NHL Strength of Schedule: How It Is Measured and Priced

Strength of schedule in the NHL is the average points percentage of the opponents a team faces, counted once per game. Points percentage is points earned divided by points available, which makes it the natural yardstick in a league where the standings run on points rather than wins.

Tankathon's tracker looks at each team's remaining games and combines the points percentage of all those opponents into one figure. Because the calculation runs game by game, an opponent a team meets several times weighs several times as much as one it meets once. That matters more under the current format than it used to, as the schedule section below shows.

Before the season starts there are no current records, so any full-season ranking published in the summer leans on the previous season's points percentages. Treat it as a rough sketch of the slate, not a measurement.

Every NHL result hands out at least two points, and an overtime or shootout loss still earns the loser one point. A regulation loss is the only result worth zero.

That loser point feeds straight into strength of schedule. An opponent that drags a lot of games past regulation carries a points percentage that flatters its true level, so a schedule full of coin-flip teams can grade as tougher than it plays. The league leans on regulation results when it separates teams: per a January 2020 explainer, regulation wins became the first tiebreaker, ahead of ROW and total wins (as of January 2020).

For a bettor, the practical step is to look past the points column at how opponents earn their points. Two schedules with the same opponent points percentage are not equally hard if one is built on overtime points.

Each team plays 84 games in 2026-27, up from 82, according to the league's 2026-27 schedule release (as of July 2026). The full slate is 1,344 games, running from Sept. 29 to April 10.

The format decides which opponents count most. ESPN's breakdown of the expanded format has each team playing two home and two road games against each of its seven division rivals, and one home and one road game against every team in the opposite conference, for 42 home and 42 away games.

Two things follow for strength of schedule:

• The division is the swing factor. Every team in a conference sees the same opposite-conference opponents the same number of times, so that block barely separates conference rivals. Division rivals are where the repeated games sit, and their quality is what moves one team's schedule away from another's.
• The best team in a strong division has the easiest version of it. A club never plays itself, so the weakest team in a stacked division faces all of the strong teams four times each, while the strongest team faces the rest. The same division produces very different schedule ratings for its members.

Remaining strength of schedule is the same calculation applied only to games not yet played, and it is the version that matters once the season is under way. It shifts every night, both because games come off the board and because opponents' points percentages keep moving.

Early in the season those percentages rest on a handful of games, so the remaining figure is noisy. As the sample grows it becomes a cleaner input for playoff races, where the question is not who has played the tougher slate but who still has to.

The one schedule spot with a measurable cost is a back-to-back that also crosses a time zone. In RotoWire's data from 2015-16 to 2025-26, teams in that spot win at a 46.8% clip, against 49.5% in all other games, and it was the only split in the study that was statistically significant.

Travel on its own barely registers. Teams with no time zone change won 49.4% of the time, and teams with any time zone change won 49.1%.

That gives a cleaner way to grade the load side of a schedule than counting miles. Count the back-to-backs that involve a time zone change, and set them next to the opponent rating. A team with an average opponent slate but a heavy run of those games is carrying a cost that points percentage alone will not show.

A schedule edge is only worth something to a bettor if the market has not already priced it. Season points totals and playoff odds are set with the schedule in view, so the question is whether the gap is larger or smaller than the price implies.

A practical way to read it:

Two cautions keep the read honest. The loser point compresses the standings, so a gap in opponent quality turns into fewer standings points than a gap in wins would suggest. And because strength of schedule describes opponents, not the team itself, it adjusts an estimate of a club rather than replacing one.

How is NHL strength of schedule calculated?

It is the combined points percentage of a team's opponents, counted once per game. Remaining strength of schedule applies the same calculation to the games a team has left.

How many games does each NHL team play in 2026-27?

Each team plays 84 games, up from 82, with 42 at home and 42 on the road, as of the July 2026 schedule release.

Do back-to-back games hurt NHL teams?

Only clearly when they cross a time zone. In RotoWire's 2015-16 to 2025-26 data, those games were won 46.8% of the time versus 49.5% for all other games.

Does an overtime loss count toward points percentage?

Yes. An overtime or shootout loss gives the loser one point and the winner two, so those points are part of every team's points percentage and of any strength of schedule built on it.

• NHL.com, NHL releases 2026-27 regular-season schedule, July 16, 2026
• NHL.com (Seattle Kraken), Standings Tall, January 5, 2020
• ESPN, NHL releases expanded 84-game schedule for 2026-27 season, July 16, 2026
• RotoWire, How Time Zone Travel Hurts NHL Teams: 11 Seasons of Data, July 14, 2026
• Tankathon, NHL Remaining Schedule Strength, accessed October 16, 2026