Painted ice staircase with hockey helmets on each step

Computed weekly

NHL Power Rankings, Computed Weekly From Points and Shot Stats

These NHL power rankings are computed, not voted. Four team stats, one published formula, rebuilt every day from official NHL data, with each team's weekly move. Early in the season the score leans on last year and shifts toward the current campaign as games pile up.

Data updated October 12, 2026 at 10:50 AM ETBy the HockeyBetting.us desk

NHL power rankings table.

Score = 40% points %, 30% goal differential per game, 20% shot share, 10% special teams. Click a column to sort.

Rank	Week	Team	Record · L10	Score	Points %	Goal diff / game	Shot share	PP% + PK%
1	New	Carolina Hurricanes	5-1-1L10 5-1-1 · Metropolitan	1.75	68.9%	+0.67	57.3%	105.4%
2	New	Colorado Avalanche	3-2-0L10 3-2-0 · Central	1.66	73.8%	+1.23	56.3%	101.7%
3	New	Vegas Golden Knights	5-1-0L10 5-1-0 · Pacific	1.12	57.9%	+0.27	54.3%	105.9%
4	New	Tampa Bay Lightning	4-1-0L10 4-1-0 · Atlantic	0.97	64.6%	+0.70	51.3%	103.3%
5	New	Edmonton Oilers	4-0-1L10 4-0-1 · Pacific	0.86	56.7%	+0.21	52.7%	108.5%
6	New	Minnesota Wild	3-1-1L10 3-1-1 · Central	0.85	63.4%	+0.40	49.8%	105.0%
7	New	Dallas Stars	2-2-1L10 2-2-1 · Central	0.73	68.3%	+0.62	49.2%	109.0%
8	New	Ottawa Senators	4-1-0L10 4-1-0 · Atlantic	0.71	60.4%	+0.37	54.2%	99.7%
9	New	Utah Mammoth	4-2-0L10 4-2-0 · Central	0.68	56.1%	+0.34	51.4%	98.1%
10	New	Pittsburgh Penguins	3-2-1L10 3-2-1 · Metropolitan	0.54	59.8%	+0.39	51.1%	105.6%
11	New	Boston Bruins	4-2-0L10 4-2-0 · Atlantic	0.40	61.0%	+0.26	47.6%	100.4%
12	New	Anaheim Ducks	4-1-0L10 4-1-0 · Pacific	0.38	56.1%	-0.28	52.1%	94.9%
13	New	Washington Capitals	3-2-0L10 3-2-0 · Metropolitan	0.24	57.9%	+0.28	49.9%	97.9%
14	New	New York Rangers	5-2-0L10 5-2-0 · Metropolitan	0.15	47.0%	-0.17	46.6%	104.6%
15	New	Buffalo Sabres	2-3-0L10 2-3-0 · Atlantic	0.09	66.5%	+0.52	49.2%	101.4%
16	New	Montréal Canadiens	2-2-1L10 2-2-1 · Atlantic	0.07	64.6%	+0.34	48.6%	101.4%
17	New	Columbus Blue Jackets	2-2-0L10 2-2-0 · Metropolitan	-0.16	56.1%	-0.06	50.5%	94.9%
18	New	New York Islanders	2-3-0L10 2-3-0 · Metropolitan	-0.17	55.5%	-0.09	50.4%	97.4%
19	New	New Jersey Devils	2-2-0L10 2-2-0 · Metropolitan	-0.20	53.0%	-0.33	51.9%	101.3%
20	New	Nashville Predators	2-1-2L10 2-1-2 · Central	-0.23	52.4%	-0.30	48.5%	104.8%
21	New	Florida Panthers	2-1-2L10 2-1-2 · Atlantic	-0.25	51.2%	-0.34	51.1%	100.5%
22	New	Winnipeg Jets	3-1-1L10 3-1-1 · Central	-0.27	50.0%	-0.33	48.7%	96.1%
23	New	Detroit Red Wings	1-3-1L10 1-3-1 · Atlantic	-0.35	56.1%	-0.18	50.4%	99.7%
24	New	Seattle Kraken	4-2-0L10 4-2-0 · Pacific	-0.35	48.2%	-0.40	46.5%	91.8%
25	New	Toronto Maple Leafs	3-2-1L10 3-2-1 · Atlantic	-0.44	47.6%	-0.52	44.8%	102.5%
26	New	St. Louis Blues	2-2-1L10 2-2-1 · Central	-0.49	52.4%	-0.29	47.8%	94.3%
27	New	San Jose Sharks	3-2-0L10 3-2-0 · Pacific	-0.58	52.4%	-0.50	46.5%	97.6%
28	New	Los Angeles Kings	0-2-2L10 0-2-2 · Pacific	-0.69	54.9%	-0.22	50.8%	91.5%
29	New	Philadelphia Flyers	0-5-2L10 0-5-2 · Metropolitan	-1.38	59.8%	+0.01	50.0%	93.3%
30	New	Calgary Flames	0-5-0L10 0-5-0 · Pacific	-1.60	47.0%	-0.59	48.4%	96.6%
31	New	Chicago Blackhawks	1-5-0L10 1-5-0 · Central	-1.89	43.9%	-0.73	45.1%	100.6%
32	New	Vancouver Canucks	2-5-0L10 2-5-0 · Pacific	-2.14	35.4%	-1.27	46.5%	93.3%

