Horse Racing stats man, Andy has contributed to OLBG for 18 years – An Ipswich fan and F1 fanatic, he also contributes EFL football and Motor Sport opinion.
It had been a long wait for Luleå HF, whose only championship win was way back in 1996; they finished runner-up in the regular season before going on to lift the long overdue championship trophy.
You would expect the usual suspects, Färjestad BK and Brynäs IF, to be a couple of the bookie’s pre-season favourites to lift the Le Mat Trophy, which is presented to the SHL champions each year; the pair of them have twenty-three championships between them.
We have specialist European-based hockey fans who will be sharing their SHL Predictions throughout this season, so be sure to see which Swedish Hockey League teams they are tipping today.
Modo Hockey were relegated from the SHL and will be replaced by Djurgårdens IF, who have been promoted back to the SHL, three seasons after being relegated.
When we compare six of the most popular hockey leagues, it’s unfortunate that the SHL comes out bottom of the pile of winning favourites. Just 59.04% of favourites have gone on to win matches over the past five seasons.
The most reliable team when it comes to favourites in the SHL over the past five seasons is Vaxjo. They have a win rate of 67.86% when priced up by the bookmakers as favourites, with 152 wins from a total of 224 games.
At the other end of the scale is Djurgarden with a win rate of 36.67%. That has come from 30 games producing 11 wins, they are maybe the team in this league to avoid when they are priced up as favourites.
*Favourite statistics only include regular-season games
Unlike other leagues, the regular season winner is not the most reliable when it comes to the playoffs.
From the last nine completed playoffs (No playoff in 2020), only three of the nine regular season winners went on to win the playoffs; four of them didn’t even make the final.
Here are the last ten regular-season champions and how they went on to perform in the playoffs.
Le Mat Trophy is what the SHL Champions receive and have done so since 1926, the trophy was donated by Raoul Le Mat, the man who brought ice hockey to Sweden and is the oldest trophy in Sweden that is competed for by professional athletes.
Djurgårdens IF lead the way in both final appearances and success, from their twenty-eight finals appearances, they have gone on to be crowned SHL Champions a total of sixteen times giving them a 57% success rate when making the finals, however, their last win came back in 2001 and they have only made two finals since losing both times (2010 & 2019).
Brynäs IF have won thirteen SHL Championships and their success rate when making the final is much better as they have only made eighteen finals meaning they have won 72%.
Färjestad BK along with Djurgårdens IF are the only other team to have made twenty or more finals, however, they have lost more than they have won with ten titles meaning they have lost eleven times.
Andy Powell manages this Swedish Hockey League (SHL) Preview & Betting Guide and other hockey content in this section of the site, as well as the Ice Hockey Tipsters in the OLBG tipster competition, in his role in the OLBG Expert Team. Andy meticulously updates the date and results for these pieces and is an erstwhile Penguins fan in the NHL. He provides Ice Hockey betting advice in our bookmaker reviews as well as providing a huge contribution to the Best Ice Hockey Betting Sites Guide.
Andy Powell
Content Editor
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