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The Simplest NHL Bet: Pick the Winner
My very first hockey wager was a moneyline bet on the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 2021 playoffs. No spread, no total, no exotic props — just pick the team that wins the game. I liked that clarity then and I still like it now. The moneyline is the foundation every other NHL market is built on, and if you cannot assess a moneyline price accurately, every subsequent bet you place is built on shaky ground.
A moneyline bet in the NHL asks one question: which team wins? That includes overtime and the shootout in the regular season. There is no margin of victory to worry about, no goal threshold to clear. You select a side, the price reflects the probability, and the game determines the outcome. NHL underdogs won outright at a 39.1% rate during the 2024-25 season — a figure that would make NFL bettors do a double take. That upset frequency is exactly what makes moneyline betting in hockey a distinct animal compared to other major sports.
How NHL Moneyline Pricing Works
I once spent an entire afternoon mapping moneyline movements across six different bookmakers for a single Tuesday night slate. The exercise sounds tedious, but it revealed something that changed how I approach the market: the range of moneyline prices on the same game can vary by 10-15% in implied probability between the tightest and widest shops. That variance is where bettors either leave money on the table or scoop it up.
When a bookmaker sets an NHL moneyline, they start with a model that estimates each team’s true win probability. Let’s say they peg Team A at 58% and Team B at 42%. In a perfectly fair market, decimal odds would be 1.72 for Team A and 2.38 for Team B. But the bookmaker builds in margin — the overround — so the actual prices might be 1.65 and 2.25. That gap between the true probability and the offered price is how the house earns.
In the NHL, moneyline pricing clusters in a narrower band than sports like the NFL or NBA. Most regular-season games feature a favourite priced somewhere between 1.40 and 1.80 in decimal odds. The truly lopsided lines — favourites shorter than 1.30 — occur far less frequently because hockey’s single-game variance is enormous. A hot goaltender, an early power play goal, a lucky bounce off the boards — any of these can flip a game on its head, and bookmakers know it.
The price structure matters because it dictates your break-even rate. At 1.65, you need to win about 60.6% of your bets to break even. At 2.25 on the underdog side, you only need 44.4%. These thresholds should be the first thing you calculate before placing any moneyline wager. If you cannot articulate why your estimated win probability exceeds the break-even threshold, you do not have a bet — you have a guess.
Betting Favourites vs Underdogs on the Moneyline
A few seasons back, I ran a blind experiment: I bet every NHL home underdog on the moneyline for an entire month. No filters, no analysis, just a flat stake on every home dog. The results were not profitable on their own, but they were shockingly close to break-even. That outcome tracks with the data: home underdogs posted a 63.9% cover rate against the spread in 2024-25, and their outright win rate is high enough that moneyline prices on home dogs routinely carry positive expected value.
Favourites are the more popular side with the public, and that popularity inflates their price. When 70% of the betting handle lands on one side, bookmakers have no incentive to offer a generous line. The favourite’s moneyline gets squeezed, and the underdog’s price drifts to a level that over-represents their losing probability. This is not a conspiracy — it is basic market mechanics responding to imbalanced money flow.
The question for your betting approach is not “favourites or underdogs” as a blanket rule. It is “which games offer a gap between the implied probability and my estimated probability.” I lean toward underdogs because hockey’s parity creates more mispriced dogs than mispriced favourites. But there are situations — a top-five team at home against a bottom-ten opponent on the second night of a back-to-back — where the favourite at 1.55 is the right call.
Tracking your results by price bucket is essential. I split my moneyline bets into three categories: short favourites (1.35-1.55), mid-range favourites (1.55-1.80), and underdogs (1.80+). Over the last three seasons, my mid-range favourites have the best ROI, and my short favourites have the worst. That pattern is common across the industry, and it reinforces why blindly backing heavy chalk is one of the fastest ways to drain a bankroll in hockey.
If you want a deeper look at why underdog strategies thrive in the NHL, the data on upset frequency and cover rates tells a compelling story.
When to Choose Moneyline Over Puck Line
I used to treat the moneyline and puck line as interchangeable options on the same game, just with different prices. That was lazy thinking. Each market answers a different question, and the choice between them should be deliberate.
Choose the moneyline when you believe a team will win but the margin is uncertain. Games between evenly matched opponents, games with elite goaltending on both sides, and games late in the season where both teams are jockeying for playoff positioning tend to produce tight scorelines. In those spots, the moneyline gives you the cleanest bet: your team just needs to win. The puck line adds unnecessary risk when you cannot confidently project a two-goal margin.
Choose the puck line when the price differential is significant and you have a strong read on the margin. If a favourite is 1.40 on the moneyline and 2.20 on the -1.5 puck line, you are essentially getting 57% more return for predicting a two-goal win. That premium is worth chasing when your model or analysis flags a mismatch — a backup goaltender facing a top-five offence, for example.
There is a middle-ground approach I use frequently: split the stake. Put 60-70% on the moneyline and 30-40% on the puck line when you lean toward a comfortable win but want protection if it turns into a grinder. The blended return across both bets often produces a better risk-adjusted outcome than going all-in on either market alone.
NHL Moneyline Questions
Does an NHL moneyline bet include overtime and shootouts?
Yes. Standard NHL moneyline bets include overtime and the shootout in the regular season. The team that is credited with the win after any extra period settles the moneyline. During the playoffs, games are decided by sudden-death overtime periods with no shootout, and your moneyline bet covers all overtime periods played.
Why are NHL moneyline favourites often poor value compared to other sports?
NHL games have higher upset rates than most major sports — underdogs won 39.1% of games outright in the 2024-25 season. Because outcomes are less predictable, short-priced favourites carry a lower margin of safety. Public money tends to pile on favourites, which further compresses their odds and reduces the value available.
