The 2023 NHL All-Star Game will take place on Saturday, Feb. 4 starting at 3 p.m. ET at FLA Live Arena in Sunrise, Fla.
This season’s All-Star game will once again feature four teams playing in an elimination 3-on-3 tournament.
Each division will be represented with the Metropolitan Division playing the Atlantic in one semifinal and the Central playing the Pacific in the other.
With that, let’s take a look at the betting odds for the game.
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All-Star Game Odds:
- Atlantic +225
- Central +250
- Metropolitan +300
- Pacific +325
The first thing you need to realize when betting the NHL All-Star Game is that there is very little rhyme or reason to how this competition shakes out. These are exhibitions and players are there to have fun more than anything else, so you just need to go into the competition with the same attitude. These should be small bets intended to add to the experience, rather than big wagers you make because you think you have an edge on the market.
That doesn’t mean we can’t do your best to handicap the competition.
The Atlantic Division is the betting favorite to win the All-Star Game and are -135 favorites to beat the Metro in their semifinal. That gives us the first question worth pondering: Why is the Atlantic Division the favorite?
There are probably a couple of reasons. For one, the Florida Panthers are the host of the All-Star Game and play in the Atlantic. That probably shouldn’t matter, but perhaps it is having some sort of impact here. The other reason the Atlantic is the favorite may be because it has been the best division in the NHL this season with the Bruins, Maple Leafs and Lightning leading the charge. Once again, I don’t think that should matter in a 3-on-3 exhibition.
Additionally, I don’t know if the Atlantic should even be favored over the Metro. Every team will have a wealth of starpower, but the Metro easily has the best goaltending tandem with Igor Shesterkin and Ilya Sorokin set to tend the cage. Every team’s talent level is roughly the same in this competition, but the only true difference could come in goal, where the Metro has a leg up on everyone else.
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The other side of the bracket feels priced right. The Pacific has Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, but the Central Division has an elite goaltending tandem with Connor Hellebuyck and Juuse Saros. There’s probably very little that separates these two sides, so making the Central a -125 favorite seems fine as the roster does seem to be a tad deeper and they’ve got the goaltending edge.
In my eyes, it looks like the best value on the board (and once again, this is an exhibition 3-on-3 hockey tournament, so take that with a grain of salt) is the Metropolitan Division. Shesterkin and Sorokin give the Metro the best netminding tandem in the event and they’ve got enough depth and talent in their skating ranks that they shouldn’t be too big of an underdog in their opening game. Grab the Metro at +300 and hope that goaltending proves to be the difference.