NHL Power Rankings 2026-27: All 32 Teams

Our NHL power rankings order all 32 teams by how well they are actually playing, not just by where they sit in the standings. The season is under way and this page is rebuilt every Tuesday through to April. Each club’s division, arena and history are on our NHL teams page.

The two are not the same thing. Points reward outcomes, and overtime losses still pay one. Performance is a separate question, and the gap between the two is where most of the useful information sits.

Last updated 20 October 2026. Every club has played between six and eleven games. The table is rebuilt every Tuesday.

We build the order from four things: points, goal difference, special teams, and how a team finished rather than how it started. Goal difference carries the most weight of the four, because it is the number that predicts next season best and the number the standings hide. Nothing here is a projection of the coming year. It is a record of the one just gone, and the first Tuesday of October is when it starts to move.

NHL power rankings: all 32 teams ranked

Ordered by the Squawka NHL Rating, which blends last season’s strength with what this season has shown so far. Carolina leads on 95, with Colorado second on 93 and Minnesota third on 86. Vancouver sits 32nd on 25.

#	Team	Record	Last game	Squawka Rating	Make Playoffs	Win Stanley Cup
1 ▲1	Carolina Hurricanes	7-2-1	L 2-3 at CGY	95 ▲5	92.4% –	6.6% –
2 ▼1	Colorado Avalanche	5-3-1	L 2-3 at PHI	93 ▼2	86.3% ▼3.5	6.3% –
3 ▲1	Minnesota Wild	6-2-1	W 2-1 vs CBJ	86 ▲4	88.1% ▲1.8	6.1% –
4 ▼1	Tampa Bay Lightning	6-2-0	W 4-2 vs VAN	86 ▲1	79.8% ▼2.6	5.7% –
5 –	Dallas Stars	4-3-1	W 4-0 at CHI	83 ▲3	77.4% ▲3.0	5.3% –
6 –	Vegas Golden Knights	8-2-0	W 6-2 vs PIT	83 ▲4	90.8% ▲8.8	6.2% ▲1.0
7 –	Utah Mammoth	7-3-0	W 5-4 vs PIT	80 ▲2	82.0% ▲4.5	5.6% –
8 –	Edmonton Oilers	6-1-1	W 6-2 at UTA	75 –	86.7% –	5.4% –
9 ▲5	Florida Panthers	5-2-2	W 8-3 vs SEA	74 ▲8	67.7% ▲18.8	4.2% ▲1.4
10 ▼1	Washington Capitals	5-3-0	W 4-2 vs NJD	72 ▼2	60.5% ▼3.5	3.9% –
11 ▲1	Montréal Canadiens	4-3-1	W 4-3 vs BUF	72 ▲4	53.5% ▲4.4	3.2% –
12 ▲3	Boston Bruins	7-2-0	W 4-1 at LAK	71 ▲6	73.0% ▲18.2	4.4% ▲1.2
13 ▼3	Buffalo Sabres	4-3-2	L 3-4 at MTL	67 ▼6	48.1% ▼7.6	2.8% –
14 ▼3	Ottawa Senators	6-3-0	L 1-3 at PHI	66 ▼5	54.1% ▼17.6	3.1% ▼1.4
15 ▲4	New Jersey Devils	4-4-0	L 2-4 at WSH	66 ▲6	43.7% ▲10.0	2.7% ▲0.8
16 ▲1	New York Rangers	7-3-1	W 5-2 vs ANA	66 ▲5	62.9% ▲7.8	3.4% –
17 ▼4	Pittsburgh Penguins	3-6-1	L 4-5 at UTA	62 ▼5	27.0% ▼27.3	1.5% ▼1.7
18 ▲2	Toronto Maple Leafs	4-4-2	W 3-1 vs SJS	61 ▲4	31.0% ▼5.2	1.9% –
19 ▲3	New York Islanders	4-3-1	W 4-1 at TOR	60 ▲5	40.6% ▲13.1	2.3% ▲0.9
20 ▼4	Anaheim Ducks	4-4-0	L 2-5 at NYR	59 ▼4	50.4% ▼20.1	2.6% ▼1.5
21 ▲2	Detroit Red Wings	3-3-2	W 4-3 vs SJS	57 ▲2	27.1% ▲4.4	1.6% –
22 ▲3	Winnipeg Jets	4-2-2	L 2-3 vs CAR	55 ▲4	43.0% ▲4.2	2.7% ▲0.6
23 ▲1	San Jose Sharks	4-4-1	L 1-3 at TOR	55 ▲2	42.8% –	2.2% –
24 ▼6	Columbus Blue Jackets	3-4-0	L 1-2 at MIN	55 ▼6	28.0% ▼13.8	1.6% ▼0.7
25 ▲3	Nashville Predators	3-2-3	W 5-2 vs STL	53 ▲4	37.9% ▲2.9	2.3% –
26 ▼5	Los Angeles Kings	0-4-2	L 1-4 vs BOS	53 ▼3	24.4% ▼13.3	1.2% ▼0.9
27 –	St. Louis Blues	3-4-1	L 2-5 at NSH	52 ▲3	27.8% ▼1.5	1.5% –
28 ▼2	Philadelphia Flyers	2-6-3	W 3-2 vs COL	48 ▼2	10.6% –	0.6% –
29 –	Seattle Kraken	5-3-1	L 3-8 at FLA	47 ▲2	43.9% ▲6.9	2.4% ▲0.6
30 ▲1	Calgary Flames	2-6-0	W 3-2 vs CAR	35 ▲5	9.1% ▲4.4	0.4% –
31 ▼1	Chicago Blackhawks	3-6-0	L 0-4 vs DAL	31 ▼1	7.4% –	0.5% –
32 –	Vancouver Canucks	2-7-1	L 2-4 at TBL	25 –	2.2% –	0.1% –

