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Blake tallies hat trick, Hunter caps wild Isles winHockey Betting Lines02/28/2007 - Uniondale, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Trent Hunter's second goal of the game, coming with 31 seconds left in overtime, sent the New York Islanders past the Philadelphia Flyers, 6-5, at Nassau Coliseum. Jason Blake recorded a hat trick and one assist for the Islanders, winners in five of their last six games. Chris Simon also scored, while Randy Robitaille collected three assists and Mike Sillinger added two assists of his own. Rick DiPietro stopped 29 shots to earn the victory. R.J. Umberger tallied twice for the Flyers, who have dropped five straight. Dimitry Afanasenkov had a goal and an assist, Sami Kapanen and Simon Gagne scored, and Joni Pitkanen picked up a pair of helpers. Antero Niittymaki played well despite giving up six goals on 39 shots in the loss. Late in overtime, and already on the power play, the Islanders were about to go up by two men when Sillinger held in the left circle before feeding in the slot to Hunter, who redirected the puck into the top corner of the net. The win vaulted the Isles into seventh spot in the Eastern Conference playoff race, pulling them even with Montreal, which lost to the Rangers, and moving one point ahead of Carolina, which fell to Ottawa. Down by two goals heading into the final 20 minutes of play, the Flyers showed some uncharacteristic grit and rallied to come within 5-4 on Umberger's second goal of the night at the 8:12 mark. Gagne completed the long comeback with his 35th goal of the year on a rising backhander from a tangle of bodies at the left side of the crease 55 seconds later, and each side survived some close calls before the game slipped into the extra session. New York took an early 1-0 lead as Chris Campoli's blistering one-timer from the high slot tipped off Blake and sailed past a screened Niittymaki just 2:10 into the contest. Blake made it 2-0 at 8:34 when he followed up Robitaille's breakaway chance by barreling into the crease and shoving the loose puck into the net. Umberger countered at 13:42 to bring the Flyers within 2-1, but Hunter restored the Isles' two-goal advantage 20 seconds later when he stashed home his own rebound. Blake ended a lopsided first period for New York and finished his trifecta by stealing the puck from Kapanen deep in the Flyers' defensive zone, moving to the backhand and slipping the puck inside the far post with 14.7 seconds remaining. Kapanen atoned for his mistake and brought the Flyers within 4-2 with 2:48 played in the second, as his point blast caught Campoli's jersey and deflected past DiPietro. However, Blake and Robitaille teamed up with renowned tough-guy Simon to increase New York's lead to 5-2 at 6:20, then Simon squared off with the Flyers' Todd Fedoruk in a spirited bout immediately following his goal. Philly forward Darren Reid and Islanders enforcer Arron Asham tussled a mere five seconds later, and the fisticuffs re-energized the visitors, who cut the deficit to 5-3 when Afanasenkov was left all alone in front to tuck a shot through DiPietro's pads at 7:10. Game Notes The Isles have won four of the six meetings this season...New York is 5-1-0 on their current seven-game homestand...Ryan Smyth, acquired on Tuesday from Edmonton, was not in the lineup for the Isles...The Flyers did not have the services of goaltender Martin Biron, acquired before the trading deadline on Tuesday -- he will join the club on Thursday when they play in Boston. However, defenseman Braydon Coburn, acquired from Atlanta on Monday, and backliner Lasse Kukkonen, acquired from Chicago also on Monday, were in the lineup...Kukkonen recorded an assist in his first game in a Flyers uniform...The Flyers fell to 2-5 in overtime, and the Islanders improved to 8-4 in the extra period.
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Sportsbook Betting LinesWho 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 MadeThe 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 ChangeOnce 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.” To visit this internet sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your sports betting needs and World Series odds. |
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