Lack finished with identical save percentages of .901. That has to improve and we trust it will because Lack has settled into his new surroundings and will be counted on more frequently. Ward signed a two-year deal in the off-season for much less money so he’s likely the backup with little to no pressure on him. Lack was tremendous in his years with the Canucks and he’s not past his prime. Give him the starting job and his confidence back and it could make a world of difference. The management group in Carolina is too sharp to allow goaltending to be the same issue as it was last year so we have to believe that they believe Lack is very capable of having a great year. Coach Bill Peters is in his third year in Carolina. The ‘Canes have missed the playoffs for seven straight years so the rebuild and all the work that has gone into it has to start paying off and we absolutely trust that this is the year it starts coming together. No question that Carolina is a better team this year than last.
Additions: Lee Stempniak, Teuvo Teravainen, Bryan Bickell, Viktor Stalberg,
Departures: James Wisniewski, Riley Nash, Nathan Gerbe, Brad Malone.
We don’t see the departures being better than the arrivals, especially when you consider the ‘Canes added three Blackhawks that know a thing or two about winning hockey games. Lee Stempniak is another veteran presence that has played everywhere including some pretty decent teams in Pittsburgh, St. Louis and New York. Dude can produce too.
Carolina was a top-7 puck possession team last year and we cannot overstate enough the importance of that metric. In other words, the ‘Canes have the puck almost always more than the team that they are playing. The teams that ranked above them last year in puck possession numbers were Pittsburgh, Dallas, San Jose, Los Angeles, Anaheim and Tampa Bay. That’s not bad company.
Led by 24-year-old Justin Faulk, the defensive group has three other d-men coming into their sophomore seasons in Jacob Slavin, Noah Hanifin and Brett Pesce. They’re building one hell of a core in Carolina that is on the verge of being scary good and might already be there. Incidentally, Faulk is a big-minute, franchise defenseman and the appreciation for his game league wide is about to explode. The Hurricanes will sport a young, revamped forward core this season. That, coupled with one of the league's best two-way blue-lines, makes this is a team that could be very dangerous when it comes to putting pucks in the net, which was another weakness last season.
Hurricanes general manager Ron Francis went out this offseason and added size, skill and speed. The ‘Canes are going to roll out three scoring lines this year with Jordan Staal (huge second half last year) and Victor Rask centering two of the lines. One of a number of others will center the third line. The addition of Teuvo Teravainen and Lee Stempniak and the expected emergence of Sebastian Aho give the ‘Canes so many more scoring options than they had a year ago. The so-called experts will try and get you to believe that the ‘Canes will be offensively handicapped but don’t buy it. Between Staal, Rask, Elias Lindholm, Aho, Faulk, Jeff Skinner, Andrej Nestrasil, Teravainen, Stempniak, and perhaps the best group of puck moving defensemen in the league, there is plenty of offense to go around.
The Hurricanes had a PDO of 98.2 last year, which ranked 29th in the NHL.PDO is the sum of a team's 5v5 shooting percentage (the number of goals they score divided by the number of shots on goal they generate) and their 5v5 save percentage (the number of shots their goalies stop divided by the number of shots on goal they allow). PDO is a luck driven stat that reveals that Carolina was unlucky in converting their significant territorial advantage into results. A low shooting percentage combined with a low save percentage and Carolina still had 86 points last season. There is no regression here. The ‘Canes are being hugely underestimated, as they are a playoff team that is almost certain to surpass last year’s point total of 86. We understand that many of you do not have accounts at all these places but we're always shopping for the best number and since this is a 4 unit play. we are betting it at the best place. We still recommend betting over 80½ or over 34½ wins but for our record, we are going over 78½ at Bookmaker and franky, we can't get ourt bet in quick enough. This is a bad number that is influenced by the media predicting Carolina to miss the playoffs again. That is such hogwash. Bet this one with confidence.