What moved this week

Florida is the week’s biggest riser, up five places to 9th at 5-2-2. Columbus fell six places to 24th at 3-4-0. The largest move in playoff probability belongs to Florida, up 18.8 points to 67.7%. Pittsburgh went the other way, down 27.3 to 27.0%.

The seven Canadian clubs sit Edmonton 8th, Montréal 11th, Ottawa 14th, Toronto 18th, Winnipeg 22nd, Calgary 30th, Vancouver 32nd. Movement is measured against last week’s rebuild, and a change smaller than the model’s noise floor is shown as no change rather than dressed up as a trend.

How all 32 teams finished 2025-26

Two to four games is not enough evidence to rank anybody. The rating still counts last season for most of the order and stops counting it at game twenty. This is the season it is counting, grouped by how 2025-26 actually finished. Points and goal difference tell different stories, and the gap between them is where the interesting clubs sit.

The contenders

• 1. Colorado (121 pts, +99). The best record and the best goal difference in the league by 40 goals. The oddity is a power play at 17.1%, the weakest of any top-eight side. A Presidents’ Trophy built on five-on-five play and goaltending.
• 2. Carolina (113, +56). Champions, and the only side in the top three with a penalty kill under 81%. Took the Cup 4-2 over Vegas.
• 3. Dallas (112, +53). The second-best power play in the league at 28.6%. Closer to Colorado than the points gap suggests.
• 4. Buffalo (109, +47). A first Atlantic title in a long time, and the least likely top-four finish on this table.
• 5. Tampa Bay (106, +59). A better goal difference than Buffalo on three fewer points. The team the standings understate most.
• 6. Montréal (106, +27). The strongest Canadian side. Level on points with Tampa, 32 goals behind on difference.
• 7. Minnesota (104, +32). Power play 25.2%, penalty kill under 80%. A special-teams team.
• 8. Boston (100, +22). In as the first wild card. The penalty kill at 77.0% is the number to fix.

The playoff pack

• 9. Ottawa (99, +32). Qualified as a wild card with a better goal difference than Edmonton, who finished five places higher. The penalty kill at 75.7% is the weak point.
• 10. Pittsburgh (98, +25). Sixteen overtime losses, which is sixteen points that flatter the record.
• 11. Philadelphia (98, +7). A power play at 15.7%, second-worst in the league, and they still made the playoffs.
• 12. Washington (95, +19). Missed the field with a positive goal difference. First team out in the East.
• 13. Vegas (95, +15). Seventeen overtime losses, then a run to the Final. The regular season told you very little about them.
• 14. Edmonton (93, +13). The best power play in the NHL at 30.6%, and a 14th-place finish. No team here has a wider gap between one skill and its overall standing.
• 15. Utah (92, +28). The best goal difference of any team outside the top ten.
• 16. Detroit (92, -17). Reached 92 points at minus 17. The clearest case on the table of points overstating a season.

The middle

• 17. Columbus (92, 0). Dead level on goal difference, which is its own kind of answer.
• 18. Anaheim (92, -15). Qualified with a negative differential.
• 19. New York Islanders (91, -8). A penalty kill at 80.8% carried them.
• 20. Los Angeles (90, -22). Twenty overtime losses, the most in the league, and the last playoff place in the West. A 35-win team on 90 points.
• 21. New Jersey (87, -24). Three overtime losses all season, the fewest on the table. They won or they lost.
• 22. St. Louis (86, -27). First team out in the West.
• 23. Nashville (86, -22). A penalty kill at 81.7%, and little else that worked.
• 24. San Jose (86, -41). The worst differential of any team above 80 points.

