Vegas win the Pacific in 2026-27 with 100 points, one clear of Los Angeles. Edmonton hold third at 98, and then the division falls away: San Jose are fourth at 85, and no Pacific team takes a wild card.
Below is every number behind that, and the five inputs that produced it ranked one through eight.
Projected Pacific Division standings 2026-27
| # | Team | Record | Points | 2025-26 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vegas Golden Knights | 43-27-14 | 100 | 95 | +5 |
| 2 | Los Angeles Kings | 44-29-11 | 99 | 90 | +9 |
| 3 | Edmonton Oilers | 44-30-10 | 98 | 93 | +5 |
| 4 | San Jose Sharks | 38-37-9 | 85 | 86 | -1 |
| 5 | Anaheim Ducks | 38-39-7 | 83 | 92 | -9 |
| 6 | Seattle Kraken | 35-37-12 | 82 | 79 | +3 |
| 7 | Calgary Flames | 35-41-8 | 78 | 77 | +1 |
| 8 | Vancouver Canucks | 29-48-7 | 65 | 58 | +7 |
Two things need explaining before anything else. The top three are separated by three points and the fourth-place team is 13 further back, the widest gap between a division's third and fourth seed anywhere in the league. And Anaheim, third in the Pacific last season, come out fifth after losing more talent than any team in the NHL.
The five criteria, ranked
- 1
Vegas Golden Knights - 2
Edmonton Oilers - 3
Los Angeles Kings - 4
Anaheim Ducks - 5
San Jose Sharks - 6
Calgary Flames - 7
Seattle Kraken - 8
Vancouver Canucks
- 1San Jose Sharks
- 2Los Angeles Kings
- 3Edmonton Oilers
- 4Seattle Kraken
- 5Vegas Golden Knights
- 6Vancouver Canucks
- 7Calgary Flames
- 8Anaheim Ducks
- 1Calgary Flames
- 2Seattle Kraken
- 3Anaheim Ducks
- 4Los Angeles Kings
- 5Vancouver Canucks
- 6Edmonton Oilers
- 7Vegas Golden Knights
- 8San Jose Sharks
- 1Anaheim Ducks
- 2Vegas Golden Knights
- 3San Jose Sharks
- 4Edmonton Oilers
- 5Vancouver Canucks
- 6Calgary Flames
- 7Los Angeles Kings
- 8Seattle Kraken
- 1Vegas Golden Knights
- 2Los Angeles Kings
- 3Edmonton Oilers
- 4San Jose Sharks
- 5Anaheim Ducks
- 6Seattle Kraken
- 7Calgary Flames
- 8Vancouver Canucks
1. Vegas Golden Knights: 100 points, 43-27-14
Vegas were the best team in the Pacific last season. They swept Colorado to take the West and lost the Stanley Cup Final to Carolina in six. We have them repeating as division champions, but only by a point.
They took 54.3 percent of the expected goals, the largest share in the Pacific and fourth in the NHL, and ran a +42.5 differential. It comes from what they prevent rather than what they create: Vegas allowed 224.0 expected goals, second fewest in the league behind Ottawa, and the third-fewest shots. At the other end they were only third in the division at generating chances.
They hold the Pacific having lost a 37-goal scorer. Pavel Dorofeyev put up 64 points in all 82 games and left for the Rangers on $11M, and he is the largest single departure in the division.
What keeps it close is the roster. Vegas are -7 on net change against Los Angeles at +60, and that is why a clearly better team wins the division by one point rather than comfortably. Rasmus Andersson arriving from Calgary during last season is worth +26 of the Vegas figure; without him they do not hold on.
The crease is the other reason a team this good finished 95 points. They conceded 242 goals, 18 more than their chances warranted, the fifth-largest gap in the league. Adin Hill faced 587 shots and finished at -16.6 goals saved above expected; Carter Hart was -4.7 on 421. Who starts in October is a live question: Hart took the net for the playoff run and went 14-8 in 22 games at .909 before fading in the Final, and our projection still hands Hill the season with the two of them at nearly the same per-start rate.
The top two projected players are Jack Eichel at 95 and Mitch Marner at 87.
2. Los Angeles Kings: 99 points, 44-29-11
Los Angeles lost a franchise centre to retirement and gain 9 points anyway.
Start with the shooting. They scored 220 goals against 244.4 expected, a gap of -24.4 that is the second-worst finishing in the NHL. Only New Jersey finished further below their chances. Our projection builds from the chances rather than the scoreboard, so almost all of that comes back. This is also where having Artemi Panarin for 84 games rather than the 26 he gave them last season starts to tell.
