NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE

Atlantic

New Jersey Devils
New York Rangers
New York Islanders
Philadelphia Flyers
Pittsburgh Penguins

Northeast

Boston Bruins
Toronto Maple Leafs
Montreal Canadians
Ottawa Senators
Buffalo Sabres

Southeast

Tampa Bay Lightning
Atlanta Thrashers
Carolina Hurricanes
Florida Panthers
Washington Capitals

NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE

Central

St. Louis Blues
Nashville Predators
Columbus Blue Jackets
Detroit Red Wings
Chicago Blackhawks

Northwest

Vancouver Canucks
Colorado Avalanche
Calgary Flames
Edmonton Oilers
Minnesota Wild

Pacific

Anaheim Mighty Ducks
San Jose Sharks
Phoenix Coyotes
Los Angleles Kings
Dallas Stars

History

The Stanley Cup, notably the oldest trophy competed for by professional athletes in North America, was donated in 1892 by Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley, Lord Stanley of Preston and son of the Earl of Derby.

The first winner of the Stanley Cup was the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association (AAA) hockey club, champions of the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada for 1893. Lord Stanley’s quest for his trophy has become one of the world’s most prestigious sporting competitions.

There have been numerous alterations to the Cup structure. In its infancy, tiered rings were added periodically to the bottom of the bowl. This was followed by long narrow bands in 1927 which were later replaced by uneven bands in 1947. Because the Cup is the only professional sports trophy where the name of every member of the winning team is inscribed, bands are often retired to make room for new champions. Retired bands, along with the original Stanley Cup bowl, are proudly displayed in Lord Stanley’s Vault in the Verizon Great Hall. Currently the Cup consists of a bowl, three tiered bands, a collar, and five barrel or uniform bands. The trophy stands at 35 ¼ inches and weighs 34 ½ pounds.

The Spanish Flu, which claimed more than 21 million lives from 1918 to 1919, resulted in cancellation of the Stanley Cup finals although the season had already been played. Early in 2005, the NHL canceled its entire 2004-2005 season due to its most bitter labour dispute ever between the National Hockey League Player’s Association and the NHL team owners over a proposed players’ salary cap. Cancellation of the entire season rendered the Stanley Cup finals impossible that year.

Stanley Cup Betting

Two teams compete head to head in a series of six games to determine the winner of the NHL championship. Each year, thousands of bettors flock to top online sportsbooks to bet on the Stanley Cup, choosing straight up bets on the outcomes of each series game, or, alternatively, choosing to wager on Stanley Cup props, Stanley Cup exotic wagers, or Stanley Cup futures.

Some of the most popular Stanley Cup betting options are Prop bets and future bets. Bettors can bet on how many games it will take for their team to win the series, or, place wagers on the number of saves made by a certain goal tender.

A Money Line is used to equal out the favorite and underdog attractiveness of a sport for a person who will be placing a bet. Money lines are different from point spreads because they are often used in individual sports like boxing and auto racing where there is no way to measure a player’s wins and losses. The money line is often set so the most money is risked on the favorite or the person expected to win and risk less money on the underdog player.

A money line reading: Player A -400 / Player B +360. What this means is that Player A has won more matches than Player B. Therefore, if you bet five hundred on Player A and they win you receive your five hundred back plus one hundred dollars for winning the bet. However, if Player B manages to win and you have bet a hundred dollars on the underdog then you receive three hundred and sixty dollars plus the return of your hundred dollars.

The spread between the lay price for a favorite player and the payoff for an underdog player will often increase depending on how many games the favorite has won. Bookmakers are out to make a profit and they can only do this if the underdog wins. Consider the above example of the two players. If Player B managed to win then the bookmaker would pay each person three hundred and sixty, but at the same time, they would make four hundred from the other people. Therefore, gaining a profit of forty dollars per bet. If Player A wins then the bookmaker would make a hundred and pay a hundred, thereby making zero commission on the bet.

Betting lines are important to understand since they are used in several sports including football, basketball, baseball as well as all the individual sports such as golf, tennis and auto racing.

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1. Create an Account

• Choose a username and password

2. Login

• Enter your username and password

3. Deposit Funds

• Choose payment method

4. Select your Game

• Choose the team and odds you are taking

5. Place your Bet

• Enter the amount of your bet

6. Confirm your Bet

• Review and confirm your wager for accuracy

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How to Bet on Hockey

The National Hockey League may rank a distant fourth of the four major sports in the United States, but that hasn’t stopped sportsbooks from posting lines on the NHL.

1) The most important consideration is to know who is playing goalie for the two teams involved in any given contest, the reason being is due to the fact that a goalie is the single most important player on the ice and his performance will directly translate to the success of any given team on any given night. Keep up on starting line-ups and monitor the injury reports of each team playing on a particular day, often a situation will arise in which a back-up goalie gets the start.

2) Have a team by team schedule for the season on hand and realize in advance any and all scheduling situations that can and will impact any given teams performance, keep in mind that teams playing consecutive games have a tough row when facing rested home teams, quite often visiting teams do not arrive to the host city until early the next morning because they finished up a night game and then had to travel. In this scenario the visiting coach usually does not schedule a practice in order to keep the legs of his team fresh.

3) Hockey is similar to football in two key ways, first of all both games are very physical in nature, and secondly the adage that defense wins championships holds true in both sports. In hockey like football, there exists two type of teams, some teams play a style that is predicated on intimidating physical play featured by hard hitting while other teams play more of a finesse style of play predicated on timing, when two teams with these contrasting styles play usually the team with the more physical defense wins.

Betting the National Hockey League

Before a person can start to bet the NHL, it’s important they have a solid understanding of the MoneyLine. The money line is the most common method of betting the NHL although there is also a puck line, totals and “Grand Salami.” Nearly every sportsbook uses a 20-cent line on the National Hockey League. The 20-cents refers to the difference in the odds on the favorite and the odds on the underdog.

The Puck Line

While betting on the winner of the game, as shown above, is the most popular method of betting the NHL, there is also the puck line, which baseball bettors will recognize as being quite similar to the run line. When betting the puck line, bettors can either lay 1.5 goals with the favorite or take 1.5 goals with the underdog. The puck line used to be .5 goals, but the shootout eliminated the possibility of a tie game, so the oddsmakers bumped the puck line up to 1.5 goals.

Totals

Bettors also have the option of betting on the total number of goals scored in a game. The sportsbooks will post a number, generally between 5 and 6.5 and bettors can wager the number of goals scored in the game will be greater (over) than the posted number or less (under) than the posted number.

Grand Salami

The Grand Salami is practically an institution for hockey bettors. The Grand Salami allows hockey fans to have a rooting interest in every game being played on a particular day for the cost of one bet.

How the Grand Salami works is the sportsbooks will let bettors wager over or under the total number of goals scored in all of the games played on a particular day. If there are 10 games on a given day, the Grand Salami total will generally be around 53 to 60, depending on the particular games. Just as with regular totals, there will be times when bettors are risked to give higher odds on betting the over or the under.

There is one primary difference in betting hockey totals as opposed to betting basketball and football totals. Because scoring in hockey is so much lower than in football or basketball, the bookmakers are reluctant to change the number of a total and instead will often adjust the odds.

Over/under

In this situation, you are betting on the number of goals scored in a game. For example, if the lines are over / under 6, this means that you must predict if the game is going to total over 6 goals or under 6 goals. If there are EXACTLY 6 goals scored during a game, you get your bet back but of course, you would need to check with your sportsbook.

Straight Up
You are betting on the winner of the game.

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