How NHL Power Rankings are made
* Power Rankings are updated every Monday and Friday of the NHL regular season. Ranks are based on a rolling 20-game range overall; early in the season, this date range reaches back to regular-season games of the previous year.
Wins and losses. That’s what an NHL standings page will show you – hardly a comprehensive look into the relative strengths and weaknesses of pro hockey teams. But that’s what some novice handicappers rely on to make their NHL bets. The Lightning are first overall, the Senators are 29th overall, therefore I bet on the Lightning.
NHL power rankings aim to break down all the stats that are important beyond the win-loss column. After crunching the stats on power-play efficiency and goal differential and road strength, you might find that the line on the Lightning vs Senators game actually favors Ottawa.
When one team’s strengths fit into another team’s weaknesses, you have an edge. Compare that edge against the NHL moneylines each day and you may have a reason to put down some cash. See below the ratings chart for details on the math that underlies the rankings.
Betting on hockey, like baseball wagering, requires discipline and a keen eye for odds value. Finding that value is not something you can do with simple handicapping or quickly glancing at the NHL standings page. There is one page you can quickly glance at to get a better feel of the true strength of teams and that is the NHL Power Rankings page here at Odds Shark.
Some teams are strong, despite their win-loss records, and deserve your money each Saturday based on defensive or offensive edges or on power-play and penalty-killing talents.
We take 12 sets of NHL stats and mash them across the league and run our specialized formula against the numbers. Scoring, goals-against average, PK efficiency, power-play rating, road and home stats and more are considered to come up with an overall power number. We crunch that against a strength-of-schedule number that balances out the rough edges because a team beating up on lousy competition should not be climbing the power ladder faster than a team playing tough competition. At some point, that “hot” team is going to crash and burn and you’re going to know exactly when and why. That’s when savvy hockey bettors make their cash.
We run the stats on offense and defense, home and away and display the harvest – a truer picture of the strongest teams in the NHL, top to bottom. That list should help you judge the best odds on the NHL moneyline or OVER/UNDER or puckline.
It’s part of the Odds Shark commitment to better data, faster data and more relevant data. Check it out this hockey season!
