Puck Line Betting Explained: NHL -1.5, +1.5 and Alternate Lines

The puck line is the NHL's version of the point spread, and on almost every game it sits at 1.5 goals. Every game that reaches overtime ends with a one-goal margin, empty-net goals pile up in the last two minutes, and the favourite laying 1.5 goals is usually priced at plus money. Those three facts decide whether a puck line bet makes sense far more than which team you happen to like.

This article stays on the puck line alone: how it settles after overtime and a shootout, the regulation version, alternate lines such as -2.5 and +2.5, and the maths for choosing between the puck line and the moneyline. For hockey markets in general, goalies and schedule spots, start with our guide to betting on the NHL. Every price below is a hypothetical example, not a line for a real game.

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How the NHL puck line works

A puck line listing looks like this: home favourite -1.5 (+125), road underdog +1.5 (-150). The minus sign marks the team giving away 1.5 goals; the plus sign marks the team receiving them. The number in brackets is the price, here in American odds. In decimal odds the same prices are 2.25 and 1.67.

Settle it by applying the 1.5 goals to the final score:

• Favourite wins by two goals or more: favourite -1.5 wins, underdog +1.5 loses
• Favourite wins by exactly one goal, in regulation, overtime or a shootout: underdog +1.5 wins
• Underdog wins by any margin: underdog +1.5 wins

Because the line is a half goal, there is never a push. A $50 bet on the favourite at +125 wins $62.50 and returns $112.50. A $60 bet on the underdog at -150 wins $40 and returns $100.

The other difference from an NFL or NBA spread is that the line almost never moves. Football spreads shift from -6.5 to -7 as money comes in; the puck line stays at 1.5 and the price does the moving, the same way baseball's run line works. If a backup goalie is announced for the favourite, its -1.5 price might drift from +125 to +140 while the line itself stays put. Those price changes are worth tracking, as our article on line movement explains.

Why the favourite on -1.5 is usually plus money

Take the same hypothetical game with a moneyline of favourite -200 and underdog +170. At -200 the favourite's implied probability is 200 / 300 = 66.7%. At +170 the underdog's is 100 / 270 = 37.0%. The two add up to 103.7%, and the extra 3.7% is the book's margin. If those numbers are new to you, our guide to implied probability shows the method step by step.

Winning the game and winning by two are very different things in hockey. Scoring is low, many games are decided by a single goal, and every game that goes to overtime is decided by exactly one. Suppose your own estimate for this game splits like this (again, hypothetical numbers that add up to 100%):

• Favourite wins by three or more: 22%
• Favourite wins by exactly two: 22%
• Favourite wins by exactly one, including overtime and shootout wins: 24%
• Underdog wins by exactly one: 20%
• Underdog wins by two or more: 12%

The favourite wins 68% of the time in total, but only 44% of the time by two or more. A fair price for a 44% chance is 1 / 0.44 = 2.27 in decimal, about +127 in American odds, so a book quoting +125 is close to that estimate. The underdog +1.5 wins in every other case, 56% of the time, which is a fair price of about -127. The book asks -150 instead, an implied 150 / 250 = 60.0%, and that is where most of its margin sits on this line.

So the puck line swaps the roles you see on the moneyline: the favourite becomes a plus-money bet and the underdog that paid +170 now costs $150 to win $100. Only very heavy favourites tend to stay at minus money on -1.5, because they win by two often enough to justify it.

Overtime, shootouts and the one-goal rule

Regular season: five minutes of 3-on-3, then a shootout

In the regular season, a game tied after 60 minutes goes to a five-minute, three-on-three overtime. It is sudden death, so the first goal ends the game with a one-goal margin. If nobody scores, the game goes to a shootout. However many shootout attempts are scored, the winning team is credited with one goal in the official final score. A game that is 2-2 after overtime and won 3-1 in the shootout goes into the books as 3-2.