Stat columns read 2025-26; the score blends 2026-27 into it at games played / 20. Weekly moves start once a week of snapshots exists.Full methodology →

Take the score apart

Build your own power ranking.

Each bar splits a team's score into its four parts: right of the line helps, left of it hurts. Move the weights and the order rebuilds on the spot.

Weights

Points %40%

Goal diff / game30%

Shot share20%

Special teams10%

Start from

Our formula. The weights are scaled to add up to 100%.

1 CAR 1.75
2 COL 1.66
3 VGK 1.12
4 TBL 0.97
5 EDM 0.86
6 MIN 0.85
7 DAL 0.73
8 OTT 0.71
9 UTA 0.68
10 PIT 0.54
11 BOS 0.40
12 ANA 0.38
13 WSH 0.24
14 NYR 0.15
15 BUF 0.09
16 MTL 0.07
17 CBJ -0.16
18 NYI -0.17
19 NJD -0.20
20 NSH -0.23
21 FLA -0.25
22 WPG -0.27
23 DET -0.35
24 SEA -0.35
25 TOR -0.44
26 STL -0.49
27 SJS -0.58
28 LAK -0.70
29 PHI -1.38
30 CGY -1.60
31 CHI -1.89
32 VAN -2.14

Each part is measured in standard deviations from the league average, the same inputs as the table above. The arrow shows how far a team moves against our published order.

How the computed rankings use team stats

Most NHL power rankings are a writer's opinion, updated once a week. Ours are computed NHL power rankings: a formula you can check. Four stats go in, each one measured against the league average and scaled so that one unit means one standard deviation. Then they are weighted and added.

Points percentage, 40%
The share of available standings points a team has taken. It is the closest thing to "how often do they win" that the NHL table offers.
Goal differential per game, 30%
Goals for minus goals against, divided by games played. It rewards dominant wins and punishes blowout losses, which record alone hides.
Shot share, 20%
The team's shots on goal as a share of all shots in its games. Teams that control play tend to keep winning even when the bounces turn.
Special teams, 10%
Power play percentage plus penalty kill percentage. A small weight, because special teams swing a lot over a short run.

Right now Carolina Hurricanes rank first with a score of 1.75, 0.09 ahead of Colorado Avalanche. Vancouver Canucks sit 32nd. Each team's score in the table is the sum of those four weighted parts, so you can see whether a team ranks high because it wins, because it dominates the shot count, or both.

Weekly moves and early-season blending

The rankings rebuild daily, and the move column compares today with the order from at least a week ago. Moves appear once a full week of daily snapshots has been collected. A jump of several places usually means a hot week in goal differential, which is the most volatile of the four inputs.

Early in a season, a team that starts 3-0 is not suddenly the best team in hockey. Until a team reaches 20 games, its score blends this season with last season, weighted by games played. With 7 games played at most so far, the current season counts for about 35% of each score. By late November the weighting is gone and the table reads only the current weekly stats.

Why 20 games?

Points percentage and goal differential start to settle after roughly a quarter of the season. Before that, a single lucky week can carry a team into the top five. Blending gives new information a voice without letting it shout.

NHL power rankings vs NHL standings

The NHL standings rank teams by points, with ties broken by regulation wins and other criteria. Points include the extra point for an overtime or shootout loss, so two teams with the same points can have very different seasons underneath. NHL power rankings use the standings as one input and add the shot and goal numbers that explain them.

