Overtime and the shootout count for the moneyline, the puck line and the total, because all three settle on the final score. They do not count for the 60-minute line or period markets, which settle at the end of regulation. It matters often: 22.38% of 7,945 NHL games in our archive were still tied when regulation ended.
The market-by-market table is below. For what the numbers themselves look like, see our NHL key numbers page.
Does overtime count in NHL betting?
For most NHL markets, yes. The moneyline, the puck line and the total all settle on the final score, and the final score includes anything that happens in overtime or a shootout. The markets that do not include it are the ones that say so in their name: the 60-minute line settles on the score after regulation, and period markets settle at the end of their period.
That distinction only matters because hockey goes past regulation often. Across 7,945 games from 2020-21 through 2025-26, 1,778 of them, 22.38%, were still tied when regulation ended. Roughly one game in four is settled by rules that half the betting menu ignores.
| Market | Settles on | Overtime counts |
|---|---|---|
| Moneyline | Final score | Yes |
| Puck line (−1.5 / +1.5) | Final score | Yes |
| Total goals (over/under) | Final score | Yes |
| 60-minute line (three-way) | Score after 60 minutes | No |
| Period markets (1st period line, 1st period total) | That period only | No |
| Team totals | Final score | Yes |
| Player goals, points, assists, shots, saves | Final score | Yes, except a shootout |
Settlement rules are house rules and vary slightly by book and jurisdiction, so confirm the ones that apply to your account. The frequencies elsewhere on this page are measurements from our archive.
How often do NHL games go to overtime?
1,778 of 7,945 games went past regulation, 22.38%. Of those, 1,238 were settled by an overtime goal and 540 went to a shootout, so a shootout decided 6.80% of all games and 30.37% of the games that got past 60 minutes. The rate is stable season to season.
| Season | Games | Past regulation | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | 952 | 222 | 23.32% |
| 2021-22 | 1,401 | 303 | 21.63% |
| 2022-23 | 1,400 | 326 | 23.29% |
| 2023-24 | 1,400 | 288 | 20.57% |
| 2024-25 | 1,398 | 291 | 20.82% |
| 2025-26 | 1,394 | 348 | 24.96% |
Regular season and playoffs together. 2020-21 was a shortened season, which is why its game count is lower.
The playoffs work differently. There is no shootout: overtime periods are played at full length until someone scores. In our archive 124 playoff games went past regulation and every one of them was settled by a goal.
Does overtime count for the puck line?
Yes, and it decides the market more often than anything else does. A puck line needs a two-goal win to cash at −1.5. Overtime is sudden death and a shootout adds a single credited goal, so a game that gets past regulation can only ever finish one goal apart. That is not close to always: it is always. All 1,778 games past regulation in our archive finished exactly one goal apart, with no exceptions.
So every trip to overtime is a −1.5 loser and a +1.5 winner before a puck is dropped in the extra period. Over the regular seasons in our archive 2,989 of 7,428 games, 40.24%, finished inside two goals, and 1,654 of those one-goal games got there by going past regulation rather than by staying close for 60 minutes. Only 1,335 one-goal games were settled in regulation. What the puck line is really pricing is described in more detail on our puck line page.
Does overtime count towards the total?
Yes, and the effect is exactly computable rather than approximate. A game that reaches overtime was tied when regulation ended, so its score at the horn was the loser's final score on both sides and its regulation total was twice that number, always an even number. Overtime then adds precisely one goal: sudden death ends on the first one, and a shootout is credited as a single goal. Every game that goes past regulation therefore finishes on an odd total, exactly one higher than it stood at the end of regulation.
That one goal lands differently depending on where the number is. At 6.5, a game tied 3-3 is under at the horn and over at the final whistle: 538 regular-season games, 7.24% of all of them, changed side that way. At 6, the same 538 games turn what would have been a push into an over. At 5.5 the extra goal never changes anything, because a regulation total of 4 becomes 5 and both are under, while 6 becomes 7 and both are over.
| Total | Over | Under | Push | Changed by the overtime goal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5.5 | 56.58% | 43.42% | 0.00% | none |
| 6 | 45.42% | 43.42% | 11.16% | 538 push to over |
| 6.5 | 45.42% | 54.58% | 0.00% | 538 under to over |
Regular-season games only, n=7,428. These are score distributions, not graded bets: a game counts as over 6.5 here because its final total was 7 or more, not because a book posted 6.5 for that game. 6.5, 6 and 5.5 are the three numbers our odds archive shows books hanging most: 34%, 34% and 29% of 648,494 NHL total quotes.
