A late scratch in hockey
A skater who takes no shift voids the prop; a goaltender market usually requires the start, and warm-ups are not a start.
Hockey lineups confirm later than almost any other sport — a morning skate is a signal, not a declaration — so the rules are written around that: participation for skaters, the start for goaltenders.
Anytime-scorer markets follow the skater rule, which is why they survive a fourth-liner playing six minutes and being invisible.
Which is where it goes wrong. Two markets on one game, taken at the same moment, can settle under different conditions — one void and one graded — because one names a goaltender and one names a skater.
What to do with it. Treat a goaltender market as conditional on the start right up to the drop of the puck, and do not assume it carries to a replacement.
The archive
What the published price did in the NHL
1,280 games in the NHL that are over and carried a price when we wrote them up, between November 26, 2025 and November 6, 2026. Each count sits beside what it is out of, and the share is the one divided by the other.
| What | How often | Out of | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| The shorter price won | 712 | 1,251 | 56.9% |
| The favourite covered the handicap | 451 | 1,277 | 35.3% |
| The total went over | 652 | 1,277 | 51.1% |
| The home side won | 670 | 1,280 | 52.3% |
- Points in a game, on average
- 6.29
- Winning margin, on average
- 2.25
How wide the games were
Over 1,825 finished games in the NHL with a score — a margin needs no price, so this sample is wider than the one above.
- Half were decided by this or less
- 2
- One in ten by this or more
- 4
- The widest
- 10
How they ended
Over 1,824 finished games in the NHL whose result line says how it ended — the feed's own one-line verdict, not a reading of the play.
| What | How often | Out of | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Went past regulation | 445 | 1,824 | 24.4% |
| Settled on a shootout | 154 | 1,824 | 8.4% |
1 game landed exactly on the number — the handicap or the total — so it is in the count it is out of and in neither result.
The prices counted here are DraftKings', as they stood when we last wrote each game up — one snapshot per game, near kick-off for almost all of them, and never a closing line. So this says what the published line did, not how it moved on the way there.
A season that happened. Nothing here predicts the next game, and none of it is advice.
Counted November 6, 2026.
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