The NHL section has three pages that work together. The schedule lists every game by month and night, the standings page shows the 32 teams four different ways, and the simulator takes the real results, locks them and lets you decide the rest. This guide covers how to read each page and where the model stops.
The schedule, month by month
The NHL schedule opens on the month of the next game, flagged Next up, and a bar from September to April links to every other month, such as November 2026. Each month page counts its games and game nights, then lists the nights in order. A row shows the two teams, the arena and either a start time in US Eastern or, once the game is over, Final and the score. On the main schedule page a box above the games counts how many are played and how many are left, gives the date of the next one and shows the share of the season done, with a button into the simulator.
The 2026-27 season has 84 games per team, up from 82, with the two extra games played inside the division: 1,344 games in all, from September 29 to April 10. Times on these pages stay in US Eastern. The seven Canadian clubs each have a page, such as Winnipeg's, with their schedule in the city's own time, and the Canadian teams page puts them side by side.
One standings page, four views
The NHL standings page lays out the same teams four ways, with jump links at the top for division, wild card, conference and league. Every table carries games played (GP), wins (W), regulation losses (L), overtime and shootout losses (OTL), points (PTS) and points percentage (P%), then regulation wins (RW), wins in regulation or overtime (ROW), goals for and against, goal differential, the record over the last ten games and the current streak.
- Points are two for any win, one for a loss in overtime or a shootout and none for a loss in regulation. P% is points divided by the points available, so a team with fewer games played can sit above one with more points.
- In the division view the top three rows are marked, because they are the automatic playoff places. The wild-card view lists the teams left over in each conference and marks the first two.
- When teams are level on points, the NHL looks at fewer games played, then regulation wins, then wins excluding shootouts, then total wins, then points in games between the tied teams, goal differential and goals scored. The page applies the steps its table can compute and keeps the data feed's order after that.
Who reaches the playoffs
Sixteen teams reach the Stanley Cup playoffs: the top three in each of the four divisions, plus two wild cards in each conference, the best of the remaining teams whatever their division. One division can therefore send five teams and the other only three. In the first round the division winner with the conference's better record plays the lower wild card, the other division winner plays the higher one, and the second and third place teams in each division meet each other. Every round is best-of-seven. The league's playoff format page has the full bracket.
How the simulator plays a game
The NHL simulator works by month and night. Pick a month, then a game night labelled by its day of the month, and type goals into any game still to be played; finished games show their real score and cannot be edited. The Eastern and Western tables beside the games rebuild as you type, with wins, losses, overtime losses and points, ranked by points and, when level, by fewer games played, more wins and goal differential. Each table lists the top three of each division first, then the two wild cards and then the rest, and the legend marks those eight playoff places per conference.
- Simulate season fills every open game and replaces whatever you typed.
- Simulate night fills only the night on screen.
- Clear removes every score you or the model entered and returns to the real results.
- Nothing is saved: reload the page and the real standings come back.
The model first decides whether a game goes past regulation. In 2025-26 that happened in 24.8 percent of games, and the simulator uses that share. An overtime game is decided by one goal and the loser still takes a point, which is why the tables carry an OTL column and why a team can gain ground while losing. For the other games the model draws a margin and a total score. Each team is rated on its goal differential per game in 2025-26, the gap between two ratings sets the expected margin, home ice is worth 0.13 goals and a game averages a little over six goals, so a weaker team still wins its share. The NHL loser point shows what the standings would look like without the overtime point.
Where the model stops
The ratings come from the 2025-26 season only, so summer trades, signings and injuries are not in them; if you think a team is misjudged, type the scores you expect for its games. The conference tables rank teams by points, so for the exact division-and-wild-card picture use the standings page, which applies the division and wild-card rules. And one simulation is one possible season, not a forecast: run it a few times and watch how often the last playoff places change hands. The methodology page lists the constants behind it.
Keep going
- NHL overtime and shootouts tracks how often games go past regulation, season by season.
- NHL home-ice advantage measures the edge the simulator gives the home team.
Free, with no account. Nothing you enter is stored, so reloading the page puts the season back to what really happened.