Ice Hockey OVERVIEW

Ice hockey standings guide

Ice hockey on Standings Now is built around the National Hockey League, the sport’s leading competition, with the other hockey tables listed on this hub. The standings show wins, losses, overtime losses and points, with goal difference alongside. Thirty-two teams contest the NHL, sixteen in the Eastern Conference and sixteen in the Western Conference, each split into two divisions of eight. The regular season runs from the autumn into the spring, with the play-offs stretching into early summer.

Each team plays 82 regular-season games. A win is worth two points — in regulation, overtime or a shootout — while a loss in overtime or a shootout is still worth one point, and a regulation loss is worth nothing. The points system keeps the table tight: a side that loses often in overtime can stay in the race far longer than its win total suggests. Ties on points are settled first on regulation wins, then on goal difference.

The top three teams in each division qualify for the play-offs automatically, joined by two wild-card teams in each conference — the best remaining records regardless of division. Because the wild-card places ignore divisions, two clubs from the same division can both reach the play-offs while a division leader elsewhere sits below them in the conference table. The play-offs are a series of best-of-seven rounds inside each conference, ending with the Stanley Cup Finals between the Eastern and Western champions. Home advantage follows the regular-season standings, so the race for the higher seed runs all season.

The hub below links into the full NHL table and every other hockey competition on the site, all ordered the same way: points first, then regulation wins, then goal difference. The same points system applies across the hub’s other hockey competitions, so a table learned here reads the same everywhere on the site.