Avs shoot for season sweep of Kings

Hockey Betting Lines

02/22/2012 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Last night, the Kings found the offense they have been so sorely lacking but it still resulted in a third straight loss.

Los Angeles looks to rebound this evening and avoid a season series sweep at the hands of the hosting Colorado Avalanche.

The Kings' struggles with scoring have been well documented this season, with the club ranking dead last in the NHL with 124 goals. They have been shut out eight times on the season, including consecutive 1-0 setbacks going into last night's meeting at Phoenix.

Los Angeles looked to have blasted out of its funk after getting goals from Drew Doughty, Andrei Loktionov and Dustin Brown in the game's first 15 minutes, but some poor discipline ultimately resulted in a 5-4 shootout loss.

The Kings, who also got a goal from Justin Williams, allowed a pair of power- play goals early in the second and also saw Phoenix net the game-tying goal while up a man after winger Kyle Clifford was whistled for a game misconduct for a shot to the head of the Coyotes' Gilbert Brule.

Brown tied the shootout in the second round, but Mikkel Boedker responded by beating Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick and Jack Johnson missed the net as the final skater.

Quick ended with 25 saves as the Kings lost for the fifth time in six games.

"When you give up three power-play goals on the road, you're going to have a tough time winning," Kings head coach Daryl Sutter said.

Though Los Angeles will be trying to avoid its longest losing streak since a five-game skid from Dec. 3-13, the point earned last night did give it sole possession of eighth place in the Western Conference. The Kings moved one ahead of the Flames, while the Avalanche sit four back of the final playoff position.

Colorado can close the gap this evening with its first season series sweep of Los Angeles since relocating from Quebec. The Avalanche had lost seven of eight to the Kings, including getting swept in the four-game series last year, before outscoring Los Angeles 8-4 in the three meetings this year.

The Avs snapped a three-game home losing streak to the Kings with a 3-2 win back on Oct. 30 and should have a bit of a tougher edge tonight after acquiring forward Steve Downie from the Lightning on Tuesday for defenseman Kyle Quincey.

Downie had 12 goals, 28 points and 121 penalty minutes in 55 games with Tampa Bay this year and logged 14 points in 17 playoff games last season in the Lightning's march to the Eastern Conference finals.

"Our organization believes that Steve Downie will add grit and skill to our lineup offensively," said Avalanche general manager and executive vice president Greg Sherman. "He plays the game with an edge and we look forward to seeing the immediate and future impact he can bring to our team."

Colorado made the move days after a 5-1 loss in Winnipeg, its third loss in four games.

"Overall, we just weren't good enough tonight in all areas of the game. I don't think we had everybody here on deck tonight," Avalanche head coach Joe Sacco said.

Gabriel Landeskog lit the lamp for Colorado and Semyon Varlamov allowed all five goals on 25 shots to take the loss.

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Oddsmakers at online sportsbook MySportsbook.com currently have the Chiefs listed as 7-point favorites versus the 49ers.

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To visit this online sports book got to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.

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.”

To visit this internet sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your sports betting needs and World Series odds.