The Anaheim Ducks might be the worst team in the Western Conference to begin the NHL season. They’re 3-6-1 (7 points) through 10 games with the third-weakest offense (2.5 goals per game).
Though, to be fair, it’s not like the Ducks are making it any easier on themselves. Take Tuesday night’s game against the similarly bad San Jose Sharks (-125).
Anaheim lost 6-5 in a shootout, giving up the lead in the most painful way possible—a horrific own-goal near the end of the second period.
With the Ducks up 4-3, Anaheim’s Jakob Silfverberg took a swipe at the puck hoping to knock it off the stick of San Jose’s Timo Meier as he drove towards the net. But instead of redirecting the puck away from his own goalie, Silfverberg rifled the puck straight past him.
All things considered, it was a pretty sweet goal. Silfverberg just happened to score for the wrong team.
Ducks players really buying into the tank pic.twitter.com/qOtkkE4Hxt
— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) November 2, 2022
The amazing thing for bettors is that the NHL doesn’t score this as a goal by Silfverberg. Obviously that would be silly for so many reasons. Instead, this counts as a goal for Meier, who was the last Sharks player to touch the puck. And after already scoring one goal earlier in the game, that meant Meier cashed his 2+ goals prop for +630 odds.
The fact that it tied the game was huge, too. The Sharks came back to win in the shootout and saved plenty of bettors. According to Action Network, 62 percent of all bets placed on the puckline were on San Jose.