There is a second reason last season understates them. Los Angeles lost 20 games in overtime or a shootout, the most in the NHL and nearly double the league average of 10.2. They finished fourth, five points behind Vegas and three behind Edmonton. Convert four of those losses into wins and they are second; convert six and they win the division.
Then the roster, and the largest single piece of it is not a signing. That full season is worth 53 projected points on its own. Scott Laughton adds 15 more on the same basis, arriving from Toronto in-season. Corey Perry went the other way, 50 games for Los Angeles before a deadline move to Tampa, and is back for a full year.
The signings sit on top of that: Mats Zuccarello at 60 projected and Erik Haula at 35, against Anze Kopitar retiring and Andrei Kuzmenko leaving. The net is +60, second in the division.
Panarin projects 83 and Adrian Kempe 72. Kevin Fiala missed 26 games and projects 63, up 23.
3. Edmonton Oilers: 98 points, 44-30-10
Edmonton are the only team in the NHL with two players in our projected top five: Connor McDavid at 136 and Leon Draisaitl at 118. The crease has been their problem for years and we do not have it solved in 2026-27. It projects -22, sixth in an eight-team division.
They took 52.4 percent of the expected goals, sixth in the NHL and second in the Pacific, on a +26.4 differential. Their finishing was almost exactly neutral at -0.9. Los Angeles scored 24 fewer goals than their chances warranted and San Jose 21 more; Edmonton scored what they earned, which is part of why they move so little.
Evan Bouchard projects 92, second among all defencemen behind only Quinn Hughes. Draisaitl missed 17 games and still scored 97. A healthy season is what takes him to 118. Zach Hyman projects 68, up 16 after missing 24 games.
The crease is the problem, and neither goalie separates himself. Frederik Andersen projects -5.5 goals saved above expected and Tristan Jarry -9.1, on an even split of the starts. The tandem lands at -22, sixth in the division, and there is no version of it that is league average.
Edmonton's summer barely happened. Their +16 comes almost entirely from a mid-season raid on Chicago: Jason Dickinson, Connor Murphy and Colton Dach all arrived during last season, and a full year of the three is worth 42 projected points. The only signing of note is Ryan Shea from Pittsburgh.
4. San Jose Sharks: 85 points, 38-37-9
San Jose added more talent than any team in the league except Toronto and finish a point below where they started.
Their net roster change of +72 projected points is the largest in the division and second in the NHL, and it moves them almost nowhere. They gave up 290 goals last season against 258.7 expected, the largest gap in the NHL, and still finished with 86 points. The additions are covering for a team that was being outplayed, not adding to one that was winning.
They took just 46.8 percent of the expected goals while scoring 21.2 goals more than their chances warranted, fourth most in the league. Only one half of that gets forgiven. Nobody keeps finishing 21 goals above their chances. The goals against stays, because the reason for it is still on the roster.
Yaroslav Askarov faced 1,339 shots and finished at -22.6 goals saved above expected, the second-worst mark in the NHL. Alex Nedeljkovic was -1.0 on 1,041. The tandem lands at -26.
They did spend on the blue line. Darnell Nurse arrives from Edmonton at $9.25M and Jacob Trouba from Anaheim at $8.25M, joining Dmitry Orlov at $6.5M. That is $24M on three defencemen aged 31, 32 and 35, projecting 28, 30 and 33 points.
Their largest addition has never played an NHL game. We carry Ivar Stenberg, the 2026 first-rounder, at 60 points, against William Eklund leaving at 65. Kiefer Sherwood is worth another 20 of that +72, having arrived from Vancouver at the deadline for only 28 games.
Macklin Celebrini projects 123 at 20, fourth in the NHL, and San Jose have him at $975,000 for one more season. The $18.8M extension that starts in 2027-28 is the largest contract in the NHL.
5. Anaheim Ducks: 83 points, 38-39-7
Anaheim lost more talent than any team in the NHL and fall nine points, which is less than it sounds.
Their net roster change is -105 projected points, and the next-worst team in the league is 38 points behind them. Mason McTavish at 53, Jacob Trouba at 30 and Olen Zellweger at 27 are the largest of them, and the biggest thing to arrive projects 27. John Carlson also leaves, though Anaheim only ever had him for 16 games.
What holds the fall to nine is that the underlying team was good. They took 50.6 percent of the expected goals, fourth in the division, and our projection has them at 94 points before the losses are applied. Lukas Dostal faced 1,512 shots and finished at +1.1 goals saved above expected. The crease projects -6, third in the division.
