What Is ROW In Ice Hockey Standings? NHL Stats

Today, we’ll examine yet another ice hockey statistic. Since it is used to rank clubs on the standings of ice hockey leagues, this statistic is highly important in ice hockey and the NHL. For determining which teams will advance to the playoffs in leagues like the NHL, ROW is one of the first tiebreakers utilized in ice hockey.

In this article we will be looking at the meaning of ROW in ice hockey, its use, how it affects the NHL standing, and some of the teams with the highest ROW points in an NHL season.

What Does ROW Stand For In Ice Hockey?

ROW, which stands for Regular Plus Overtime Wins, is a hockey club metrics characteristic. It is a team statistic that displays the number of games won by a team in either normal time or overtime.

In ice hockey, the borders of ROW do not extend to games won in shootouts. Since ROW was developed to rank clubs that are tied in point during the NHL team standings, shootouts are not included in the calculation of the regular plus overtime wins.

How Does ROW Work In Ice Hockey?

In ice hockey, ROW serves as a tiebreaker when two or more teams have the same number of points. But to understand how ROW is used to settle point ties, we must take a look at the NHL point system. 

ROW And The NHL Point System

The NHL point system is a system of awarding points to teams for wins and losses. The NHL point system also others the manner of ranking teams in the NHL. Here is a summary of how points are allocated:

From the table, every win is allocated two points, and every loss is awarded a point aside from regulation loss. This point system exists because there is no tie in the NHL, a team can either win or lose a game. 

For this reason, a method was made for resolving disputes between two or more teams when they have the same number of points. This is because points serve as the foundation for arranging teams in standing.

Whenever this happens, the first method of a tiebreaker is the regulation wins (RW), and if that is also tied, the regulation plus overtime win (ROW) becomes the tiebreaker. 

It is also important to note that this can only be used when both teams have played the same number of games. 

Therefore, in a scenario where two teams have the same number of points and a regulation win, the tiebreaker will favor teams who have a higher regulation plus overtime win compared to teams with a higher shootout win.

Examples Of ROW Has A Tiebreaker

The table below shows a hypothetical NHL standing with some teams tied. This table will be used as a means to define how ROW is used as a tiebreaker in ice hockey.

The Leafs and Rangers are tied for first place in the above table in terms of points, but the Maple Leafs have more wins in regulation.

However, the Tampa Bay Lightning, Montreal Canadiens, and Pittsburgh Penguins all have the same number of points and regulation wins.

The ROW in this case serves as the teams’ tie-breaker. Even though they have more victories than the Canadiens and Lightnings in the table, the Penguins’ wins are primarily the result of shootouts because they have fewer RW and ROW than the Canadiens and Lightnings.

This shows that the number of wins is not a major determiner like the number of RW and ROW in ice hockey.

Reason For ROW In Ice Hockey

ROW was added to ice hockey because wins by shootouts were considered to not be of equal relevance as wins during regulation time or overtime. This is because unlike in regulation and overtime where goals and wins are a collective effort of the skill of the team as a whole, shootouts just display the strength of a player. 

Also, people were not satisfied whenever a team that had more regulation wins or overtime wins was unable to make the playoffs because teams with more shootout wins ranked over them. 

Because of this, the league eventually decided to include ROW in the league standings statistics. In the end, the league established a rule stating that regulation wins should be given more weight than determining ROW. Similarly, ROWs are made of higher relevance to shootout wins.

Most ROW In The NHL

The NHL assigns teams a division, conference, and overall league status during each season. The NHL’s league standing provides a more thorough point-based ranking of each team.

The teams with the most goals in regulation and overtime are visible from the league standings. The teams with the highest ROW in the 2021–2022 and 2022–2023 seasons will be examined in this section.

NHL Teams With The Most ROW In The 2021-22 Season

The Florida Panthers were the NHL team with the most ROW for the 2021-22 season, as well as the team with the most points for the season. The Panthers had 55 ROW during the 2021-22 season. Nevertheless, the Hurricanes are behind the Panthers with 53 wins in regular and overtime.

NHL Team With The Most ROW In The 2022-23 Season

The team with the most regulation plus overtime wins for the 2022-23 season is the Boston Bruins with 60 points. Next to the Bruins in second place is the New Jersey Devils with 50 ROW points.

Conclusion

So this brings us to the end of this topic on ROW in ice hockey. ROW is just as important in ice hockey, especially as a tiebreaker and ranking teams for playoffs.

If you are new to stats in the NHL, read this article on Understanding Ice Hockey Stats: Players And Team. Thanks for reading.