Since the 2005-06 NHL season, there have been 491 regular-season games played in April and May by teams with a winning percentage – shootout and overtime losses are counted as regulation losses – of at least .600 at the time of the game.
The team with a winning percentage of at least .600 covered the puck line, i.e. spread, in only 209 games, an ATS winning percentage of just .426 and a return on investment of -8.4%. (It doesn’t include games from the 2021 season.)
In the last 16 years, those teams have finished above .500 ATS only three times, a run that included 11 straight sub-.500 ATS seasons from 2007-08 through 2017-18.
It gets worse for teams with a winning percentage of at least .650; they’ve covered in just 60 of 170 opportunities (.353) for an ROI of -23%. As a result, they’ve finished above .500 only twice in 16 years.
As of March 20, the Boston Bruins have a winning percentage of .768.
Suppose they inexplicably lost all six remaining games in March. In that case, they’d still enter April at .707, which would put them above a historically favorable line . . . if you want to demolish the sample size.
Teams with a winning percentage of exactly .650 are awful against the puck line in April and May; they’re 16-36 (.308) with an ROI of .41.3%.
If you eliminate those teams from the group with a winning percentage of at least .650 – that have covered in just 60 of 170 games (.353) for an ROI of -23% – the ATS winning percentage only marginally increases (.373), but the ROI jumps more than eight percentage points to -14.9%.
In doing so, the sample size drops by nearly 50%, from 230 games to only 118 games.
At .661 and higher, the ROI climbs to -9.9% in 90 games.
.671 and higher: -3.1% in 77 games
.681 and higher: +2.5% in 70 games
.691 and higher: +1.8% in 61 games
.701 and higher: +11.6% in 51 games
Teams with a winning percentage better than .701 have a cover rate of .471 and ROI of +11.6% in April and May regular-season games since 2005-06.
The Bruins have been dominant on the ice and at the sportsbook through the first five months of the season. Even with a four-game ATS skid in mid-March, they’re still 41-28 (.594) this season, the second-best mark in the NHL.
Will they follow the history of other good teams against late-season puck lines? Or add to the favorable late-season returns of great teams?
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