They also carry the most health upside in the division, and by some distance. Troy Terry missed 21 games and projects 73, up 16. Mikael Granlund missed 24 and projects 54.
Not all of it is about health. Beckett Sennecke scored 60 points in all 82 games at 20 and projects 71, fourth on the roster.
Leo Carlsson projects 80 and leads them, on the $18M a year Anaheim matched to keep him. Their second-highest projection, Cutter Gauthier at 74, is still an unsigned restricted free agent.
6. Seattle Kraken: 82 points, 35-37-12
Seattle gain three points and have the second-best crease in the division to thank for it.
Their skaters were the weakest part of the roster. They took 45.5 percent of the expected goals, seventh in the Pacific, and ran a -43.1 differential. Their finishing was mildly positive at +5.2.
The crease holds it up, and the split inside it is worth knowing. Joey Daccord faced 1,309 shots and finished at -9.5 goals saved above expected. Philipp Grubauer was +11.3 on 866, and the tandem still lands at +2, second in the division. The better goalie played two thirds as much.
Their +14 on roster change is not a summer gain. Mackie Samoskevich arrives projecting 42, against Jaden Schwartz at 41 and Jamie Oleksiak at 16 going the other way, and on the summer alone Seattle went backwards. What turns it positive is Bobby McMann, who arrived from Toronto during last season and played only 18 games for them. A full year of him is worth +31.
Jared McCann missed 30 games and projects 62, up 22. Matty Beniers projects 53 and Jordan Eberle 50.
Their health figure is the lowest in the division. There is very little hidden inside this roster.
7. Calgary Flames: 78 points, 35-41-8
Calgary are in a full rebuild, and the projection barely registers it: seventh in the Pacific last season with 77 points, seventh again at 78.
Their net roster change is -67 projected points, second worst in the division, and most of it happened during last season rather than in the summer. Nazem Kadri went to Colorado, Rasmus Andersson to Vegas and MacKenzie Weegar to Utah, worth 134 projected points between them. 2026-27 is the first full season Calgary play without any of them. Blake Coleman left in the summer at 39, against Simon Nemec arriving at 29.
Underneath, they were already thin. They took 46.0 percent of the expected goals with a -39.8 differential, and underfinished by 21.2 goals on top of that.
The goaltending is the one thing holding this up, and it is excellent. Calgary allowed 256 goals against 269.0 expected, a saving of 13 goals that is the largest in the Pacific and ninth in the NHL. Their crease projects to +15, the best mark in the division by 13 goals.
Dustin Wolf is the reason. He faced 1,557 shots, the sixth-heaviest workload in the league, and finished +2.6 goals saved above expected. Devin Cooley was +15.5 on 847, a better rate on half the work.
The roster underneath is young. Five of their top 12 projections are 25 or under, and that top 12 averages 26.8 years old, the sixth youngest in the NHL. Matt Coronato projects 53 at 24. Matvei Gridin scored 20 points in 37 games as a teenager last season and projects 49.
8. Vancouver Canucks: 65 points, 29-48-7
Vancouver are rebuilding as well, and they were the second-worst team in the NHL by expected goals last season. They still gain seven points.
They took 44.5 percent of the expected goals and ran a -56.8 differential. Both are the second-worst marks in the league, behind Chicago on each.
Then they allowed 314 goals against 286.4 expected, conceding 27.6 more than their chances warranted, third worst in the NHL. Kevin Lankinen faced 1,284 shots and finished at -20.3 goals saved above expected, the third-worst mark in the league. Thatcher Demko was +1.5 on 514, but he has played 43 games in two seasons, after 51 and 64 in the two before that. The tandem projects -11, fifth in the division, and the only thing holding it above Lankinen's own number is 24 games from a goalie who has not been giving them 24 games.
The roster took more away. Their net change of -47 is the fourth worst in the NHL, and like Calgary the damage was done in-season: Conor Garland left for Columbus and Kiefer Sherwood for San Jose, and this is the first full year without either. Marcus Pettersson went in the summer at 23, against Brendan Gallagher arriving at 30.
The seven points they gain come almost entirely from finishing. They scored 210 goals against 229.6 expected, and our projection gives most of that back.
Elias Pettersson missed 8 games and projects 68, up 17, and Brock Boeser projects 56.
The roster underneath is young as well. Four of their top 12 projections are 25 or under, and that top 12 averages 26.9 years old, seventh youngest in the NHL and one place behind Calgary. Marco Rossi projects 54 at 25, and Zeev Buium 30 at 21.
Every projection driving these numbers, sortable, with availability and finishing on each player.
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