The score a game was tied at when regulation ended is what decides whether the extra goal matters, so it is worth knowing how those games were tied.
| Tied at | Total after 60 | Final total | Games | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 27 | 1.63% |
| 1-1 | 2 | 3 | 229 | 13.85% |
| 2-2 | 4 | 5 | 521 | 31.50% |
| 3-3 | 6 | 7 | 538 | 32.53% |
| 4-4 | 8 | 9 | 246 | 14.87% |
| 5-5 | 10 | 11 | 73 | 4.41% |
| 6-6 | 12 | 13 | 16 | 0.97% |
The 1,654 regular-season games that went past regulation, by the score they were tied at. Rows under 10 games are omitted. Being tied 2-2 or 3-3 accounts for nearly two thirds of them.
What is the NHL 60-minute line?
The 60-minute line, also sold as the regulation-time line or the three-way moneyline, prices the game as it stood after 60 minutes and offers three outcomes instead of two: home win, away win, or a tie in regulation. Anything that happens afterwards is ignored. A game the away side wins in overtime is a regulation tie on this market, so a moneyline ticket and a 60-minute ticket on the same team can settle differently on the same game.
The tie leg is not an exotic outcome. It is precisely the set of games that go past regulation, which our archive puts at 22.38%. That is why the two winning legs of a three-way market are priced longer than the same teams on the moneyline: the third outcome has taken roughly a fifth of the probability out of each of them.
The shootout goal nobody scored
A shootout is a skills competition, and the NHL settles it by adding one goal to the winning team's score. No player is credited with it. That is visible in the box score itself: in 540 games in our archive the winning team's goal total is one higher than the sum of its own players' goals, and that gap never appears on the losing side, never twice in a game, and never in a playoff game, where the rules allow no shootout.
For settlement that means team-level markets see the shootout goal and player-level markets do not. The moneyline and the total move on it. An anytime goalscorer ticket does not, because no player scored it. Goalie saves props are not affected either, since shootout attempts are not shots on goal.
How this was measured
- Source. stats.games for NHL, 7,945 completed games from 2021-01-13 to 2026-06-14 (2020-21 through 2025-26), taken from the free official NHL API, joined to our team and player box-score tables. Price context comes from odds.lines, 2020-09-01 to 2026-06-30.
- Rules versus measurements. Which market settles on which score is a house rule, not something we measured, and books vary at the margins. Every figure and percentage on this page is measured over the archive above by a committed script.
- How overtime is identified. The archive carries no overtime column. The NHL awards a losing team 1 standings point if and only if it lost after regulation, so a game went past 60 minutes exactly when one side holds that point. Every game in the archive has one team on 2 points and the other on 0 or 1, with no other shape, so the flag is exact rather than inferred.
- How a shootout is identified. A shootout goal is credited to the team and to no player, so the winning side's goal total exceeds the sum of its players' goals. 5 games that ended in regulation carry the same gap. They are unexplained, they are excluded from the shootout count, and they are reported here rather than absorbed into it.
- What these frequencies are not. The totals figures are score distributions over completed games, not the record of a bet. A game is counted over a number because its final total exceeded it, not because a book posted that number for that game. Past frequencies are measurements of what happened and not forecasts.
- What this data cannot tell you. Our odds archive holds no prices for the 60-minute market, so nothing here says what that market costs to bet. The prices we do hold are pre-game listings from a capture grid and are not closing lines.
Next steps
Frequently asked questions
Does overtime count for NHL moneyline bets?
Yes. The moneyline settles on the final score, so an overtime or shootout winner is the winner for settlement. There is no tie outcome on a two-way NHL moneyline, which is why the market needs overtime to break the game.
Does the puck line include overtime?
Yes, and overtime effectively settles it. A game that gets past regulation can only finish one goal apart, because overtime is sudden death and a shootout adds one credited goal. All 1,778 such games in our archive finished exactly one goal apart, so every one was a −1.5 loser and a +1.5 winner.
Do overtime goals count towards the over/under?
Yes. A game that reaches overtime was tied after 60 minutes and finishes exactly one goal higher than it stood then. At a total of 6.5 that flipped 538 regular-season games in our archive from under to over. At 5.5 it never changed the result.
What is the NHL 60-minute line?
A three-way market on the score after regulation only: home, away, or a tie in regulation. Overtime and the shootout are ignored. The tie leg is exactly the set of games that go past 60 minutes, which our archive measures at 22.38%.
How often do NHL games go to a shootout?
540 of 7,945 games in our archive, 6.80%, were decided in a shootout. That is 30.37% of the games that reached overtime. The playoffs have no shootout at all.
Do shootout goals count for player props?
No. The NHL credits a shootout winner with one team goal that no player is charged with, so an anytime goalscorer ticket cannot be settled by it. Team markets such as the moneyline and the total do include it.
Related: NHL puck line explained · NHL key numbers and final scores · NHL goalie saves props · Moneyline vs spread
Every figure on this page is a historical measurement of what already happened, produced by a committed, re-runnable script over our own odds archive. Past frequencies are not forecasts and are not betting advice: Nebula Insights publishes no picks, no selections and no recommended wagers. 18+ only.