How Often Do NHL Betting Favorites Wins?

How Often Do NHL Betting Favorites Wins?

In this blog, we are going to look at how often the betting favorites in the NHL have been successful over the past five seasons and whether placing at home or on the road influences the numbers.

Over the last five seasons of the NHL in the regular season, the favorites have a 60.87% success rate with 3,548 wins from a total of 5,829 games.

When the NHL sportsbooks price up the host as favorites their success rate has been 60.92% and when the team on the road are favorites then the success rate is 60.78% meaning there is not a great difference between the two.

Which NHL teams are the most reliable Favorites?

All but one of the NHL teams win more games as favorites than they lose, the one team with a success rate of under 50% is the Montreal Canadians who have a 66-67 record (.496) with one defeat more than wins.

The three most successful favorites all have a success rate of 65% or more and when you consider the five-year overall success rate is only 60.87%, those are very good win rates.

The best NHL handicappers will have a list during the season of which teams perform well as favorites and which teams do not to enhance their betting.

Here are those three teams along with their success rates:

• Boston Bruins (212-94 .693)
• Tampa Bay Lightning (220-105 .677)
• Colorado Avalanche (182-98 .650)

The Tampa Bay Lightning are the only team that at home has a success rate of over 70% with 129 wins from 183 games (70.49%) whilst on the road, the New York Rangers have an excellent record with a 75% success rate with 39 wins from 52 games.

2018-19 NHL Season Statistics

The 2018-19 season was just one of the two over the last five seasons where the favorite's success rate fell below the 60% mark with just 58.12 of favorites winning.

It was a bumper season for the Tampa Bay Lightning who were the most successful favorites during the regular season winning 78.40% of their games as favorites whilst the LA Kings were the worst with just 37.5% of wins.

2019-20 NHL Season Statistics

The worst season of the last five for those who like to wager on the favorite with just 56.43% of them going on to success.

Despite that, the Philadelphia Flyers were reliable winning 22 of their 30 games as favorites (73.3%) whilst the Montreal Canadians were not so, they only won 41.2% of their game (14 from 34).

2020-21 NHL Season Statistics

During the 2020-21 season, we saw a total of 62.85% of favorites being successful which is the second highest over the last five seasons.

The Nashville Predators topped the list of most productive favorites with them winning an incredible 81% of their games (17 wins from 21) whilst the Washington Capitals (77.4%) and Florida Panthers (76.3%) are also worth a mention.

2021-22 NHL Season Statistics

Of the last five seasons, the 2021-22 season produced the best return for favorites with 64.6% of them being successful.

With a win rate of 80%, the Columbus Blue Jackets topped the favorites list with 12 wins from 15 games whilst the Montreal Canadiens were bottom with just 33.3% wins (4 wins from 12 games).

2022-23 NHL Season Statistics

Last season was pretty decent for favorites, 62.16% of them were successful and it was the only season out of the last five where the favorites on the road had a higher win rate than those on home ice.

The Anaheim Ducks were only favorites for 6 games but did win 5 of those (83.3%) and the Boston Bruins had a very good season winning 60 of their 73 games as favorites, a very good 82.2% win rate.

More NHL Blogs

Here are some other NHL blogs ranging from strategy blogs to event previews:

• NHL Strategies - Focusing on Streaks
• NHL Strategies - Team Betting
• NHL Strategies - Road Team on a Sunday
• NHL Previews - Western Conference
• NHL Previews - Eastern Conference
• NHL Previews - Stanley Cup

*Statistics only include regular season games, the home team is the official team listed as hosting and betexplorer used for results/odds which are used in the figures for seasons from 2018-19 to 2022-23.

Author Information

Andrew Powell manages our hockey analysis articles, meticulously updating the data whilst our Vancouver-based hockey specialist Noah Strang writes the words. Together they maintain all the stateside hockey content for OLBG

Noah Strang

Hockey editor

🥅🏒 Our stateside Hockey specialist, Noah knows just about all there is to know about the NHL and covers the NHL for various publications in Canada - Our go-to guy for our Hockey content.

Andy Powell

Content editor

Andy also possesses a keen interest in American sports with a particular affinity for the NFL and the NHL. He follows the Pittsburgh Penguins, emphasizing his broad palette for diversified sporting events.