Sports Betting 101: Key NHL Team Metrics
This article marks the first in a series of articles I will be writing throughout the season designed to provide you with some value beyond simply a particular slate and apply it to your own process. Although I will cover some team metrics I like to sift through to find betting value, they pale in comparison to what numbers and odds the books are giving you on a wager, as that can make all the difference in deciding if you have a wager to place.
To continue my disclaimer, this is also not designed to be every single metric you should consider going through nor does it mandate you use every single one I cover here. My goal is to get aspiring sports bettors some tools in their shed they can use or add to their collection. I also prefer to use per-game rates rather than counts so we know all of this on a “per-game” basis right away. Another important filter to me is to use five-on-five numbers, as this comprises the situation for most of any game.
Expected Goals for Percentage (xGF%)
This one is straightforward. When a team is eclipsing the 50% mark, this means that technically they are driving the play in the game. I like to utilize this by looking at how a team has performed in the last five games, 10 games comparatively to the entire season versus how their opponent does to find how both teams are trending in driving play. I find this to be valuable in researching a side to take in a game when comparing the two teams.
Corsi-For and Allowed
This one can be noisy technically, however, there’s no denying that it notifies us of teams who are dominating, getting dominated, or more neutral in possession. It is a decent starting point for identifying which team controlled how much of a game's possession. There is a family of other statistics with this one that can help us identify and project pace in games which is extremely helpful for a variety of bets, from player shot props to totals and sides. It is worth noting that Corsi-for does not consider the quality of the shots whatsoever. Under this umbrella also is Corsi-for percentage, which is the percent of shot attempts for as against. It is a good way to get a quick idea of how a team is performing in terms of possession.
Expected Goals for Per 60 and Expected Goals Against Per 60
This one is a reactive look that considers the quality of the shots for and against to show how many goals should have been scored for and against in a game. It is independent of what the actual score was, even though they may align sometimes. I sometimes like to look at these expected numbers versus the actuals to see potentially more into teams that are overperforming possibly or underperforming. This can significantly help us in identifying edges on game totals and sides as well.
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High Danger Chances For/Against per 60
This considers the quality of the chances a team is getting and how frequently they are doing so. The team with more shot attempts and shots on goal will also have more high-danger chances as well, as they are directly proportional. The average league-wide is around one high-danger chance per about five shot attempts. Teams that are checking all the boxes including the previous metrics and this one but are not outscoring opponents in a recent stretch tend to be “due” for positive regression in scoring.
Shooting Percentage
Most people already understand what this means on the surface. However, it is an interesting thing to be aware of with teams as a whole and individuals as well. If a team or individual has had a lower shooting percentage than normally what they have had for a larger, say entire season or career sample, they may be due for some positive regression. Conversely, suppose they have had a ridiculously high shooting percentage over a stretch of games relative to their career numbers or team season numbers. In that case, you could expect this to revert down to earth or the average. This can be noisy, however, because determining when this is going to happen is not so black and white or obvious and where this becomes more an artform than a science.
PDO
Simply put, this is shooting percentage plus save percentage. Because for the most part, these two things are luck-driven, therefore a team atop this list may be considered “lucky” or overperforming if their other metrics are poor relatively in comparison to their PDO rating. However, this is not always the case as a team with good underlying metrics may own a high PDO rating at the same time. Teams with a high PDO for one entire season tend to experience a drop the following season as well.
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