How Do the NHL Finals Work?
For many interested in hockey around the world, there is a question of how the NHL Finals work.
Rather than having a single-game final at the end of a bracketed playoff run, the NHL Finals – predominantly known as the Stanley Cup Finals – take place over a series of intense games.
Here, we’re looking into exactly how the NHL Finals work. You’ll find everything that you need to know about the Stanley Cup Finals and the culmination of the NHL season below, from the format of the NHL Finals to the greatest games in Stanley Cup history.
What are the NHL Finals?
The NHL Finals (Stanley Cup Finals) are the last stage of the NHL postseason.
After the NHL regular season, eight teams from the Eastern Conference compete for a place in the NHL Finals, as do eight teams in another bracket from the Western Conference.
The final winner of each conference will meet in the NHL Finals. So, the NHL Finals are the end stage of the playoffs. At the end of a best-of-seven series – needing four wins to triumph – the winners will hoist the Stanley Cup to be crowned the reigning champions of the NHL.
The Road to the Finals
The road to the NHL Finals begins with the NHL regular season. Each of the 32 teams in the league plays an 84-game schedule to earn enough points to secure a playoff spot. While they don’t need to win every game, playoff hopefuls will need to make good on the majority of their NHL game odds to qualify.
From there, the top three teams from each division, along with two "Wild Card" teams from each conference, enter the Stanley Cup Playoffs bracket. This means eight teams qualify from the Eastern Conference and eight from the Western Conference. Over three rounds of best-of-seven series, the field is whittled down to the final two teams on either side of the bracket.
It’s at this stage, the Conference Finals, that the competitors of the Stanley Cup Finals are decided. As such, you can count the Eastern Conference odds and Western Conference odds as trying to pick which team will win the semi-finals of the NHL playoffs. Then, the conference champions will meet to decide the ultimate winner for the season in the NHL Finals.
The Stanley Cup Finals Series
Once teams get to this end stage, how do the NHL Finals work? Here’s a run-through of the format, schedule, overtime rules, tie-breaking procedures, and how home-ice advantage is decided across the Stanley Cup Finals.
Format
The NHL Finals have a format of a best-of-seven series. This means that one team has to win four games. These can be any of the four games, with the shortest series score being 4-0 for a complete whitewash by one team, and the longest series ending 4-3 to the victor.
Game Schedule
In the Stanley Cup Finals, the schedule follows a 2-2-1-1-1 format. This is to say that the first two games take place in the top-seeded team’s home arena, followed by two in the other team’s arena. If the NHL Finals are still undecided after four games, the location alternates from the top seed to the other team, and back to the top seed.
The game schedule will grant teams at least one day of rest between each game, and sometimes there will be two days between games. At the most, the NHL Finals will span 16 days from the start of Game 1 to the end of Game 7. The shortest game schedule of the Stanley Cup Finals would be seven days for a 4-0 sweep.
Home-Ice Advantage
Home-ice advantage in the Stanley Cup Finals goes to the team with the best regular season record, regardless of their seeding coming into the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The advantage that the team gets is a favourable game schedule and the opportunity to host what could be the deciding game.
So, how do the NHL Finals work for the top-seeded team? They get the first two games of the series at home as well as the fifth game. Should the series go to Game 7, the last possible game of the NHL Finals, the game will be played at the home arena and in front of the home fans of the top-seeded team.
Overtime Rules
The overtime rules in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, as well as in the Stanley Cup Finals, differ from the regular season ones. In the postseason, teams get an extra 20-minute period played at five-on-five to try to break the tie with one goal. If those 20 minutes expire, another period of 20 minutes will be added.
This process goes on and on until one of the teams scores. It’s known as continuous overtime, with the longest overtime period still standing at 55:13 (into the third overtime period) from Game 1 of the 1990 Stanley Cup Finals. In the regular season, overtime is three-on-three for five minutes and then a shootout if a goal isn’t scored.
Tie-Breaking Procedures
If there’s a tie in the Stanley Cup Finals, such as a 4-4 scoreline at the end of the regulation 60 minutes, the game reverts to overtime rules. A tie can only be decided by another goal scored on the ice and won’t revert to smaller-team formats, like three-on-three, or a shootout.
Winning the Stanley Cup
The aim of every NHL team is to eventually win the Stanley Cup. It’s the epitome of triumph in the NHL, so afterwards, teams get to revel in a lavish Cup-winning ceremony.
Presentation Ceremony
With four wins secured in the NHL Finals, the winners and their fans will get to enjoy the Stanley Cup presentation ceremony. First, the player deemed to be the MVP of the NHL Finals will be awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy by the NHL commissioner, currently Gary Bettman.
