09/24/2008 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Hold tight, St. Louis. Help is on the way.
The St. Louis Blues are in the midst of a youth movement and the club didn't want to spoil that strategy this offseason with a bunch of messy free-agent contracts.
Being patient and not throwing their hat into the ring during free agency may not be a popular decision, but for the Blues it's the right way to get back to being a perennial playoff participant.
St. Louis actually looked like a playoff team at the beginning of the 2007-08 campaign, but the club's lack of experience eventually caught up and the Blues finished 14th out of 15 teams in the Western Conference.
The Blues are in for additional growing pains this year, but at least head coach Andy Murray has a load of recent first-round picks on his roster. Unfortunately, the team's most highly-touted prospect will likely miss the entire 2008-09 season as defenseman Erik Johnson, the No. 1 overall selection in the 2006 draft, tore both the ACL and MCL ligaments in his right knee.
The injury to Johnson is a major blow to his development, but St. Louis still ha plenty of other youngsters to bring along this season.
FORWARDS - The Blues were 26th in the NHL with an average of just 2.46 goals per game last season, but that certainly wasn't the fault of 26-year-old right wing Brad Boyes.
When the Blues sent defenseman Dennis Wideman to Boston for Boyes in a mid- season trade during the 2006-07 season they knew they were getting a solid offensive player, but they couldn't have expected him to put up 43 goals in his first full season with the club.
Boyes led St. Louis with in goals last year and was tied with Paul Kariya for the team lead with 65 points. However, it could spell big problems for the Blues' offense if Boyes, a former first-round pick by Toronto, falls back to the 26 goals he scored with Boston in 2005-06.
Kariya, who was signed to a three-year, $18 million deal in the summer of 2007, was the club's top left winger last year with 16 goals and a team-high 49 assists. The Blues were happy with the overall production from Kariya, but would like to see his goal total increase this season.
The Blues acquired a top-line centerman midway through last season by packaging veteran forward Doug Weight in a deal that brought Andy McDonald from Anaheim to St. Louis. McDonald had a career-high 85 points in 2005-06 with the Ducks and had 36 points (14 goals, 22 assists) in 49 games with the Blues last year.
At 31 years old, McDonald is by far the oldest centermen expected to make the Blues out of training camp. Patrick Berglund, 20, and Jay McClement, 25, as well as Yan Stastny, who will turn 26 just before the season begins, all have a good chance to see significant playing time in St. Louis this year. Berglund is the best prospect of the three, having been picked with the 25th overall selection in the 2006 draft.
Keith Tkachuk, 36, will be back to provide goal-scoring and leadership on the left wing. He was third on the team in scoring last year with 58 points (27g, 31a) and has 500 career goals.
The Blues were disappointed with the play of winger Lee Stempniak in 2007-08, as he notched just 13 goals and 38 points a year after recording a career-high 52 points (27g, 25a).
David Perron is expected to take a step forward after posting 13 goals and 14 assists in 62 games as a rookie last year. The 20-year-old left wing was selected by the Blues with the 26th overall pick in the 2007 draft.
Another young player to keep an eye on this year will be right wing T.J. Oshie, a first-round pick with a penchant for physical play despite his 5-10, 170-pound frame. The 21-year-old had 18 goals and 27 assists in 42 games as a collegiate player with North Dakota a year ago.
DEFENSE - The injury to Johnson must be frustrating for team president John Davidson and the rest of St. Louis' front office, which considers the young blueliner to be the key in the current youth movement.
While St. Louis has some solid veterans on the blueline like Eric Brewer, 29, Barret Jackman, 27, and Jay McKee, 31, it was Johnson who led all Blues defensemen with 33 points (5g, 28a) in just 69 games as a rookie in 2007-08.
Brewer, who had 22 points (1g, 21a) last year, will likely quarterback the power play in the absence of Johnson.
Jackman, who won the Calder Trophy as the league's top rookie in 2002-03, is a physical defenseman who had two goals, 14 assists and 93 penalty minutes in 78 games last year.
McKee, meanwhile, has battled numerous injuries in recent years, but could be a boost if healthy this season.
Steven Wagner, 24, Jeff Woywitka, 25, are also expected to be in the defensive rotation and Roman Polak, a 22-year-old who spent most of his time with the Blues' AHL affiliate in Peoria the last two years, could also be in the mix now that Johnson is out.
GOALTENDING - Veteran goaltender Manny Legace made the Western Conference All- Star team last year thanks to a strong first half of the season, but then struggled after the All-Star break.
Legace was 17-13-4 with a 2.28 goals against average in his first 37 games, but was 10-12-4 with a 2.57 GAA in his final 29 outings. Still, he heads into this season as the No. 1 netminder despite the fact that he'll make $500,000 less than backup Chris Mason, who was acquired over the summer break in a trade with Nashville.
Mason saw action in 51 games with the Predators last season and was 18-22-6 with a 2.90 GAA and a sub-par .898 save percentage.
WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE - The Blues enter this season with developing their young talent as the main priority, although that process will unfortunately proceed without their blue-chip defense prospect. Still, the team has a chance to build confidence even if a berth in the postseason is likely a few years away. Patience is a virtue that St. Louis' management apparently has, but it will be interesting to see how long hockey fans in the Gateway City will share that sentiment.
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Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.
“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.
“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).
Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.
Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.
The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.
Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game
Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.
Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.
Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”
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