How Does the NHL Puck Line Work, and What Is a Regulation (60-Minute) Bet?

The puck line is hockey's point spread, and it's almost always set at 1.5 goals. The favourite at -1.5 has to win by two or more; the underdog at +1.5 wins the bet if it wins or loses by one. It counts overtime and the shootout, and that single fact decides a large share of puck-line bets: any game that goes past 60 minutes is won by exactly one goal, so the underdog +1.5 wins every one of them.

A regulation bet, also called a 60-minute line, stops at the end of the third period. There is no overtime in it, so a tie after 60 minutes is a real outcome. On the three-way regulation moneyline, a draw is one of the three things you can bet, and a tie loses both team sides.

Why every overtime game is a one-goal game

The NHL rulebook makes this mechanical. Under Rule 84.1, a regular-season game tied after three periods goes to a five-minute, three-on-three overtime, and the first goal ends it. If nobody scores, Rule 84.4 sends it to a shootout, and however many shootout attempts go in, the rule records the winner's final score as exactly one goal more than the loser's. A 2-2 game won in a shootout goes into the books as 3-2.

Sportsbooks settle the same way. STN Sports' house rules in Nevada say that for full-game bets, overtime "or the goal awarded in a potential shootout" counts, with one goal added to the shootout winner: 3-3 into a shootout becomes a 4-3 final. In the playoffs, Rule 84.5 replaces the shootout with full 20-minute sudden-death periods, and the first goal still ends it by one.

So the -1.5 side can only win in regulation. In the 2025-26 regular season, 326 of 1,312 games (24.8%) went past regulation, 207 ending in overtime and 119 in a shootout, by our count of the NHL's own game logs. Every one of those was a win for anyone holding +1.5.

How big are NHL winning margins?

Counting every 2025-26 game by its official final score:

Winning margin	Games	Share
1 goal (incl. all OT and shootout games)	567	43.2%
2 goals	230	17.5%
3 goals	303	23.1%
4 or more	212	16.2%

The odd row is the three-goal one: more games were won by three goals than by two. That shape is consistent with the empty net: a team down two pulls its goalie late, and the leader often scores into the open net to make it three. We can't prove that from final scores alone, but the league logged 508 empty-net goals from skaters in 2025-26, about 0.39 a game, so the mechanism is common.

Worked example: pricing -1.5 and +1.5

Say you think a team wins a game 60% of the time, overtime included. Using the season's split, 56.8% of wins came by two or more goals. As a rough league-average:

• Favourite wins by 2+: 60% × 56.8% = 34.1%. Fair price 100 × (1 − 0.341) ÷ 0.341 = +193.
• Underdog +1.5 covers the other 65.9%: fair at about -193.

A 60% favourite on the moneyline would be priced near -150 fair (−100 × 0.6 ÷ 0.4). The puck line flips it to a near-2-to-1 underdog. Heavier favourites win by two or more more often than the league average, and weak ones less, so this is a starting point, not a model. The Academy guide on implied probability covers the conversions.

Empty-net goals are the puck line's swing play

The last two minutes are where a lot of puck-line bets are decided, and they cut both ways.

Picture a team leading 3-2 with 90 seconds left. The trailing team pulls its goalie for an extra skater. From here, three things can happen: the leader scores into the empty net and wins 4-2, and -1.5 cashes; nobody scores and it ends 3-2, and +1.5 cashes; or the trailing team ties it, the game goes to overtime, and +1.5 is now certain to cash while the moneyline is back in doubt. A -1.5 bettor is cheering for a goal into an empty net that has nothing to do with the game's outcome.

The book knows how often empty-net goals turn a one-goal lead into two, and the puck-line price already includes it.

The 60-minute line and the three-way moneyline

Regulation bets settle on the score after three periods. Books sell them in a few forms, and the names are not standardised, so read the market description:

• Three-way regulation moneyline: home, away or draw after 60 minutes. A tie loses both team bets.
• Regulation moneyline with the tie refunded: a two-way price where a draw is a push. Sometimes labelled as a "draw no bet" style market.
• Regulation puck line and total: the same handicaps, graded at 60 minutes.

With about a quarter of games tied after 60, the draw is not a long shot. Here is an illustrative set of true probabilities for a game with a clear favourite: favourite wins in regulation 47%, draw 24%, underdog wins in regulation 29%.

Outcome	Probability	Fair American odds
Favourite in regulation	47%	+113
Draw after 60	24%	+317
Underdog in regulation	29%	+245

If the favourite then wins about 55% of the tied games in overtime or the shootout, its full-game chance is 47% + (24% × 55%) = 60.2%, the same team as the -150 favourite above. The regulation line pays +113 on that team instead of -150 because it has removed the 13.2% of the time it wins after 60. Neither price is better in the abstract. The regulation bet is the right tool if you think a team is strong over 60 minutes but ordinary at three-on-three or in the shootout.

Totals and overtime: the shootout goal counts

Full-game totals count overtime and the shootout's single awarded goal. A 3-3 game with a total of 6.5 is under after 65 minutes, and then the shootout winner is awarded a goal and the final is 4-3: seven goals, over. That settlement follows directly from Rule 84.4 and the STN rule above, and it catches out bettors who stopped watching after overtime. Regulation totals, by contrast, stop at 60 minutes.

STN also says shootout goals and saves do not count for player props, which matches the NHL rule that a shootout winner isn't credited with a goal in his own statistics. Our guide to NHL player props takes that up.

When does the bet count at all?

A hockey game has to reach a minimum length to have action, and books set their own threshold. STN requires 55 minutes played for full-game bets and props; partial-game markets such as the first period are official once that period is finished. The Academy's guide to overtime and settlement rules compares how books word these clauses across sports.

As with every market, the book keeps a margin on both sides. A -150 / +130 moneyline adds up to 60.0% + 43.5% = 103.5%. A three-way market has three prices to shade, so add all three implied probabilities before comparing it with a two-way line. Next in the series: how starting goalies move NHL lines.