Leaders by conference right now: in the East, Hurricanes, Lightning, Senators; in the West, Avalanche, Golden Knights, Oilers. Our NHL teams page shows every club's record, power play, penalty kill and puck line profile side by side, which works as a fuller set of NHL team rankings by stat.

Using the rankings for betting

NHL team rankings are a shortcut, not an answer.

A ranking is a summary, and the betting market works from the same stats. The useful moments are disagreements: two teams close in price but far apart in score, or a team climbing fast whose price has not caught up. When you see one, check the next layer: who is in goal on the starting goalies board, whether either side is on a back-to-back, and what the tonight's slate says about form.

Remember what the formula cannot see: injuries, trades, a goalie on a heater, or a coach changing systems. It is a tidy picture of what has happened. If you use it to choose between the moneyline and the puck line, the goal differential column is the one to read, because it tracks how often a team wins by more than one.

Voted, computed and market rankings

Illustration: a roaring lion captain charging up the ice with the puck, mane streaming from his helmet — A ranking is a ladder, not a lock. The order shifts every week.

Search for NHL power rankings and you will find three kinds of list. The most common is voted: NHL.com's Super 16, for example, asks a panel of staff writers to rank teams each week and adds up points for each spot. Voted lists are good at catching things a formula misses, like a goalie returning from injury, but they lean on recent results and reputation.

The second kind is computed from stats, like ours or the public analytics models that rate teams by expected goals and goaltending. The third is the market itself. Take a team's moneylines over a few weeks, strip out home ice and the margin, and you get an implied rating against an average opponent. It moves faster than any weekly column.

None of the three is right on its own. Where a computed score and the market agree, there is little to look at. Where they split, one of them knows something the other does not, and that is worth an hour of research.

Reading tiers and score gaps

Rank numbers make every gap look the same, and they are not. The scores in the table run from 1.75 at the top to -2.14 at the bottom, a spread of 3.89. The first eight teams are separated by 1.04, while 8th to 16th covers 0.65. Right now 6 teams sit within a quarter of a point of the 16th-place score, which means a single good week can move one of them five places without saying much.

So read the meter bar before the rank. A team two spots higher but nearly level on score is a coin flip in strength terms. A gap of a full point or more between two opponents is a real difference in how they have played, and that is where the weekly table is most useful next to the moneyline guide.

A few things never reach the score. Strength of schedule is the first: a team that opened with six games against the bottom of the league will rank higher than its talent for a while. The formula also counts every shot the same, so a team that shoots from the blue line and one that lives in the slot look alike; the Shot Lab shows the difference. And save percentage is not an input at all, so a goalie stealing games shows up only through goal differential.

Questions & answers

Questions,
answered.

Short answers to the questions readers ask most.

How are these NHL power rankings calculated?

Every team gets a score from four stats: points percentage (40%), goal differential per game (30%), shot share (20%) and special teams, power play plus penalty kill (10%). Each stat is scaled against the league so they can be added up. The highest score ranks first. No votes, no opinions.

How often do the rankings update?

The numbers rebuild every day from official NHL data, so a team that wins three in a row moves the next morning. The weekly move column compares today's order with the order from at least seven days ago.

Why does a team with a better record rank lower?

Because record is only part of the score. A team that wins a lot of one-goal games while being outshot will rank below a team with a slightly worse record and a big goal and shot advantage. Over a season the second profile tends to hold up better.

What happens early in the season?

A few games are not enough to rank anyone. Until a team has played 20 games, its score blends this season with last season, weighted by games played. Right now the current season carries about 35% of the weight for most teams.

Are power rankings the same as NHL standings?

No. NHL standings sort teams by points, which reward wins and overtime losses. Power rankings try to measure how strong a team is right now. The two lists usually agree at the top and bottom and disagree in the middle, which is where the useful information is.

Why do different NHL power rankings disagree so much?

Because they answer different questions. A voted list mixes record, recent form and reputation. A model like ours weights stats that predict future results. A ranking built from betting lines reflects what the market expects. Most of the disagreement sits in the middle of the table, where teams are close enough that small choices move them several spots.

Can I use the rankings to bet?

As a research input, yes. A big gap in score between two teams with similar prices is a reason to look closer: check the goalies, the schedule and injuries. On its own a ranking is not a prediction, and the market already knows the same stats.