NHL closing-line track record
How Pinnacle's closing prices fared against 93 finished NHL matches, 2026-09-30 to 2026-10-14. Updated 2026-10-14.
Pinnacle's closing favourite won 61.3% of the time, against the 58.5% its closing price implied on average. The closing line was the more accurate forecast: its mean Brier score (0.453) is lower than the opening line's (0.463) by 0.0097, more than twice the standard error of 0.0045.
The closing price against the result
| Measure | What happened | What the closing price implied | 95% range of what happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| Closing favourite won | 61.3% (57 of 93) | 58.5% | 51.1%–70.6% |
| Price moved toward the result | 57.0% (53 of 93) | — | — |
Calibration by closing probability
| Closing implied probability | Outcomes | Mean implied | Happened | 95% range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0–20% | 0 | — | — | — |
| 20–40% | 33 | 34.6% | 24.2% (8) | 12.8%–41.0% |
| 40–60% | 120 | 50.0% | 50.0% (60) | 41.2%–58.8% |
| 60–80% | 33 | 65.4% | 75.8% (25) | 59.0%–87.2% |
| 80–100% | 0 | — | — | — |
Did the closing line beat the opening line?
The closing line was the more accurate forecast: its mean Brier score (0.453) is lower than the opening line's (0.463) by 0.0097, more than twice the standard error of 0.0045.
| Per match | Matches | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Closing line scored better | 53 | 57.0% |
| Opening line scored better | 40 | 43.0% |
| Price never moved | 0 | 0.0% |
| Moved toward the result | 53 | 57.0% |
| Moved away from the result | 40 | 43.0% |
Of the 93 matches whose price moved, 57.0% moved toward what happened.
Biggest upsets
- 토론토 메이플리프스 6-3 콜로라도 애벌랜치 — 토론토 메이플리프스 closed at 2.90 (33.6% implied), 2026-10-10
- 애너하임 덕스 4-3 베이거스 골든나이츠 — 애너하임 덕스 closed at 2.83 (34.4% implied), 2026-10-03
- 시애틀 크라켄 5-3 워싱턴 캐피털스 — 시애틀 크라켄 closed at 2.81 (34.7% implied), 2026-10-11
- 세인트루이스 블루스 4-0 댈러스 스타스 — 세인트루이스 블루스 closed at 2.61 (37.3% implied), 2026-10-03
- 콜로라도 애벌랜치 2-3 윈니펙 제츠 — 윈니펙 제츠 closed at 2.57 (37.9% implied), 2026-10-07
- 윈니펙 제츠 3-2 피츠버그 펭귄스 — 윈니펙 제츠 closed at 2.56 (38.1% implied), 2026-10-05
- 캘거리 플레임스 4-2 애너하임 덕스 — 캘거리 플레임스 closed at 2.50 (39.0% implied), 2026-10-14
- 댈러스 스타스 1-2 피츠버그 펭귄스 — 피츠버그 펭귄스 closed at 2.50 (39.0% implied), 2026-10-10
- 내슈빌 프레더터스 5-2 몬트리올 캐나디언스 — 내슈빌 프레더터스 closed at 2.43 (40.1% implied), 2026-10-08
- 피츠버그 펭귄스 3-5 시카고 블랙호크스 — 시카고 블랙호크스 closed at 2.42 (40.3% implied), 2026-10-14
More NHL
Other competitions
How these numbers are computed
Data window. Every NHL final that kicked off in the 365 days before 2026-10-14; the matches that qualified run from 2026-09-30 to 2026-10-14. The study is recomputed once a day.
Which finals count. A football final is counted only when the last clock reading we recorded reached minute 89, the collector's evidence that full time was played; finals in other sports must pass the site's plausibility checks (no tied final in a sport that cannot end level). A final must also be the one the site publishes at its own result page, under the competition it belongs to. 95 finals qualified.
Where the prices come from. Our archive records the two bookmakers as separate events, and only one of them carries the score. Each final is paired with the Pinnacle event for the same match. First by name: the same two teams (names normalised the way the live odds board merges the two books) on the same UTC date, with kickoff times no more than 30 minutes apart. Where no name matches exactly, by the odds board's own test for one game listed twice, among Pinnacle events filed under the same competition: the same sport and competition class, both sides recognisably the same teams, kickoffs no more than 15 minutes apart — and when Pinnacle lists the fixture the other way round, its prices are put back on the right teams. A final with two equally close candidates, a candidate whose sides cannot be told apart, or a Pinnacle event claimed by two finals is left out rather than guessed. 93 of the 95 finals found their Pinnacle event, 0 of them by the second test.
Opening and closing prices. The price is Pinnacle's full-time moneyline (1X2 where the sport can end level, home/away where it cannot). The closing price is the last one we recorded at or before kickoff; the opening price is the first one we recorded — not necessarily the first price Pinnacle posted, because our collector records a market from the moment it first sees it. The median match was first priced 25.7 hours before kickoff. A match counts only when every outcome has both an opening and a closing price: 93 did.
Removing the margin.Each outcome's probability is its inverse price divided by the sum of the inverse prices of all outcomes (proportional normalisation), so the probabilities of one match add up to 100%.
The measures. The favourite is the outcome with the highest closing probability; a match where two outcomes tie for highest has no favourite. The draw row covers only sports that can end level. The calibration table places every outcome of every match in a band by its closing probability — lower bound included — and counts how often outcomes in that band happened. The Brier score of a match is the sum, over its outcomes, of the squared gap between the probability and what happened (1 for the outcome that occurred, 0 otherwise); 0 is a perfect forecast. The opening and closing scores are compared match by match, and a difference is called real only when it exceeds twice its standard error. "Moved toward the result" means the probability of what actually happened — the winner, or the draw — was higher at the close than at the open. The 10 biggest upsets are the winning teams with the lowest closing probability; each links its result page. The 95% ranges are Wilson score intervals.
Publication floor. A competition's numbers appear once 30 matches qualify; below that the page states what the archive holds and stays out of search results.
Window: 365 days. Pairing tolerance: 30 minutes by name, 15 by the second test. Pinnacle events examined: 48433. The companion study, bookmaker margins by league, measures what each book charges; this one measures how right the sharper book's last price was.