Most sportsbooks settle the standard puck line on that official result, including overtime and the shootout. The consequence is simple and very useful to know: any game that goes past 60 minutes is a win for +1.5 and a loss for -1.5, whichever team takes the extra point. Say you back the road underdog at +1.5, the game is 3-3 after regulation, and the home favourite scores in overtime to win 4-3. Your bet wins. Someone who backed the favourite at -1.5 watched their team win and still lost.

Playoffs: no shootout, same margin

Playoff games have no shootout. Overtime is played in full 20-minute periods at five-on-five until someone scores, and some games run into a second or third extra period. It is still sudden death, though, so the final margin of any playoff game decided in overtime is one goal. For the puck line, the playoff rule changes how long you wait, not how the bet settles: +1.5 wins and -1.5 loses once regulation ends level. Totals are a different story, because a long playoff overtime can push a game over a number it was nowhere near after three periods; the NHL overview covers totals settlement.

Regulation puck line vs full game

Some sportsbooks also offer handicaps settled on 60 minutes only, labelled Regulation Time or 60-Minute. On a ±1.5 or ±2.5 line, this makes no difference to the result. If the game is tied after regulation, the regulation margin is zero and the full-game margin is one, and +1.5 covers either way while -1.5 loses either way. If the game is not tied, it ends in regulation and both versions read the same score. So paying a worse price for a regulation ±1.5 in the belief that it protects you from overtime buys nothing.

Regulation-only lines matter on ±0.5. A regulation -0.5 needs the team to win inside 60 minutes, while +0.5 wins if that team wins or ties in regulation, which is the double chance side of the three-way market. Our moneyline guide explains two-way and three-way markets in more detail. As always, house rules vary, so read your book's hockey settlement rules once.

Empty-net goals and the last two minutes

When a team trails by one or two goals late in the third period, it usually pulls its goalie for an extra skater. Coaches choose their own moment, and some go with three or more minutes left. The open net is the biggest single swing factor on the puck line, because it turns a lot of one-goal games into two-goal games in the final minute.

Picture the favourite leading 3-2 with 1:40 to play and the underdog's goalie heading to the bench. Three things can happen. The favourite scores into the empty net and wins 4-2, so -1.5 cashes and +1.5 loses. Nobody scores, the game ends 3-2 and +1.5 wins. Or the underdog equalises, the game reaches overtime and +1.5 wins whoever scores next. The -1.5 backer needs one specific event, the +1.5 backer needs anything else, and neither is safe until the final horn.

Two practical points follow. First, the +125 on the favourite is not as hopeless as a list of one-goal games makes it look, because some of those games were one-goal games until the last minute and finished 4-2. Second, empty-net goals are what sink the heavy "safe" side of the reverse puck line covered below: a favourite at +1.5 that trails 2-1 late, pulls its goalie and concedes again loses 3-1, and that ticket goes down with it.

Puck line vs moneyline: the maths

Choosing between the puck line and the moneyline is choosing between two questions. The moneyline asks who wins. The puck line asks how often the favourite wins by two. Use the estimates above (favourite wins 68%, wins by two or more 44%) and the hypothetical prices to work out the expected profit on a $100 stake:

• Favourite moneyline at -200: 0.68 × $50 minus 0.32 × $100 = $34.00 minus $32.00 = +$2.00
• Favourite -1.5 at +125: 0.44 × $125 minus 0.56 × $100 = $55.00 minus $56.00 = -$1.00
• Underdog moneyline at +170: 0.32 × $170 minus 0.68 × $100 = $54.40 minus $68.00 = -$13.60
• Underdog +1.5 at -150: 0.56 × $66.67 minus 0.44 × $100 = $37.33 minus $44.00 = -$6.67

On these numbers the favourite's moneyline is the only bet with a small edge, even though the puck line looks like the better price. Now change one thing: you think the favourite wins by two or more 47% of the time, while its overall win chance stays at 68%. The -1.5 now works out at 0.47 × $125 minus 0.53 × $100 = $58.75 minus $53.00 = +$5.75 per $100, better than the moneyline. Nothing about the teams changed; only your view of the winning margin did.

