How NHL expansion to 36 teams could increase league-wide scoring

The NHL is expanding, again. Probably.

That was the rumor that dropped on the first day of camp from Kevin Weekes with Andy Strickland saying NHL owners would be meeting to approve the opening of expansion. The 34-36 team era is (probably) coming.

While there will be plenty of worthy debates stemming from potential expansion, the big question will be how it affects the on-ice product. In that vein, there's one major selling point that usually comes with expansion: more offense.

The NHL is in a very good place with its current offensive product with an average of 6.22 goals per game last year. The stars are shining as bright as ever, scoring 60-plus-goals, 100-plus assists and 140-plus points. Those are figures many of us couldn't fathom during the lows of the dead-puck era or post-salary-cap boom, but they're here and they make the league more exciting.

Part of that is a byproduct of expansion. When the Vegas Golden Knights were introduced in 2017-18, goals per game jumped from 5.54 to 5.94. When the Seattle Kraken were introduced in 2021-22, goals per game jumped from 5.88 to 6.28. In both cases, it was a 0.4 goal-per-game jump.

Now, that jump obviously isn't entirely due to expansion. The NHL did notably shrink goalie equipment before the 2017-18 season and has made some minor tweaks and adjustments since. But it's no coincidence league scoring rates rose a significant level in each of those two seasons; it's something that's happened throughout the league's history.

While things didn't notably change from the Original Six era to the expansion era when the league went to 12 teams, each subsequent jump — from 14 to 16 to 18 — featured a jump of just over 0.4 goals on average. And while there wasn't a notable increase in the first year of the WHA merger, the climb from seven goals per game in the late 70s to well over 7.5 during the first half of the 80s can't be ignored. A shift from 21 to 24 teams in the early 90s provided a momentary bump of 0.34 goals per game, while a shift from 26 to 30 teams offered momentary relief from the dead-puck era with a jump of 0.24 goals per game.

There is one season that serves as an exception to the rule: 1993-94, where the addition of two teams coincided with a 0.78 goals-per-game drop. Given that season triggered the start of the dead-puck era, it probably has more to do with a tactical shift. Even with that season bringing things down, the average per-year jump in goals per game during years where the league expands is 0.16 goals. On a per-team basis, it's closer to 0.12 goals per game.

The reason for that is obvious: talent dilution. A new team means 20 more roster spots which usually means 20 more replacement-level players added to the league's pool. That shifts the league's baseline where stars move further ahead of the pack, the average player gets a little worse and there's a new pool of weaker players to exploit at the bottom. It's a subtle shift, but one that does seem to correlate with league-wide scoring.

To measure that, I compared league-wide goals per game to the average per-game value (Net Rating) of every above-average player in the league in a given season. The thinking there is a combined look at the league's top half can inform the league's current level of dilution and overall talent distribution. The higher the number, the more spread out the talent is. For simplicity's sake, we'll call that number "talent spread."

Unsurprisingly, there was a substantial jump in talent spread in both 2017-18 and 2021-22 and unsurprisingly, there was a fairly solid relationship between the two in every season since 2007-08. More goals scored usually means more value being created by players and value generally comes from the league's top half. It's a "duh" moment, but it's a helpful one for one simple reason: estimating the effect further increases in talent spread from jumping to 34-36 teams might have on league-wide scoring.

Based on the correlation between scoring and talent spread, there's roughly a 0.43-goal jump per game for every one-goal increase in talent spread. For every two teams added, there's a 20-player shift in the league's average baseline. Apply that shift to last season's totals and you get the following: a 0.4 shift in talent spread for 34 teams and a 0.65 shift in talent spread for 36 teams.

That means a 34-team league would likely see a rise to 6.48 goals per game while a rise to 36 teams would equate to 6.58 goals per game. That's a healthy increase that pushes the league closer to the ideal range between 6.5 and 7 — where the league was between 1990 and 1994. At 36 teams, it's an increase of 0.09 goals per game per team added; not far off from the per-team average past expansions through history have seen. It's always nice when the math works out.

This is all back-of-the-envelope math and there's a chance that expansion has an even bigger effect — like what we saw with Vegas and Seattle. There's also a chance it has no effect at all. At each point in hockey history where scoring went up, a strategic shift came forward to reel it in and the same may happen after a move to 36 teams.

Still, it's an interesting thought experiment — one that has potential to resonate particularly with the current rise in superstar scoring rates.

Nikita Kucherov scoring 144 points last season? That would've been closer to 152 points with a rise to 6.6 goals per game. Connor McDavid 's 153 the year prior would've been two points shy of 160.

Auston Matthews' 69 goals last season would've been closer to 73 goals instead. McDavid's 100 assists would've been 106 assists (and a 114-assist pace).

The totals those players already earned are obviously cool, but they could be even bigger and better with a rise in scoring, something expansion almost always brings to the table. Stars putting numbers on the board is always more fun and makes games more exciting. They're what put fans in seats and expansion can help bring the game's current golden era up to historic levels.

Still, there are plenty of reasons to believe expanding isn't good for the league's overall health. There are plenty of other ways to create more scoring, too. But for a league that wants to be in more American markets and add more revenue via meaty expansion fees, the likely increase in scoring is a nice side effect that comes along with it.

You want more goals? More teams might be the answer.