Power Play and Penalty Kill Percentage Calculator

Ice hockey’s two special-teams percentages with the NHL’s own formulas, plus the net versions that count the shorthanded goals the plain ones throw away.

Last updated 12 Oct 2026

Power play and penalty kill percentage

Special teams

Power play goals forGoals scored while the opponent was shorthanded — the NHL’s PP GF.

Power play opportunitiesThe NHL’s “number of chances a team has to score on the power play” — opportunities, not minutes, so a minor and a major each count as one.

Shorthanded goals conceded during your power playsGoals the shorthanded opponent scored against you while you had the advantage — the NHL’s SH GA, which the plain power play percentage ignores entirely.

Power play goals againstGoals conceded while your side was shorthanded — the NHL’s PP GA.

Times shorthandedTimes your side had to kill a penalty — the NHL’s TS, again a count of situations and not of minutes.

Shorthanded goals you scoredGoals your side scored while killing a penalty — the NHL’s SH GF, absent from the plain kill percentage and credited in the net one.

Which figure to headlineBoth are computed either way; this chooses which is the big number. The other, and both net versions, appear underneath it.

30.6%Example

68 power play goals from 222 opportunities with 7 shorthanded goals conceded, and 49 conceded from 221 times shorthanded with 6 shorthanded goals scored — the Edmonton Oilers’ 2025-26 NHL regular season

Formula

PP% = 100 × PP GF ÷ PP Opp PK% = 100 × (1 − PP GA ÷ TS)

PP%: the NHL’s own words: “PP% is a team’s power play goals for (PP GF) divided by its power play opportunities (PP Opp), where 100% is best and 0% is worst”. Reproduced here against the league’s 2025-26 published figures for five teams, agreeing to five decimal places
PK%: the NHL’s own words again: “PK% is one minus a team’s power play goals against (PP GA) divided by its times shorthanded (TS), where 100% is best and 0% is worst”. Note the asymmetry — the power play figure counts goals scored and the penalty kill figure counts goals avoided
Net PP% = (PP GF − SH GA) ÷ PP Opp: derived here from the league’s published net figures and verified against them for five teams. The plain power play percentage ignores the goals the shorthanded side scores against you during your own advantage; the net figure subtracts them. Edmonton’s 2025-26 power play was 30.6% and 27.5% net
Net PK% = (TS − PP GA + SH GF) ÷ TS: derived and verified the same way. The plain penalty kill percentage gives no credit for a goal scored while shorthanded; the net figure does, which is why a net penalty kill can exceed the plain one
why a power play percentage can exceed 100 in principle: a major penalty does not end when a goal is scored, so two goals on one opportunity are possible and the numerator can exceed the denominator. It does not happen over a season — no NHL team has been near it — but this page does not refuse it, because refusing a possible result would be wrong

Worked example

68 power play goals from 222 opportunities with 7 shorthanded goals conceded, and 49 conceded from 221 times shorthanded with 6 shorthanded goals scored — the Edmonton Oilers' 2025-26 NHL regular season
100 × 68 ÷ 222 = 30.6% on the power play. The NHL publishes 0.30630 for Edmonton in 2025-26, and 68 ÷ 222 = 0.3063063
100 × (1 − 49 ÷ 221) = 77.8% on the penalty kill. The league publishes 0.77828, and 1 − 49/221 = 0.7782805
Net power play: (68 − 7) ÷ 222 = 27.5%. The league publishes 0.274774, and 61 ÷ 222 = 0.2747748. Seven shorthanded goals conceded cost more than three percentage points of a league-leading power play
Net penalty kill: (221 − 49 + 6) ÷ 221 = 80.5%. The league publishes 0.805429, and 178 ÷ 221 = 0.8054299. The six shorthanded goals are worth nearly three points of penalty kill that the plain figure refuses to credit
Both are rates. Double the goals and the opportunities — 136 from 444 — and the power play stays 30.6%; halve the opportunities to 111 with 68 goals and it doubles to 61.3%. Halve the times shorthanded to 110.5 with 49 against and the penalty kill falls from 77.8% to 55.7%
Enter 0 opportunities and the power play returns no value; enter 0 times shorthanded and the penalty kill does. A side that never had the advantage has no conversion rate, and 0% would read as having failed every time

Five teams’ 2025-26 special teams, plain and net

Counts and percentages are the NHL’s own published 2025-26 figures; the arithmetic was reproduced here to five decimal places for all four formulas and all five teams. Toronto is the row to look at: a plain power play of 21.3% that is 17.8% net, because it conceded seven shorthanded goals, and a penalty kill that is ahead of Calgary’s on the plain figure and behind it on the net one.
Team, 2025-26 NHL regular season	PP GF / PP Opp	PP%	Net PP%	PP GA / TS	PK%	Net PK%
Edmonton Oilers	68 / 222	30.6	27.5	49 / 221	77.8	80.5
Nashville Predators	55 / 238	23.1	22.3	45 / 246	81.7	85.0
Toronto Maple Leafs	42 / 197	21.3	17.8	43 / 229	81.2	83.8
Chicago Blackhawks	40 / 236	16.9	15.7	39 / 238	83.6	86.1
Calgary Flames	37 / 229	16.2	14.4	48 / 245	80.4	84.9

What a penalty costs, and what the percentage does not see

The asymmetry the percentages hide: four very different situations, three of them one opportunity each and one of them none. A misconduct removes a player for ten minutes without putting the other side on a power play, because a substitute is permitted, so it touches neither percentage. Durations are quoted from the NHL’s 2024-25 Official Rules.
Penalty	Duration	Rule	Counts as
Minor	2 minutes	NHL Rule 16.1 — “ruled off the ice for two (2) minutes”	one power play opportunity, one time shorthanded
Double-minor	4 minutes	NHL Rule 18.1 — “ruled off the ice for four (4) minutes”	one opportunity
Major	5 minutes	NHL Rule 20.1 — “five (5) minutes during which time no substitute shall be permitted”	one opportunity, and the penalty does not end on a goal
Misconduct	10 minutes	NHL Rule 22 — “ruled off the ice for a period of ten (10) minutes”	no opportunity at all — the side is not shorthanded

Two percentages, and the goals they both ignore

This page is about ice hockey — the game played with a puck on an ice rink, whose international rules are the IIHF’s and whose North American professional rules are the NHL’s own. It is not about field hockey, the eleven-a-side game on a turf pitch governed by the FIH, whose periods, set pieces and statistical definitions are different; this site keeps the two sports in separate sections for that reason.

