You might not think hockey when you think West Coast. Perhaps you think the lifestyle there is too laid back to marry up with the intensity that takes place on the ice, but watch one NHL Pacifiic Division game and you will be hooked. There’s skill, physical punishment, and plenty of end-to-end, fast-paced excitement whenever two of these teams meet and that leads to opportunities for optimal wagering. So strap in and get ready to bet on the Pacific Division.
Both the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings have brought the Stanley Cup to Tinseltown in recent years and the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers also show significant Stanley Cup potential. The Vancouver Canucks have come ever so close on a few occasions, the San Jose Sharks are always hovering around and the Arizona Coyotes are a club assembling a horde of young stars that could soon see them on the horizon of achieving great things.
Best NHL Pacific Division Game Betting Lines
With so many good teams and so much young up-and-coming talent, finding the best NHL Pacific Division game betting lines isn’t a difficult task. And you’ll feel the palpable excitement.
The Pacific Division offers such a wide variety of styles of hockey among its teams, from physical clubs that take away the ice from the opposition, to hard-skating, high-end skill squads and young, budding superstars who lack nothing in confidence and are willing to play a run-and-gun style, that intriguing matchups are never difficult to locate.
The grueling travel schedule and differing time zones are always an issue when this division’s teams are in action. In can work in their favor when they are prone to catch an Eastern team at the end of a long West Coast road trip, or on the opposite end of the spectrum, these Pacific Division clubs can be on the East Coast and worn down and tired from a long, grinding stretch of road travel.
The smart bettor stays on top of this reality by closely monitoring the league schedule and being aware of which teams are enduring these different scenarios. It’s still harder work for someone not based in the West to wager on Pacific Division games, but those willing to put in the time and the late hours to stay of top of injury reports and
What Are The NHL Pacific Division Standings
In the days before the internet, keeping track of the Pacific Division standings would have been a challenge as it was rare, due to late starts, for West Coast game results to make deadlines.
That’s no longer the case, so there’s no excuse for any bettor not to be on top of who is where in the standings.
With the demanding travel schedule that these teams face and the varying time zones they deal with, teams can trend upward or downward in quick fashion, so if you take a few days off from studying the Pacific Division standings, you will regret it. It may require some late nights in order to stay up and get the latest injury updates, but it will be worth it when that homework pays off in successful wagering.
Pacific Division Betting Tips
As hard as it may be to believe, pro hockey has been part of the West Coast in both Canada and the United States since shortly after the turn of the 20th century. The Portland Rosebuds were the first Western U.S.team to play for the Stanley Cup in 1915-16 and the following season, the Seattle Metropolitans became the first American team to lift Lord Stanley's mug. Vancouver (1914-15) also won the league prior to the formation of the NHL in 1917-18.
Edmonton and Calgary have played in some of the most bitterly competitive series in the history of the NHL, the first minor pro league was formed in California, with many Canadian players headed to the warmer climates to play their trade. That staple of hockey, the Zamboni, was also invented in California in the 1940s.
When the NHL expanded from six to 12 teams in 1967, the Los Angeles Kings and California Seals were among the new franchises. While the Seals never really got it going and eventually relocated to Cleveland in 1976, the Kings would find a foothold on the busy L.A. sporting scene and in the 1990s, when they acquired Wayne Gretzky, hockey's best player, they became the talk of the town and in 1993, became the first California-based NHL team to play in the Stanley Cup final.
Corsi Ratings
You'll want to look at With our Without You, or the Corsi Ratings, when you start to delve more deeply into the analytics. Basically, it determines how well a key player performs with, and without, their linemate. Does it make a big difference if their linemate is missing? In the 2014 case of Phil Kessel and Tyler Bozak, it made a huge difference, as you'll see in the video below:
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