How It Works

Rules, pool types, and scoring for Puck Drop.

Overview

Each pool has up to ~30 members who make picks for each round of the NHL playoffs.
Picks are round by round — you only pick the current round, not the whole bracket upfront.
The pick window opens once the last game of the previous round finishes.
The pick window closes at puck drop of the first game of the new round. A live countdown is shown on your bracket.
If you miss the deadline, picks are randomly assigned and a −1 point penalty is applied for that round. Auto-assigned picks are flagged on your bracket.
Scores update automatically as series complete throughout the playoffs.

Classic Pool

The original format. Pick series winners, predict game counts, and choose a Stanley Cup champion.

Series picks

Pick the winner of each series in the round.
Also predict how many games the series goes (4, 5, 6, or 7).

Scoring

Correct series winner1 pt

Correct winner + exact games+1 bonus (2 pts total)

Correctly called a 4-game sweep+2 bonus (3 pts total)

Stanley Cup champion pick5 pts

Cup pick

Choose your Stanley Cup champion before Round 1 puck drop. This locks once the playoffs begin.
Worth 5 points if your team hoists the Cup.
Your cup pick shows alive or eliminated on the leaderboard throughout the playoffs.

Tiebreakers

1st — Finals total goals prediction. After the conference finals end, each member predicts the total goals scored across all Stanley Cup Final games. No two members in the same pool can submit the same number. Closest to actual wins the tiebreak. This does not add to your score — it only resolves ties.
2nd — Correct game count predictions. How many series did you correctly predict the exact number of games (e.g. you said 6 and it went 6)?
3rd — Total correct series picks. Simple count of series where you picked the right winner.

Wager Pool

A strategic format where you allocate a points budget across series each round. Bet more on what you're confident about — and pay the price if you're wrong.

How wagering works

Each round you receive a budget of points to distribute across all series in that round.
You must put at least 1 point on every series. You must spend your entire budget.
No exact games prediction — just pick who wins and decide how confident you are.

Round budgets

Round 1 — 8 series15 pts to wager

Round 2 — 4 series15 pts to wager

Conference Finals — 2 series15 pts to wager

Stanley Cup Final — 1 series15 pts to wager

Flat 15 pts per round so later rounds stay competitive — a bad Round 1 doesn't bury you. The commissioner can adjust per round when creating or editing the pool.

Win modes

Earn mode

Correct pick: you earn your wager. Wrong pick: you earn 0. Simple.

Steal mode

Correct pickers earn their wager plus split the wagers of everyone who got it wrong (rounded down). If everyone picks the same team and they lose, the points evaporate — no one earns anything. This rewards picking against the crowd when you think the favourite is going to choke.

Cup pick

You get 15 points to spread across 1–3 teams as your Cup pick at the start of the playoffs — consistent with the 15-point budget for each round.
If your team wins the Cup, you earn the points you wagered on them. No stealing on cup picks.
You'll get a notification in Chirps each time one of your picked teams is eliminated.

Tiebreakers

1st: Own-wager points earned (stolen points don't count for this — rewards the better picker, not the luckier one).
2nd: Total correct series picks.

The leaderboard always shows your own and stolen points separately alongside your total — similar to how the NHL displays regulation wins vs. overtime wins.

Confidence Pool

Put a number on how sure you are about every series. The more confidence you show, the more you earn — but you can only use each rank once per round.

How ranking works

Each round, assign a unique confidence rank to every series — 1 through N, where N is the number of series in the round.
Rank N = most confident. Rank 1 = least confident. No two series can share the same rank.
A correct pick earns rank × round multiplier points. Wrong pick earns 0.
You must pick a winner AND assign a rank to every series before you can submit. No partial saves.

Round multipliers

Round 1 — 8 series, rank 1–8rank × 1 (max 36 pts)

Round 2 — 4 series, rank 1–4rank × 3 (max 30 pts)

Conference Finals — 2 series, rank 1–2rank × 9 (max 27 pts)

Stanley Cup Final — 1 series25 pts flat

Multipliers scale so later rounds stay competitive — a bad R1 doesn't bury you. R4 is flat because there's only one series to rank.

Cup pick

Choose your Stanley Cup champion before Round 1 puck drop. Locks once the playoffs begin.
Worth 25 points if your team wins the Cup — significant enough to matter at the end of the season.
Your cup pick shows alive or eliminated on the leaderboard throughout the playoffs.

Finals total goals

After the conference finals end, predict the total goals scored across all Stanley Cup Final games.
No two members in the same pool can submit the same number.
This is a tiebreaker only — used to resolve ties at the end of the season.

Tiebreakers

1st: Finals total goals prediction (closest to actual).
2nd: Highest single-pick earnings (the most points earned on any one correct pick — rewards the boldest correct call).
3rd: Total correct series picks across all rounds.

Chirps

When a player burns their highest rank on the wrong team, the pool hears about it.
When a team wins that most of the pool ranked low — “should have had more CONFIDENCE in these guys!”

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