Hammer Wednesday - NHL Thoughts and Super Bowl Market Check

Expected Goals, Actual Opinions: Thoughts on the NHL 
By: Alex Moretto, Director of Content at the Hammer Betting Network

1.) I wanted to start here, courtesy of our friend – Florida Man, spoiled Panthers fan, long-time Edge Work watcher – Charles Saul from the Discord: “Need a breakdown for make miss playoffs markets Edgework or in the newsletter. Such a crazy race this year def some money to be made”

If you’ve been glued into betting the playoff market this season, you could have accumulated a great portfolio by now with plus-money prices on just about every team in the race to make, or miss. It’s remained largely congested throughout the season, which has resulted in some considerable odds swings on a week-to-week basis. But we’re starting to see some separation, finally. Things are far from decided, but for the first time really in 2025-26 we’re starting to get a clearer picture as to which teams truly control their own destiny. Here’s where we stand as of Wednesday, January 28:



In the East, we’re looking at a six-point gap between second and third in the wild-card race (although just four points separates third from fourth and fifth in the Metro). I think Tampa and Carolina are the only absolute playoff locks in the East, but I’m also willing to pencil in the Wings, Sabres, and Canadiens at this point – all three of whom I believe are above 70% to make it. That leaves three playoff spots up for grabs – second and third in the Metro, and one wild card spot. It’s getting harder and harder to discount what the Bruins and Penguins are doing, but gun to my head, I’d pick the Capitals, Devils, and Panthers to round out the field, narrowly beating out the Penguins and Senators. I think Ottawa make things very interesting. That’s a team, along with the Capitals and Devils, who I expect to be very active around the deadline doing whatever they can to get in. Washington will get Pierre-Luc Dubois back after the Olympics, and has plenty of assets to add reinforcements up front, while New Jersey has much-needed flexibility following the Palat trade. The Devils have been playing good hockey lately and have the talent to go on quite the run out of the Olympic break. My favorite playoff bets in the East right now on FanDuel are the Capitals to make it (+180) and the Islanders to miss (+125).

Things are a lot less convoluted in the West, only because the quality of the middle tier is so much worse. We also have a lot more “locks” in the West: Colorado, Minnesota, Dallas, Vegas, Edmonton. I’d also be pretty surprised at this point if the Mammoth or Kings don’t make it. It’s not that I’m in love with either of them, but they are a clear class above the teams they’re competing with, and that’s reflected in their current playoff odds (Mammoth -475, Kings -300). I’m not betting either at those numbers, but I think they’re both good enough teams to comfortably fend off the challenge of the teams they’re fighting with. If I’m right, that leaves just one more spot up for grabs, which will come down to the Ducks, Sharks, Kraken, Predators, or Jets. I am extremely out on the Kraken, I think the Jets have simply dug too big a hole to climb out of, and as much as I love how Nashville’s been playing, I think it realistically comes down to the Ducks and Sharks. It would be awesome to see Celebrini carry San Jose into the playoffs on his back, but selfishly I have a lot of pre-flop positions on the Ducks and I also think they’d be a much better watch in the first round. I love how they responded to losing nine straight, by winning seven in a row without both Troy Terry and Leo Carlsson. They’re getting both guys back soon, and Lukas Dostal has rediscovered his form. This is a really quality Ducks roster when fully healthy, and I think the talent gap between them and San Jose is just too much for the Sharks to overcome. I wouldn’t be running to bet it at -180, though. I don’t see a ton of value in the make/miss playoff markets in the West.

2.) The NHL needs a solution for offside reviews. There are a lot of rule hardos out there who will fight back on this, but there are few things worse for the game from an entertainment perspective than having to sit through a five-minute replay review that wipes out a goal because 45 seconds before the puck went in, a player who had no involvement in the zone entry was half-an-inch offside when the puck officially crossed the line. Of course, the only way to determine the play was offside in these cases is to slow the replay down to a borderline standstill and look at it from 10 different angles. It’s just not in the spirit of the rule, and it’s not how offside replay came to be. It exists today because an egregious missed call over a decade ago, to prevent that sort of thing from happening again, but has snowballed into something so much worse. I’d rather live with a bad missed call from time to time than sit through what offside reviews have become.

