Bellus' Betting Breakdown: Let's do that hockey

A new hockey season has arrived, so it’s time for more TSN Betting hockey content. 

Before I begin what will undoubtedly be a wild and chaotic season, I want to address the elephant in the room. 

For four years, Sam Hitchcock did a fantastic job of providing his three best bets each week for the NHL season. 

As the lead web producer on the TSN Betting team, I have stickhandled most of Sam’s articles. His in-depth, very analytic-based breakdowns will be missed this season as Intelligent Hockey was unfortunately not renewed for 2024. 

With the departure of our weekly hockey staple, my name has been drawn to fill the void. 

I can assure you I’ll do my best to make this NHL season a memorable one, but if you’re looking for someone to pick up where Sam left off you will sadly be disappointed. 

While Sam was keen on number crunching and finding winners in the crumbs, I plan on taking a different route. 

With the help of our friends at FanDuel, I hope to provide the readers of this column with some information to consider before locking in your picks for Saturday night action. 

Each week, this column will feature the most popular teams and props for Saturday night and, when the time is right, we’ll spotlight some big bets placed on FanDuel. 

I’ll also be spotlighting some player props with high success rates over a player's last 10 games or in a matchup that has been friendly to them in the past. 

Finally, once all the information, stats, and trends are out of the way, we will have some fun. 

In 2022, I put my mother to the test for an Edmonton Oilers playoff game. That night, she pointed to the clouds and cashed a Zach Hyman +210 ticket for our TikTok audience, and she’s waited two years for her next big moment. 

This article will feature my mom’s Canadian goal scorer parlay of the week each week. We’ll see if she is still sharper than a tack, or maybe we’ll have to tap my uncle in at some point. Time will tell. 

I’ll also be putting you, the public, to the test. 

When it comes to sports betting, one thing really intrigues me, and that’s the randomness of it. You can do all the research in the world, but it all goes out the window once the puck is dropped. 

So, this year, every Saturday night, I will take the three most public teams and put them head-to-head with a coin. 

Last year, I brought out this concept for the NFL regular season, picking primetime games against the spread and putting myself against a coin. After 32 picks the coin was a pretty predictable 16-14-2, going 6-6 in the playoffs. 

This year, I want a larger sample size, and I want to compare it to a broader audience and not just my opinion. 

In betting, it’s a very common technique to “fade the public” when deciding on a bet to make. So, I want to see if you all can predict hockey games better than a literal coin. 

 And the best way to do that is by taking the public teams, provided by FanDuel each week and put them toe-to-toe with a game of chance. 

The coin process is simple: Heads will be the home team, and tails will represent the away side. All games will be picked on the moneyline.  

Welcome to the first edition of an article without a true title yet, so we're calling it another betting breakdown. 

Here we go. 

FIVE MOST PUBLIC SIDES 

With goaltender Jeremy Swayman expected to make his second start of the season, the most popular side on FanDuel this Saturday is the Boston Bruins at -154 to beat the Los Angeles Kings. 

Swayman, after a contract holdout that forced him to miss the team’s opening game, made 20 saves in a 6-4 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday. 

The 25-year-old has a 3-0 record in his career against the Kings with a .959 save percentage while allowing just 1.33 goals per game. 

The Kings enter Saturday night on the heels of an Anze Kopitar third-period natural hat trick to start the season with a 3-1 comeback win over the Buffalo Sabres. 

Los Angeles has won five of their last six games in Boston dating back to 2017. 

Looking at the slate tonight, the Colorado Avalanche is the second most popular team on the moneyline at FanDuel as -320 favourites over the Columbus Blue Jackets. 

The Avs opened their season on Wednesday allowing eight goals to the Vegas Golden Knights in a four-goal loss. 

Colorado had the league’s best home record in 2023-24, going 31-9-1, including a 4-0 win over Chicago in their home opener. 

Nathan MacKinnon has 21 points in 19 games against Columbus in his career.

Colbumbs enters 0-1 following a 3-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild. Kent Johnson led the team with a goal and an assist in the loss.

PLAYER PROPS TO MONITOR 

I promised some player prop information and here we are. As the season unfolds and more context for each team is revealed I’ll be able to get on here weekly and find a few players trending in the right direction as we all search for a few winners on the weekend. 

For now, I have found six props with a 75 per cent, or better, hit rate against the team that player is suiting up against on Saturday. 

Before I get to the chart it’s worth noting that a few of them names on this list (Sean Monahan and David Perron) accumulated these numbers on a different team than they’ll take the ice with tonight. What you do with that information is up to you. 

LET THE GAMES BEGIN 

Mom’s Canadian team anytime goalscorer Parlay of The Week 

My mom knows ball. And if you don’t believe it you can go argue with a tree. 

Nobody, and I mean nobody, has CP24 running in their office more than her. It’s funny because as someone who works in sports I get home and chat about my day and every now and then she will drop a line about the Leafs, or Sidney Crosby or literally anything sports related that I missed during my day and she looks at me and says “See, I pay attention. I saw a clip of those Overdrive boys.” 

So with that in mind, and the fact she has a 100 per cent record of picking winners for this team, I figured this was a natural progression on her way to becoming the sharpest mom in all of Canada. 

My mom said throw away the numbers this week, only one thing matters. “It’s not about the team, it’s the player and their state of mind.” 

With that said a two-leg parlay of Auston Matthews and Connor McDavid to score has been locked in. 

Matthews will dawn the C at home for the first time in his career, something she believes will motivate the 27-year-old to find the back of the net this evening after being held goalless in the opening two games. 

Meanwhile, she expects an angry and inspired McDavid in Edmonton tonight after the team was embarrassed on home ice to start the year. 

PUBLIC VS. COIN 

After 1200 words of preamble, we have arrived at coin flip time. 

This week, the three most popular sides at FanDuel are the Bruins, Avalanche and the Nashville Predators. 

After flipping a coin for each three games the game of chance has landed on: Boston, Columbus and Nashville. 

Looks like we’ll already have one side in the lead after the first week, which side will it be? Only time will tell.