After that tremendous individual accolade has been given out, the commissioner will present the Stanley Cup to the winning team’s captain, who will then skate around the ice with it hoisted in the air. The rest of the team will get to raise the Cup afterwards, and then they’ll all pose for a photograph.
The Stanley Cup Tradition
Presenting the Stanley Cup on the ice of the series-clinching game has been a tradition since the 1930s. However, the oldest tradition of the Stanley Cup dates back to 1896. This is when the Winnipeg Victorias decided to drink champagne out of the top bowl of the Stanley Cup. Now, every team does it.
A key tradition en route to the NHL Finals is the players not touching any silverware that they receive along the way. This is primarily about not touching the Western Conference or Eastern Conference trophy. The tradition is that you don’t celebrate that trophy because it’s the Stanley Cup that you actually want.
Historic Stanley Cup Games
The Stanley Cup Finals heap pressure and expectation on all of the players and coaches, creating tremendously dramatic scenes on the ice without fail. Game 7s are often the best of all, but there are plenty of grand stories of success written before this ultimate final game is played.
Carolina Hurricanes Kick Up a Storm in 2006
Coming out of the season-long lockout of 2004/05, NHL teams across the board were raring to get back to it and battle for the Stanley Cup. The last time the league was played, the Hurricanes finished 11th in the conference and missed the playoffs by 15 points.
In 2005/06, the Canes stormed to second in the Eastern Conference, but were still considered to be long shots in the hockey odds. They faced the Edmonton Oilers, who’d snuck into the playoffs as the eighth seed in the Western Conference.
The exhilarating series went to Game 7, which saw the Canes hold onto a 2-1 lead through much of the third period before scoring an empty-netter to finish 3-1. The highlight of the Stanley Cup run was Cam Ward, who became the first NHL rookie goaltender to win it since 1986 and the first rookie Conn Smythe winner since 1987.
Vegas Golden Knights’ Run to the Finals
Prior to the 2017/18 season, the Vegas Golden Knights had been cleared to compete in the NHL as a brand-new franchise. The team was built through an expansion draft, during which the front office prioritized team leaders and acquiring picks in exchange for not selecting top talents.
As the season progressed, the Golden Knights went from strength to strength, defying the Pacific Division odds to top it and enter the playoffs as the Western Conference’s third seed. Vegas would fly all the way to the NHL Finals in their inaugural season, but momentum would run out, and the Washington Capitals would win their first-ever Stanley Cup.
One-Goal Thriller in the 1996 Stanley Cup Finals
In the perfect example of showing a series sweep to anyone who wants to know how the NHL Finals work, the Colorado Avalanche secured a 4-0 triumph over the Florida Panthers in emphatic fashion. In what would be a decisive Game 4 of the 1996 Stanley Cup Finals, two goaltenders stood on their heads to keep the game alive.
For the Panthers, it was John Vanbiesbrouck, who stopped 55 shots by a few minutes into the third period of overtime, not allowing any to go into the back of his net. At the other end of the ice, Patrick Roy had already saved 63 shots to keep the sweep alive. Then, a shot from Uwe Krupp snuck past Vanbiesbrouck, ending the game with 104:31 played to secure Colorado’s first Stanley Cup.
Game 7 of the 1950 Stanley Cup Finals
The 1950 Stanley Cup Finals are often brought up in the debate about the greatest NHL Finals of all time, and a big part of that is what happened in Game 7.
It was a closely-contested series between the Detroit Red Wings and New York Rangers to this point, featuring legends like Sid Abel, Ted Lindsay, Allan Stanley, and Chuck Rayner.
What was most impressive for the Red Wings was that their star player, Gordie Howe, could only play six games of the whole playoffs, missing the NHL Finals entirely. In any case, the last three games had been decided by one goal, two of which were sealed in the first period of overtime.
After going 2-0 up in the first, the New York Rangers saw the Red Wings come to 2-2 a quarter of the way through the second. At 11:42, the Rangers went one up again, but Detroit struck back just a few minutes later. It’d remain 3-3 until 8:31 of the second period of overtime, at which point, Pete Babando snuck a shot past Rayner to win the Cup.
Betting on the NHL Finals
The 2025/26 NHL Finals are quite some way away, but the NHL futures markets are always open. When entering the new season, you can check out the Stanley Cup winner market favourites, and see who the oddsmakers have their eye on.
While the NHL Finals are the centrepiece of the playoffs and the NHL season as a whole, there are many different ways to bet on the run to the Stanley Cup Finals. You can bet on individual division winners, such as with the Atlantic Division odds, and the winners of each conference in the postseason.
Of course, when the playoffs come around and eventually make it to the Stanley Cup Finals, every game will have the full selection of odds, as will each series. You can bet on how far the series will go, who’ll win the series, and performances in individual games, such as a player to score a point or a team to score over three goals.