It’s Sunday, why not take a look at some NHL team lines and chop it up?
Last summer when I did this exercise, it worked pretty well. Can’t do better than 5-0 (went under on Calgary, Utah, Florida; over on Buffalo and Detroit). Not shabby. Shame I didn’t actually make any of the bets but let’s try to take a look at it for this upcoming season. I grabbed this from an online sportsbook as of this week for the totals.
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Some interesting numbers on the table, let’s start on the teams that I think can overshoot.
Boston 86.5 – The Bruins had 100 points last year. They’re a team that doesn’t make sense on paper, it doesn’t look like they should be particularly good but usually come through (unless their goalie has a protracted contract holdout and screws up the timing for the year, anyways). Boston is minimally changed from last season, having lost Viktor Arvidsson and Andrew Peake while adding JJ Peterka and Connor Clifton. I don’t even know if they’ll make the playoffs again, but in an 84-game season, I don’t see how they can’t get at least 87 points considering they’re usually strong in net, defensively and score a little more than you might expect (their 268 goals were 10th last season). Going with Swayman, MacAvoy and Pastrnak to coax out at least decent performance from their team seems like a good bet to make.
San Jose 93.5 – The Sharks finished with 86 points last year, so an improvement is already priced in for this year’s over/under. I think they’re ready to get there. It helps that a decent amount of their division (SEA, CGY, VAN) is pretty poor. Anaheim is basically the same, listed at 94.5, I like the Sharks’ goaltending and team better considering that Macklin Celebrini is emerging as such a great player that can elevate others. This is risky to bet on an ascending team that hasn’t done it with this core just yet, but SJ showed enough signs last year to believe they are heading back towards at least playoff contention.
Montreal 98.5 – Big numbers should be scary in over/unders, but this one isn’t big enough. The Habs had 106 points last year, and all of their best players are in the 20-27 age range that should be able to replicate what they did last year or play even better. They also have two young goalies that should be improving. Montreal is in a very competitive division but I don’t see this being a major sweat. Montreal ought to be staying towards the top of the standings for a while, I think they’re an easy 100+ point team this year.
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Now, some numbers that aren’t adding up in the summer.
Florida 108.5 – There’s no doubting that Panthers should be back to very good this year. This good? They did have 110 points in 2023-24 and now have Aleksander Barkov healthy and Brady Tkachuk joining up. But 110+ points with Jakob Markstrom and Akira Schmid as the goalies? Can’t say I see that. It’s a tough call than it looks since this could easily be a 105ish point team and it only takes winning a couple extra games to hit the over (and again, with 84 games there’s more opportunities to get there) but gee, this number is a bit too high (only Carolina at 109.5 is higher).
Toronto 95.5 – There’s been so much roster turnover that it’s tough to get behind what to expect. Being a popular team with star power, a high number is understandable for the books to not want to give in too much. Sergei Bobrovsky is 38 and wasn’t that great last year in Florida. The Leafs have some offense but everything is so new from management to coaches to the goalie and as many as 10 new players that they’re tough to get a read on. Sometimes things don’t gel instantly and provide great results, so I guess I’ll lean to thinking an under-performance is on hand.
Vancouver 74.5 – Vancouver has the lowest number on the board, and I still don’t think it’s low enough. Their defense has like one good player left. Elias Pettersson has been in a funk to put it mildly. There’s rumors they might be selling off Brock Boeser next. They have a rookie NHL head coach and new GM. I think they’ll be an outlier on the low-end this year, mired in some pain as they look to the future, of which they don’t even have that much U-22 material expected at the NHL level this season to even give hope for the immediate term. The Canucks had an NHL low 58 points last year, and even if they do better it would have to be a massive improvement to hit the over. Just don’t see that happening based off the minimal changes to the roster of adding Brendan Gallagher (who looks spent and might just replace the 31 points from the departed Evander Kane), Jamie Oleksiak and Luke Schenn while trading Marcus Pettersson for a first round pick four drafts from now.
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