There are a lot of ways to try an fix the problem. We could look at the timing of the offside in relation to the goal, whether or not the offside player was involved in the zone entry, or how obvious the offside really was (can we tell in real time from one camera angle, or do we need to look from several angles and slow it down frame by frame?). But at the end of the day, if you start to incorporate all these stipulations, it gets convoluted and becomes somewhat arbitrary. The simplest fix, in my opinion, is this: put a 60 second timer on offside reviews. That’s it. If a goal is challenged, the refs have 60 seconds to determine if the play was offside. They can use whatever replays they want in that time, but if they can’t conclusively overturn the call on the ice by the end of the 60 seconds then it wasn’t an egregious mistake, the goal should stand, and we can all move on with our lives.

3.) We had a trade yesterday – the second in as many days for the Islanders, both with fellow Tri-State rivals. On Tuesday night they traded Maxim Tsyplakov for Ondrej Palat, a 2026 3rd-round pick, and a 2027 6th-round pick. They received a fair bit of praise for the deal, including from Frank Seravalli and Justin Bourne. I don’t see it the same way. The Isles’ roster is marginally better with Palat on it than Tsyplakov, and I understand they turn an asset that was free to acquire into a couple picks and an experienced player, but Palat looks very close to cooked and he’s making a lot of money for the next 1.5 seasons. The Isles have the room right now because of injuries, but adding something of an anchor for 6 million next season is pretty limiting. You’re also letting a division rival off the hook – one that has been desperately trying to clear space to take a big swing. This gives the Devils a lot of flexibility to improve the roster ahead of a hopeful playoff push, and I can’t help but think they should have been charged a much higher premium to offload Palat’s contract than they did here. Tsyplakov hasn’t produced much this year, but he’s a big kid who is half a year removed from a 35-point season (and +4 on a bad team). Palat hasn’t put up 35 points since 2021-22 and he’s being paid way more. I don’t think it’s some disastrous deal by any means for NYI, but I think if you’re going to let a direct rival off the hook, you should be hiking the tax. They didn’t do that here by any means.

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Player Props to Watch – Super Bowl Market Check-In



As we look towards Super Bowl week, the prop market is already starting to take shape.

Even this early, you can already see meaningful disagreement across books on key props. Some numbers are tightly clustered, while others show big gaps depending on where you look. For example, you’ve got Kenneth Walker’s receiving yards, Stefon Diggs’ receiving yards, Rhamondre Stevenson’s longest rush, and Sam Darnold’s pass attempts all showing clear separation between sharper books and slower-moving ones. In a market this liquid and this heavily bet, those gaps don’t exist by accident.

This is exactly how Super Bowl prop markets always behave: limits are high, public interest is massive, and numbers move based on information, modeling, and respected money long before most bettors realize what’s happening. Some books adjust quickly. Others lag. And that’s where value consistently comes from.

What makes this Super Bowl week different is the scale. With hundreds of props, alternate lines, and novelty markets, it becomes impossible to track this manually. That’s why the real edge is not “having a take” — it’s seeing the entire market at once, knowing which books move first, and spotting where prices are still stale.

That’s what Betstamp PRO is built for. It shows you:
 

• Where the sharpest books are pricing props
• Which books are slow to react
• Where the true market consensus actually is
• And where you’re getting a number that simply isn’t available anywhere else

As Super Bowl week progresses, you’ll see these boards change fast. Some props will move multiple times a day based on usage expectations, game-script assumptions, and matchup angles. The bettors who win this week aren’t guessing outcomes. They’re tracking market movement and taking the best version of the number.

Get the Betstamp PRO Props screen 50% off TODAY.

Lines subject to change. The Super Bowl prop market is one of the most efficient and information-driven markets of the year — and also one of the easiest places to find value if you know where to look.

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