The bottom eight

• 25. Florida (84, -25). Champions in 2024 and 2025, then 25th and out in 2026. They opened this season as Stanley Cup favourites anyway, which shows how little the market weights one bad year. Prices are on our Stanley Cup odds page.
• 26. Winnipeg (82, -29). Hosts the Heritage Classic against Montréal on 25 October.
• 27. Seattle (79, -37). A penalty kill at 72.2%, second-worst in the league.
• 28. Toronto (78, -46). The penalty kill was fine at 81.2%. What happened in front of it was not.
• 29. Calgary (77, -47). A power play at 16.2%. Three of the four worst power plays finished in the bottom eight.
• 30. New York Rangers (77, -12). A better goal difference than ten teams above them. The most underrated line on the table.
• 31. Chicago (72, -62). A penalty kill at 83.6%, fourth-best in the NHL, on a team that finished 31st.
• 32. Vancouver (58, -100). The worst differential in the league by 38 goals and the worst penalty kill at 71.5%. Nineteen points behind 31st.

Whether any of this converts into a playoff place is a separate market, and we price it on the NHL playoff odds page. Weekly selections run on NHL predictions.

The 2026-27 season opened on 29 September and runs to 84 games per team, up from 82. That is 1,344 regular-season games, roughly seven a night, rising to as many as 16 on the busiest Saturdays.

What goal difference says that the points did not

Eight teams banked 86 points or more while being outscored across the season. Los Angeles shows the mechanism most clearly: 90 points on a goal difference of minus 22, with 20 overtime losses. That is 20 single points collected in games they lost. The underlying numbers for all 32 clubs, goals, shots and special teams together, are on our NHL team stats page.

San Jose is the starkest of the group, reaching 86 points at minus 41. Read those records at face value and you overrate every team on this list.

The reverse happens too. New York Rangers finished 30th on 77 points but only minus 12, while Calgary tied them on points at minus 47. Same total, very different seasons underneath. Tampa Bay had the best goal difference in the Eastern Conference at plus 59, better than the Cup-winning Hurricanes, and finished seven points behind them.

The seven Canadian teams

Only three reached the playoffs. It was a poor year for the Canadian clubs by any measure, and three of them finished in the bottom five.

Edmonton is the oddity. The Oilers ran the best power play in the league at 30.6 per cent and still finished 14th, because they conceded 269 goals. Vancouver had the worst penalty kill at 71.5 per cent and the worst goal difference in hockey at minus 100, which is 38 goals worse than any other team.

Toronto’s minus 46 came with a penalty kill of 81.2 per cent, which was top ten. The problem was not special teams. They allowed 299 goals, second most in the league.

Special teams: where the edges were

Power play and penalty kill separate the top of this table more cleanly than shot totals do. Both units are ranked for all 32 clubs on our NHL power play rankings.

Power play

Edmonton led at 30.6 per cent, then Dallas at 28.6 and Minnesota at 25.2. Philadelphia was last at 15.7 per cent yet still made 98 points, which tells you how much of their season came at even strength.

Penalty kill

Colorado topped it at 84.6 per cent, with Chicago second at 83.6 despite finishing 31st overall. Vancouver was last at 71.5.

One number to treat carefully: these rates come from a different source than the win-loss records, so we quote them as supporting detail rather than headline figures.

How this page changes through the season

The order is already moving away from last season and will keep doing so. Every Tuesday the NHL power rankings are rebuilt on current record, goal difference, shot share, the last ten games, special teams and goaltending, in the same table format so week-to-week movement is easy to follow. By game twenty last season counts for nothing at all.

For futures prices on the teams at the top of this table, see our Stanley Cup odds page. For every champion since 1927, see Stanley Cup winners. Our NHL betting hub covers markets, provinces and where to bet.

What this table gets wrong

A rating this early in the season has three known faults, and it is worth naming them rather than pretending otherwise.

It still cannot see roster change directly. Trades, signings and departures only reach the rating through results, and two to four games is a thin filter, which is why a club like Vancouver sits lower here than on most other lists.

It treats a 121-point season and a 58-point season as equally informative. They are not. The top and bottom of this table are far more reliable than the middle, where eight teams finished within six points of each other.

And it reads goaltending off a handful of games. Save percentage swings hockey results more than any other single input, and over two or three starts it is close to noise, so a club that changes starters can move ten places in a month. Our projected NHL starting goalies page projects who is in net tonight, our NHL injury report tracks who is available, and NHL scoring leaders tracks who is producing.

All three problems shrink every week as the sample grows. One further note, in the interest of showing our work: the strength-of-schedule adjustment was corrected on 6 October. It had been applied to the whole rating rather than to this season’s results alone, and repeated three times over its own output, which on two or three games could move a club nearly twenty places on the quality of its opponents regardless of whether it had beaten them. Movement shown this week reflects that correction as well as the hockey.

Frequently asked questions

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