Among the many factors in the Winnipeg Jets’ blazing hot 15-3-0 start, high on the list is the presence of reigning Vezina Trophy winner Connor Hellebuyck, who is once again proving to be one of the league’s finest goaltenders.
But even elite goalies can’t play every game, so headed into last Thursday’s matchup in Tampa Bay, the Jets announced that backup Eric Comrie would get the nod. Almost immediately, Caesars Sportsbook saw bets come in on the Lightning, forcing it to move the Bolts from an opening pick ’em to a closing -145 favorite. Winnipeg went on to lose 4-1, its second loss of the year and the first on Comrie’s record (3-1-0).
Goalies are the only players in hockey expected to play all the minutes in a game — even high-minute skaters play between only a third and half of a game — so it’s fair to wonder how the presence or absence of certain keepers might affect a given betting line. The reality is that linemakers take a more holistic approach to making NHL lines and put stock into only drastic goalie changes.
“Like anything else, it matters, but you’ve got to add context to it and sometimes it matters more than others,” Caesars head of hockey Karry Shreeve told ESPN. “Most of the time I’d say that a goalie, at most, is worth 3 to 5% [of implied probability]. So if it’s -120 [54.55%], maybe it goes to -150 [60%], -150 to -200 [66.7%]. But it’s all in context. It’s all team-specific, it’s situation-specific.”
Shreeve added that the Jets’ situation — an elite true No. 1 starter earning the majority of the ice time with a significant drop-off to the backup — is an outlier in today’s NHL. Many teams operate with true tandems, such as the one popularized by the Boston Bruins with Jeremy Swayman and Linus Ullmark before the latter was shipped off to the Ottawa Senators. Shreeve cited the Vegas Golden Knights, Seattle Kraken and Washington Capitals as teams where you would see little drop-off in perceived betting value based on the starting goalie.
Regardless, the starting goalie is not the bedrock of NHL line-making, but rather a piece to adjust situation-to-situation.
“The team has a No. 1 goalie and he’s built into the price every night,” DraftKings director of sportsbook Johnny Avello told ESPN. “If it changes from that, then we have to change the price, change our rating on that team. NHL is not like Major League Baseball where the pitcher makes all the difference, the pitcher is where the price comes from.”
Shreeve echoed that sentiment, saying baseball oddsmakers “would start with the pitcher and then work from there,” whereas hockey oddsmakers consider other factors before pricing in the goalie.
Sportsbook trading teams have researchers constantly on the lookout for news to inform line adjustments — for example, a Comrie spot start or an unexpected injury to a skater. Shreeve said a superstar skater suddenly being ruled out would have about as much impact on a line as a backup coming in for a starting goalie.
“No player in hockey is worth too much more than 5 percent,” he said. “So it’s not like the NFL where the quarterback’s such a big deal, or maybe the starting pitcher on the day is such a big deal [in baseball]. Even though the goalie plays all 60 minutes, their impact can be absorbed by the rest of the team.”
As the season progresses and the sample sizes get larger, bookmakers will look to make wholesale changes to their goalie power ratings based on every factor at their disposal. The most useful? While it would be easy to point to save percentage and goals-against average as the hallmarks of how much a goalie affects the game, Shreeve has found that a netminder’s winning percentage compared with his team’s win rate is a more useful indicator for handicapping an NHL game.
“When we get to the quarter mark of the season, that’s when we’re really going to start seeing some of these new goalie situations form and then I’ll make moves based off of that,” Shreeve said. “Whether it’s [that] we fade a team if a goalie comes in or we favor that team, it’s based on winning percentages relative to the team’s winning percentage.”
So while it can be tempting for prospective NHL bettors to focus on the one player who is on the ice for an entire game, it is important to remember that there are 22 others on a roster who bear the responsibility of winning or losing a game … including one who will be on cleanup duty if things go sideways for the starter.
