Zajac leads Devils past Flyers in shootout

Hockey Betting Lines

12/21/2008 - Newark, NJ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Travis Zajac scored the winning goal in the fifth round of the shootout, giving the New Jersey Devils a 3-2 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers at the Prudential Center.

Patrik Elias and Brian Rolston scored in regulation for New Jersey, which has won three straight and is 7-1-1 in its last nine. Scott Clemmensen made 27 saves in the victory.

Jeff Carter and Joffrey Lupul each notched a goal and an assist for the Flyers, who were coming off a 7-1 victory over Washington on Saturday and fell to 6-1-1 in their last eight. Antero Niittymaki stopped 24 shots in defeat.

Mike Richards scored in the second round of the shootout to give the Flyers the advantage and Jamie Langenbrunner tied it in the third round to keep it going. After both goaltenders came up with stops in the fourth round, Clemmensen turned aside Lupul to start the fifth and Zajac beat Niittymaki with a wrister from in close to end it.

The Flyers tied it at 2-2 with 4:44 remaining in the third period. Carter had the puck in the left corner and whipped a backhand pass toward the crease. Lupul was battling for position and managed to get his stick on the puck, directing it past Clemmensen for his 12th goal.

Carter had the best chance in overtime, with a point-blank shot from the low left circle, but Clemmensen anticipated the play well and made the save with 1:53 to play in the extra period.

Clemmensen stopped three shots in overtime, while Niittymaki turned aside the only shot New Jersey mustered in the five-minute period.

The Devils took a 1-0 lead on a power-play goal by Elias at 7:30 of the second period. Paul Martin fired a shot on net from the center point and both Zajac and Zach Parise had whacks at the rebound before Elias picked it up and deposited his 16th goal of the season.

Rolston added to the advantage just 66 seconds later, as David Clarkson freed up the puck for the veteran, who snapped a low wrister from the right circle past Niittymaki for his third goal.

The Flyers picked up their play soon after and were rewarded with a power play for the first time when Andy Greene went off for high-sticking with 3:30 to play in the second. They capitalized less than a minute later when Carter backhanded the rebound of a Lupul shot past Clemmensen for his league-leading 25th goal.

Philadelphia nearly scored while shorthanded just over five minutes into the third, as Scott Hartnell broke into the New Jersey zone and had a backhander stopped by Clemmensen.

Game Notes

Elias has a 10-game point streak...New Jersey was 1-for-5 on the power play, while Philadelphia cashed in its lone opportunity with the extra skater...The Devils improved to 4-2 in shootouts this season, while the Flyers fell to 1-3...Philadelphia defenseman Randy Jones made his season debut after missing the first 32 games recovering from hip surgery performed in October.

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Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?

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. “

What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?

There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).

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).

How the Opening Line Is Made

The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.

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.

Why Sports Betting Lines Change

Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:

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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