Hammer Wednesday - Wild Card Weekend - Injury Reports, Circa Million Superteam Results and Unique Data

Circa Million Superteam Final Results

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Injury Reports for Wild Card Weekend as of Wednesday Evening

***We avoid posting players who logged a full practice (Unless working back from injury), or missed due to illness. We also focus on players who regularly play and rotate in. We won't post a back-up's status unless part of a cluster of injuries including the starters. The Monday Night Football game won't have a practice report as those aren't due until Thursday. We will however reiterate the players who either didn't play last week or got injured in the game.

L.A. Rams at Carolina (Saturday)
L.A. Rams- WR Jordan Whittington DNP, TE Terrance Ferguson DNP, TE Tyler Higbee Limited, OG Kevin Dotson DNP, DT Braden Fiske Limited, CB Josh Wallace DNP
Carolina- OG Robert Hunt Full (Working back from I.R.), OG  Chandler Zavala Full (Working back from I.R.)

Green Bay at Chicago (Saturday Nighter)
Green Bay- QB Malik Willis Limited, WR Dontayvion Wicks Limited, OT Zach Tom Limited, S Javon Bullard Limited
Chicago- WR Rome Odunze Limited, WR D.J. Moore Limited, OT Ozzy Trapilo Limited, EDGE Joe Tryon-Shoyinka DNP, CB/S C.J. Gardner-Johnson DNP, CB Jaylon Jones Limited, CB Kyler Gordon Limited (Working back from I.R.), OT Braxton Jones Full (Working back from I.R.)

Buffalo at Jacksonville
Buffalo - RB Ty Johnson DNP, WR Josh Palmer DNP, TE Dalton Kincaid Limited, DT DaQuan Jones Limited, LB Terrel Bernard DNP, LB Shaq Thompson Limited, CB Maxwell Hairston Likely Out, S Jordan Poyer Limited, K Matt Prater DNP, S Damar Hamlin Limited (Working back from I.R.)
Jacksonville- OT Cole Van Lanen DNP, OG Patrick Mekari Limited, CB Greg Newsome II Limited, CB Montaric Brown Limited

San Francisco at Philadelphia
San Francisco- WR Ricky Pearsall DNP, TE George Kittle Limited, OT Trent Williams DNP, EDGE Keion White DNP, DL Yetur Gross-Matos Limited, DT Jordan Elliott Limited, LB Dee Winters DNP, LB Luke Gifford Limited
Philadelphia- TE Dallas Goedart Limited, TE Grant Calcaterra DNP, OT Lane Johnson Limited, OG Brett Toth DNP, DT Jalen Carter Limited, LB Nakobe Dean Limited, S Marcus Epps Limited, EDGE Azeez Ojulari Full (Working back from I.R.)

L.A. Chargers at New England (Sunday Nighter)
L.A. Chargers- RB Omarion Hampton DNP, OT Jamaree Salyer Limited, OT Austin Deculus DNP, EDGE Bud Dupree DNP, CB Donte Jackson Limited, CB/S Elijah Molden Limited
New England- OT Thayer Munford Jr. Limited, OG Jared Wilson Limited, EDGE Harold Landry Limited, NT Khyiris Tonga DNP, LB Robert Spillane Limited

Houston at Pittsburgh (Monday Nighter)
Houston- OT Trent Brown, CB Kamari Lassiter
Pittsburgh- Nothing of Note
 

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Expected Goals, Actual Opinions: Thoughts from around the NHL
By: Alex Moretto, Director of Content at the Hammer Betting Network

As we've crossed the midpoint of the season this past weekend, I took a deep dive into my betting results from the first half. It’s the most money I’ve ever won over a half-season betting the NHL – not just in total dollars, but in ROI as well. As I continue to scale up and bet more than ever before, I’d expect that ROI to take a hit. That hasn’t happened. In fact, it’s been quite the opposite, and to a rather surprising degree, despite a larger share of my money being bet later than ever before.

There have been some massive changes to my betting habits this season. I started to incorporate them last year, but this season they’ve completely taken over. In the past, the majority of my betting would be done by mid-afternoon Eastern Time. I’d bet my first round of money on openers (typically my highest volume), another round during morning skates for the east coast games (between 10:30-11am), and another during morning skates for the west coast games (between 1-2pm). That would pretty much be the extent of it. I’d have some bets during warmups if I was waiting for a player’s status or a starting goalie confirmation, but for the most part my betting was done early.

This season, my betting has been far more aggressive and reactive. For starters, I’m betting a lot fewer openers, which, for the most part, are as good as ever (at sharp books, not rec shops). Instead, I’m betting way more, way later than ever before. So much of my volume this season has come from betting games I had no interest in at open. In other words, a lot of my bets are me fading big money that enters the market, creating numbers I never imagined would be available.

