NHL hockey lines naturally take up quite a bit of precedence when it comes to ice hockey betting within a sportsbook. It’s the world’s biggest, most well-supported ice-hockey league after all. From the Vancouver Canucks to the Toronto Maple Leafs, hockey odds in Canada bring plenty of interest.
Drop by a sportsbook for some NHL betting lines and it doesn’t take very much to see other competitions listed under the sport as well. Ice hockey extends far and wide across the globe and even in North America alone it isn’t just the NHL markets available.
There is the American Hockey League and the Ontario Hockey League in Canada for example, which boasts farm teams for the NHL franchises. This is where future stars ply their trade and where NHL roster players slide down to, to try and regain some form and fitness.
So it’s well worth scouring around hockey odds for some asides to NHL betting picks.
Along with the hockey lines from the NHL that can be browsed through in a sportsbook, there are a lot of other leagues from across the world. Beyond the NHL betting odds, there are also some highly competitive European leagues in which selections could compliment NHL betting picks, particularly when it’s a quiet time of things in North America.
The Swedish Hockey League (SHL) and the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) in Russia are two of the biggest European leagues. The SHL has traditionally produced a lot of future NHL players, and the KHL is seen as Europe's equivalent of the NHL and runs with a really rich talent pool.
The Winter Olympics, the World Championships and events like the IIHF World U20 Championship bring even more variety of hockey lines to the table for online sports betting. So punters can easily get their fill when it comes to ice hockey betting.
The main option for ice hockey lines in North America is the NHL betting lines. This refers to the Moneyline, basically picking a match-winner in the outright market. A team marked with - (minus) odds are the favourite, while the team market with + (positive) odds are the underdogs.
Another popular way to cover NHL hockey odds is in the spread market which is another name for handicap betting. The favorite team in a match will be assigned a negative handicap, the bookmaker taking virtual points from them. So if the Ottawa Senators were -1.5 in the spread, they would need to win the match by two goals for the wager to win. This is sometimes referred to as the Puck Line.
Taking the match outcome out of the picture entirely, one of the other big NHL betting markets is Totals. That’s where a punter selects a goal line in a match, and predicts whether the match will produce more or fewer goals than the line, so Under 3.5 Goals for example, or Over 5.5 goals.
Hockey lines are just the Moneyline odds presented on the match outcome that can be seen in a sportsbook. A punter selects the options at the set line such as a -110 on the Toronto Maple Leafs to beat the New Jersey Devils.
Totals are just a bet on the number of goals that a punter thinks is going to happen in a game. NHL betting usually presents Under/Over 5.5 and Under/Over 6.5 options for Totals betting. If a punter backs over 5.5 at least six goals have to happen in the match. It doesn’t matter who scores them, as long as there is at least six scored in the match, the bet would win.
NHL prop bets are when punters have the opportunity to bet on things like the performance of an individual forward in a match. It could be backing a particular player to score Over 2.5 goals in a match or even the total ice-time of a particular player.
Punters can take a look at live in-play NHL ice hockey betting. It’s a dynamic form of wagering, where bets can be placed while a game is happening. Things like Next Team To Score, To Win Period, or Total Period Goals crop up in NHL in-play odds.