The break-even figures make this quick to check before you bet. At +125 you need the favourite to win by two at least 44.4% of the time (100 / 225). At -150 the underdog +1.5 needs to cover at least 60.0% of the time. If you cannot say why your estimate beats those numbers, the puck line is just the moneyline with a different label and a different margin. Our odds calculator converts the prices, and the value betting guide covers how to build your own estimate and test it against the closing line.

Beginners go wrong in both directions: taking -1.5 because -200 "is too short", which swaps a likely win for a less likely one, or taking +1.5 because it feels safer and paying -150, which needs a 60% hit rate just to break even.

Alternate puck lines: -2.5, +2.5 and the reverse puck line

Most books list alternate lines next to the standard ±1.5. Using the same estimates and some hypothetical prices:

• Favourite -2.5 at +300 needs a 25.0% hit rate (100 / 400). Your estimate for a three-goal win is 22%, so the expected result per $100 is 0.22 × $300 minus 0.78 × $100 = -$12.00. A $20 bet would win $60.
• Underdog +2.5 at -400 needs 80.0% (400 / 500). It covers 78% of the time on your numbers: 0.78 × $25 minus 0.22 × $100 = -$2.50.
• Underdog -1.5 at +600, the reverse puck line, needs 14.3% (100 / 700). The underdog wins by two or more 12% of the time here: 0.12 × $600 minus 0.88 × $100 = -$16.00.
• Favourite +1.5 at -900, the other side of the reverse line, needs 90.0% (900 / 1,000). It covers 88% of the time: 0.88 × $11.11 minus 0.12 × $100 = -$2.22.

The two reverse lines add up to 14.3% + 90.0% = 104.3%, the -2.5 and +2.5 pair to 105.0%. Alternate lines usually carry at least the margin of the main line, and the long-odds side is where an optimistic estimate costs most. Fair prices on your numbers would be about +355 for -2.5 and +733 for the underdog -1.5, so +300 and +600 are well short of them.

When +1.5 at a big price is poor value

A favourite at +1.5 or a slight underdog at +1.5 can be priced at -400, -600 or shorter. These bets win often, which is what makes them attractive and also what hides the cost. At -900 you stake $90 to win $10. Nine winners in a row earn $90, and one loser takes it all back, so the bet only breaks even if it wins nine times in ten.

If the true chance is 88% rather than 90%, the gap looks tiny, but over 100 bets of $90 you would expect 88 winners worth $880 and 12 losers costing $1,080, a net loss of $200. The losing outcome is not rare either: it is the favourite losing by two, which the empty net delivers regularly when the favourite chases a one-goal deficit.

Heavy +1.5 legs are also popular as "safe" additions to a parlay. A leg at -900 multiplies the payout by only 1.11, while still bringing the book's margin and a real chance of losing the whole ticket. Our parlay and acca guide shows how that margin compounds with every leg.

Before you bet the puck line

Run through this short list before placing a puck line bet:

• Check whether the line is full game or regulation, and remember that on ±1.5 the result is the same either way
• Work out the break-even percentage of the price and write down your own estimate next to it
• For -1.5, ask yourself how the favourite wins by two in regulation, given that overtime always ends one-goal
• For +1.5 at a short price, count how many wins one loss would wipe out
• Confirm the starting goalies, since a backup in net moves the puck line price as much as the moneyline
• Compare the same line with at least one other licensed sportsbook
• Keep stakes flat and never raise them to win back a loss

The point spread and handicap guide covers how spreads work across other sports if you want to compare the puck line with the NFL or football handicaps. If betting stops being fun or is costing more than you planned, read our responsible gambling page or, in the US, call 1-800-GAMBLER.