How do we Make our NHL Picks?
The suggestions on our NHL Picks page are based on the market consensus (the most common pick) from free picks providers across the sports betting industry such as CBS Sports, Sports Betting Dime, Pickswise and more.
We pair the market consensus pick with the best available line from an online sportsbook to give you a Best Bet for the moneyline, total and puckline for every game on the board.
Let’s go through an example:
The Toronto Maple Leafs are playing the Montreal Canadiens.
Four out of five sources Betting News monitors are picking the Maple Leafs to win and the best price available for that pick is -120 at Sportsbook A.
This example also applies for totals and puckline markets.
Betting News Best Bets on our NHL Picks page are subject to change based on how we calculate market consensus. Best Bets are also not financial advice. Please gamble responsibly.
How is the Market Consensus Calculated?
Betting News uses predicted scores advertised by free picks providers to determine the market consensus.
Let’s expand on the above example:
- Source 1 is predicting the Maple Leafs beat the Canadiens 4-3
- Source 2 is predicting the Maple Leafs beat the Canadiens 5-3
- Source 3 is predicting the Maple Leafs beat the Canadiens 4-2
- Source 4 is predicting the Maple Leafs beat the Canadiens 3-1
- Source 5 is predicting the Canadiens beat the Maple Leafs 2-1
The consensus lines for that game are
- Moneyline: TOR -120/MTL +110
- Total: OVER 6.5/UNDER 6.5
- Puckline: TOR -1.5/MTL +1.5
Based on those predictions and consensus lines, we would list TOR -120, UNDER 5.5, and Canadiens +1.5 as the Best Bets for that game.
That said, if the consensus total at participating sportsbooks moved down to OVER 5.5/UNDER 5.5 our suggested totals pick would change to OVER 5.5 as three out of five sources would then be predicting that the total would go OVER.