Devils take on Habs in Jersey

Hockey Betting Lines

02/02/2012 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Devils opened up their second half by picking up a big two points over one of the top teams in the conference. The Canadiens, meanwhile, failed to build off their win against the top team in the NHL right before the All-Star break.

New Jersey looks to wrap a lengthy homestand this evening and deny Montreal a fifth straight victory in the Garden State.

The Devils began a six-game residency with a win over Winnipeg back on Jan. 17, but dropped the next tests of the stay, including a shootout loss to Buffalo on Jan. 24. After the extended break, New Jersey hosted the Eastern Conference-leading New York Rangers on Tuesday and battled back all night for a 4-3 shootout win.

The Devils erased three one-goal deficits in the game and then picked up the extra point when Ilya Kovalchuk scored the lone goal of the shootout in the first round. Martin Brodeur, who made 23 saves through overtime, came up with stops on Derek Stepan, Brad Richards and All-Star Game MVP Marian Gaborik.

"It was an emotional win. We've had our share of issues against the Rangers so to come back the way we (did was great)," said Brodeur after New Jersey moved to 9-2 in shootouts this year.

David Clarkson tied the game on a goal with 48 ticks left in regulation, while Kovalchuk and Zach Parise also scored in the game.

New Jersey sits eighth overall in the Eastern Conference, 12 points behind the Rangers.

"It's a big one for sure," Devils coach Pete DeBoer said of the win over New York. "We're at a time when obviously they're all big, but we really needed a win against obviously a really good team, the best in our conference right now. During a critical homestand here, it's a big two points."

DeBoer would love to see his team end the homestand with two straight wins, but he must find a way to solve the Canadiens. Though the Devils have won 10 of the past 14 encounters overall, the Habs have come out on top in each of their last four visits to New Jersey by a 13-4 margin. That includes a 2-1 win on Dec. 10 in which Montreal netminder Carey Price denied Parise on a penalty shot in the game's final minute.

Price was in solid form again on Tuesday, but didn't get enough offensive support in a 3-1 loss against the visiting Sabres. Price ended with 37 saves on 39 shots faced as Montreal failed to secure a third straight win and instead lost for the 13th time in 19 contests.

"That's a shame because he played great," said defenseman Hal Gill of Price. "He tried to steal one for us and we didn't let it happen."

Max Pacioretty scored at the 4:09 mark of the first period, but the next three goals came off the sticks of Buffalo players.

"I think at the end of the first, we lost a little momentum. They came hard and we didn't do the things that we need to do," said Gill. "We turned it over in the neutral zone, we gave them too many chances outside, we didn't attack them enough."

Montreal had knocked off NHL-leading Detroit by a 7-2 margin in its last game before the break and will seek to avoid its eight loss in its last 10 road games.

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Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?

Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.

“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.

“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “

What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?

There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).

Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).

How the Opening Line Is Made

The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.

Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.

Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.

Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.

The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.

A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.

Why Sports Betting Lines Change

Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:

Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game

Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)

The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.

Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.

For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.

Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."

“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”

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