A power play is the advantage a side has while an opponent is serving a penalty; killing a penalty is the same situation seen from the shorthanded end. The NHL publishes both percentages and both formulas. Its own wording for the first is that “PP% is a team’s power play goals for (PP GF) divided by its power play opportunities (PP Opp), where 100% is best and 0% is worst”, and for the second that “PK% is one minus a team’s power play goals against (PP GA) divided by its times shorthanded (TS)”. Both were reproduced here against the league’s own 2025-26 figures, agreeing to five decimal places for five teams.

What those two sentences leave out is the content of this page. Neither percentage counts the goals the OTHER side scores in the same situation. A power play that concedes a breakaway is still a successful opportunity or an unsuccessful one depending only on whether you scored; a penalty kill that produces a shorthanded goal gets no credit for it. The NHL’s answer is to publish net versions as well, and working them back from the published figures gives Net PP% = (PP GF − SH GA) ÷ PP Opp and Net PK% = (TS − PP GA + SH GF) ÷ TS. Both were verified against the league’s own net figures for the same five teams. Edmonton’s 2025-26 power play was 30.6% plain and 27.5% net, and Toronto’s was 21.3% plain and 17.8% net — a gap large enough to reorder a table.

The second omission is time: both denominators count SITUATIONS, so the two-minute minor, the four-minute double-minor and the five-minute major in the table below are one opportunity each, and the ten-minute misconduct is none at all. If what you want is a rate per minute of advantage rather than per opportunity, these are the wrong two numbers and you need the special-teams time on ice, which the NHL publishes separately.

One arithmetic point that looks like a bug and is not. A power play percentage can exceed 100% in principle, because a major penalty does not end when a goal is scored and two goals on one opportunity are possible. No NHL team has come near it over a season — the highest figure in the table above is 30.6% — but this page does not refuse the entry, because refusing a result the rules allow would be worse than printing a surprising one. The special-teams index underneath, which is simply the two percentages added, is a common shorthand with 100 as its break-even; it is a convention of the trade and not a published statistic, and it hides the same two omissions as its parts. For the goals themselves, save percentage and goals against average are the goaltending side of the same ledger.

Frequently asked questions

How do you calculate power play percentage?

Power play goals divided by power play opportunities, times 100. The NHL’s own formula is PP% = PP GF ÷ PP Opp. Edmonton’s 2025-26 season was 68 goals from 222 opportunities, which is 30.6%, and the league publishes 0.30630 for it.

How do you calculate penalty kill percentage?

One minus power play goals against divided by times shorthanded, times 100 — the NHL’s PK% = 1 − (PP GA ÷ TS). Edmonton conceded 49 goals in 221 times shorthanded in 2025-26, which is 77.8%, and the league publishes 0.77828.

What is a net penalty kill percentage?

The penalty kill percentage with the shorthanded goals your side scored credited back: (TS − PP GA + SH GF) ÷ TS. Edmonton’s six shorthanded goals in 2025-26 take its kill from 77.8% to 80.5%. The net power play is the mirror image, (PP GF − SH GA) ÷ PP Opp, subtracting the goals you conceded while on the advantage.

Does a five-minute major count as more than one power play?

No, and that is the main weakness of both percentages: they count opportunities, not minutes. A two-minute minor under NHL Rule 16.1 and a five-minute major under Rule 20.1 are one opportunity each, though the major gives two and a half times the advantage and does not end on a goal.

Can a power play percentage be more than 100%?

In principle yes, because a major penalty is not ended by a goal and two goals on one opportunity are possible. Over a season it is nowhere near: the best figure in the table on this page is 30.6%. The calculator does not refuse it, because the rules allow it.

What is a good power play percentage?

There is no published threshold, so this page prints no band. The NHL publishes the percentage for all 32 teams and no verdict on any of them, and a line drawn here would be one season’s distribution dressed up as a standard. The five real teams in the table above span 16.2% to 30.6%, which is a better guide to the spread than a made-up cut-off.

Related calculators

References

National Hockey League. NHL Stats Glossary, served as JSON at api.nhle.com/stats/rest/en/glossary (read 12 Oct 2026; 103,774 characters). The league’s own definitions and formulas, quoted verbatim wherever this site states one. nhl.com itself is robots-disallowed, and edge.nhl.com/en/glossary redirects to a page with no definitions on it.
National Hockey League. Team power play and penalty kill summaries, 2025-26 regular season, as JSON at api.nhle.com/stats/rest/en/team/powerplay and /team/penaltykill (read 12 Oct 2026; 32 teams each). All four formulas on this page were reproduced against them to five decimal places for five teams.
National Hockey League. 2024-2025 Official Rules. New York: NHL; 2024. PDF at media.nhl.com. Rules 1.2, 16.1, 18.1, 20.1 and 23 are quoted from the extracted text, which stops at 128,456 characters partway through Rule 19.4 — so Rule 77 (p.118), Rule 84 (p.129) and Rule 86 (p.134) could not be read and are quoted nowhere in this batch; their page numbers come from the book’s own contents.