Coyotes making moves...for the future

Hockey Betting Lines

02/21/2007 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - If things are going to get better in Phoenix, it's probably about time some new Coyotes start running with the pack.

The Phoenix Coyotes have been making moves over the last two weeks and one of them involved the jettison of forward Ladislav Nagy, who at the time of the trade was the team's leading scorer. Nagy was dealt to the Dallas Stars last Monday.

Nagy skated in 55 games with Phoenix this year and had eight goals and a then team-high 33 assists for a team-leading 41 points. In six seasons with Phoenix, Nagy had 92 goals and 157 assists in 321 games.

In return, Phoenix received left wing Mathias Tjarnqvist and a first-round pick in the 2007 draft. Tjarnqvist had just one goal and three assists in 18 games with the Stars this year, but already has a tally and a helper in four games with Phoenix.

The move made sense for the Coyotes, who are currently riding a six-game losing streak and have just three more points than Los Angeles, which is dead last in the Western Conference.

Nagy is set to become an unrestricted free agent this offseason and thanks to the trade, Phoenix will now have two first-round picks in the upcoming NHL draft.

Just three days later, the Coyotes made a move to shorten the rebuilding process by signing captain Shane Doan to a five-year contract extension. The 31-year-old has 19 goals and 17 assists for a team-best 36 points for Phoenix.

The move will certainly help the Coyotes keep their fan base interested during their rebuilding process. The club drafted Doan in 1995 when it was still in Winnipeg, and the Alberta native is the only player on the roster that made the move to Phoenix when the club relocated in 1996.

"Shane is the face of our franchise and our best player. He is a great captain and leader and an even better person," said Coyotes' managing partner/head coach Wayne Gretzky in making the announcement of the extension. "He has a great work ethic, plays hard every night and is one of our most active players in the community. We are thrilled to have him in a Coyotes uniform for the next five years."

Phoenix later made a set of smaller moves when it re-signed goaltender Mikael Tellqvist and center Mike Zigomanis to two-year contracts.

However, these moves are most certainly just the first of more to come. It is possible Gretzky will not be back next year as head coach. In Gretzky's first year as head coach last season, the Coyotes finished last in the Pacific with 81 points. The club has just 53 points through 60 games this campaign.

Also, center Jeremy Roenick, who signed a one-year deal this past offseason to return to the club, could retire at season's end. Roenick, though, has just seven goals this season, leaving him nine shy of 500 for his career. If he doesn't reach that milestone this year, it could motivate him to come back for another year, but probably not with Phoenix.

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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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