NHL TrueStandings

Explanation of The NHL Standings As They Should Be

This site is not an “alternative hypothetical standings” based on a dispute with the current NHL system of two points for a win, one for an overtime or shootout loss, and zero for a regulation loss (thus creating the “three-point game” for overtime finishes).  As silly as that system may be, the statistics used in this site (wins, losses, OTL, points, games played, etc.) are all based on the current NHL standings, with the same value assigned to wins (2 points), regulation losses (0 points), and overtime/shootout losses (1 point).

Even so, the way the NHL orders its standings is flawed and misleading.  Every other professional sports league orders its standings by winning percentage.  It makes more sense to order the NHL standings by points earned divided by points possible, just as other leagues divide wins by wins possible.  This removes the “games in hand” anomaly which gives a false impression of the best record (really, would you rather your team be 4-0-0 or 4-3-1?) and instead orders the teams by the most desirable and successful record.  The current NHL “official” standings are the exact equivalent of taking the MLB or NBA standings and completely ignoring the loss column, ordering all teams by nothing more than the total wins.  That makes no sense.

At the end of the season, the TrueStandings and the official standings will be identical because the official standings will finally be truly official, meaning every team has played every game and all playoff seeding is determined.  In the meantime, it is worth noting that the NHL actually uses the percentage method to determine the order of waivers (i.e. the worst team by winning percentage and not points gets the first priority in selecting a player off of waivers; see CBA Article 13.19).  Even the NHL knows how the standings should be kept during the season when teams have played a different number of games, they just don’t publish it that way in the newspaper.

The NHL “standings” ought to show where the teams “stand” in relation to each other.  No rational person would rather that their favorite team have a 4-3-1 record than a 4-0-0 record.  The team with the 4-0-0 record stands in a superior position to that of the team with the 4-3-1 record.  The standings provided in this website provide a better picture of where the teams stand in relation to each other based on desirability of record.

The “games back” column is just like the one the MLB and NBA standings employ to give you an idea of how far one team trails behind another.  It is based on the teams’ records above or below .500.  If one team is four games above .500 (i.e. four more points than games played, or four more wins than regulation losses), a team that is two games above .500 is one game back of the other team.  Sometimes a team can have a better record by percentage and still be a “game back” because of games in hand, but priority is given to the better percentage here.  An example would be where one team is 3-0-0 (1.000) and another is 5-1-0 (.833).  The 3-0-0 team is a “half game back” because it is 3 games above .500 whereas the latter team is 4 games above .500.  The “games back” column is based on the record relative to .500 (this is how other leagues do it), so the team with the better record can still be “behind” in the games back column even though it has a better record by percentage.

In the league stats, “3-pt Game Pctg.” is the percentage of NHL games which go to overtime or a shootout, resulting in a 3-point game.  “True .500” is the average record (by percentage) of NHL teams.  In sports leagues that don’t have a 3-point game, .500 is always average (and thus, being “above .500” in those leagues means “above average”).  To be above average in the NHL, a team’s record must be better than the “True .500” listed here.

The posts are divided into weekly segments so you can scroll down and see where teams stood in prior weeks, but the most recent post is updated every night at the end of all games.