A lot of that comes down to how little two-way action exists on gameday. Once a side or total moves in the morning, the market acts as if it’s already “the winner.” People either chase the steam, pushing it further, or sit out because they missed the best of the number. There’s no market resistance. Every night, we see several big, late moves on a side or total in the 30 minutes before puck drop – often on a number that’s already been bet all day, or hasn’t moved at all. I find myself fading a lot of these moves, simply because they make no sense and create unexpected value on the other side. They aren’t driven by surprise goalie confirmations or injuries – not that the market really even reacts to injuries unless it’s a star player, anyways. Sometimes, numbers even steam late despite injury news that should logically draw money on the other side.

Abandoning my belief in market efficiency has been one of the biggest and most uncomfortable adjustments I’ve had to make over the past year. It’s been a gradual process, but I’ve fully come around over the past three months. This is the most confident I’ve ever been fading the market, the least I’ve cared what others are betting (outside of trying to study it for my own market entry), and certainly the least I’ve paid attention to CLV. It’s also the least CLV has ever mattered to my results. All of those points have resulted in me having some uncomfortably big positions on games way more often than ever before. There are several nights a week where I wind up with a very large position on a game simply because the market moves against a bet I’ve already made, and because I no longer care, I’ll keep adding to it. This isn’t just my opinion, either. I’ve spoken to prominent people on both sides of the counter in the NHL betting space, and there have been several mentions of the fact that there are more perplexing line moves this year than in years past. I don’t have a reason as to why, and neither do they. It’s something I’m still working on trying to understand.

Just looking at the past few days alone provides a bunch of examples. On Saturday, I bet the Senators at -125 after Winnipeg money came in, then added at -114 after more Jets money flooded the market. It closed -117 and the Sens won 4-2. I also had over 6 -115 in Lightning/Sharks. That got bet up to 6.5 -103 overnight before coming all the way back to 6 -106, where I added more. It closed 6 -108 and finished 7-3. On Sunday, I bet Habs/Stars over 6 -120 close to open, then added at 6 -112 very late after the under got smacked before post. It finished 4-3. On Tuesday, I bet Stars/Hurricanes over 6 -113 in the afternoon, after betting it at -115 nearly 24 hours earlier. It touched 6.5 -102 overnight before a flood of gameday under money came in with no resistance. It finished 6-3. Also on Tuesday, the Predators and Blue Jackets continued to take money throughout the day. At 7:30pm in the #NHL channel in the Hammer Discord – pretty close to puck drop – I posted that I was betting the Oilers -140 and Sharks +117. Less than an hour later, now incredibly close to puck drop, more money came in on the opposite sides, and I posted that I was adding more on the Oilers at -135 and Sharks +125. The Oilers won 6-2 and the Sharks won 5-2. Sure, I’m cherry picking, and they aren’t all winners, but I am ending up with huge positions on these and way more of them are winning than losing. Sure, three months is too small a sample, but my record on these has been absurdly good. I’m sure regression will hit eventually, but to what degree is the question. A month ago I said the same thing: “I’m running way too good, it has to turn soon.” It has only got better since.

So, why is this happening?

It’s not because people betting the NHL now are suddenly dumb, although I do believe some money being thrown around isn’t very sharp. One big reason I believe we’re getting some nonsensical moves near post is that one group behind them is opening live-betting opportunities for itself. The NHL market is not like the NFL. You can significantly shift the closing line with a couple of 25k clicks near post. For a group with a massive bankroll, that’s nothing, and what they are then left with is a live line that’s anchored to that closing price, where they can get down closer to six figures a click on VIP accounts at rec books. This opens up great betting opportunities for those of us who don’t have bankrolls big enough to fake an entire market near post.

You can also very easily fake the entire market early on gameday with a few 3k max clicks at a sharp book, sending a line flying for you to bet the other side on PPH. That doesn’t explain the lack of buyback, but again, in my experience the NHL is by far the least efficient of the efficient markets. It’s not like the NFL, CFB, or NBA. Limits are lower at sharper books and there’s way less competition, with a lot of pros simply focusing resources elsewhere. The groups who shaped the market and closing lines five years ago are all gone. The landscape is a lot more open for bettors, and in my experience not all of the new money is particularly sharp. I know of at least one prominent group that doesn’t care about players when pricing games. It’s hard to be efficient when you don’t pay attention to who is in and out of the lineup. I’ve brought up specific examples of this in past articles, where key player injuries are being completely ignored in market. I just can’t believe in the efficiency or legitimacy of the market given all these factors.

It took me a lot of time to arrive here. I had to completely change my view of the market and my approach to betting into it. I abandoned my belief in market efficiency and stopped fearing opposing money. With that, I gained a ton of confidence in my own stuff, and that’s been the biggest catalyst for my success this season. In past years, I would not have dreamed of adding to a position of mine the market disagreed with. In fact, in many instances I would have probably tried to dump it. Now I’m not only content keeping it but aggressively adding to it wherever possible. I don’t know if this is sustainable. And I don’t know if this is even newsworthy, or just noise from a small sample. This has simply been my experience this season, and my approach as someone who has been quite involved betting the NHL for a while now.

I am definitely not telling you to go out there and fade every big line move. I’m also not saying every big move in the NHL market is bad, or fake. I agree with many of them. I am simply telling you the root of my success this season has come from taking a stance, procuring my own source of truth, and developing conviction in my process. Time will tell how well this holds.

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