If you bet football, you know the point spread. The puck line is the NHL's version — with one big difference: it's almost always the same number. The favorite lays −1.5 goals, the underdog gets +1.5, and the sportsbook does all its adjusting through the price instead of the number.
Take a game where Edmonton is favored over Calgary. A typical board looks like this:
Because NHL games are low-scoring and close — roughly one game in four goes past regulation — a 1.5-goal spread is a much bigger hurdle than it sounds. Favorites laying −1.5 typically cover only around 35–40% of the time. That's why the −1.5 side usually pays plus money while the +1.5 side is heavily juiced.
Here's the detail that catches new puck-line bettors: an overtime or shootout win never covers −1.5. The official final score of an OT/SO game always shows a one-goal margin — a team that wins 4–3 in a shootout wins the game but loses the −1.5 bet. Since so many NHL games reach overtime, a meaningful slice of a favorite's wins are automatically losses on the puck line.
The underdog +1.5 covers in well over half of all NHL games — that's just arithmetic in a league full of one-goal finishes. But sportsbooks know it, which is why +1.5 routinely costs −180 to −220. At −200, you need to win 66.7% of the time just to break even. A dog that covers 62% of the time feels safe and loses money forever.
This is the single most important puck-line idea: judge each side against its own break-even, not against 50%. A −1.5 favorite covering 45% of the time at +170 is a profitable bet; a +1.5 dog covering 62% at −200 is not. (This rule is wired directly into how Heater grades every puck line — each side's simulated cover rate is compared to the break-even of its actual price, never to a flat −110.)
A team listed at −1.5 is the favorite and must win the game by 2 or more goals for the bet to win. Its opponent at +1.5 wins the bet by winning the game outright or losing by exactly 1 goal.
Overtime and shootout goals count toward the official final score, but an OT or shootout win always posts as a one-goal margin — so an overtime win can never cover −1.5, and always covers +1.5.
Because NHL games are close: underdogs getting 1.5 goals avoid a two-goal loss most of the time, so books price the +1.5 side at −180 to −220. At those prices you need to win roughly two of every three bets just to break even.
They're close cousins. Both are fixed 1.5-point spreads where the book adjusts the price rather than the number. Baseball's run line behaves slightly differently because extra innings produce more multi-run finishes than hockey overtime, which by rule ends at a one-goal margin.