82-0 NHL Challenge

The NHL plays the exact same 82-game schedule as the NBA, so the 82-0 challenge translates to hockey perfectly. Spin the slot machine, draft a six-man lineup of legends from five decades — center, wingers, a defense pair, and a goalie — and find out if they could win every single night. Play free below.

Choose Your Mode

How do you want to build your all-time team?

💯 Classic

Full player stats are visible — make informed picks based on the numbers.

🧠 Blind Draft

Stats are hidden — draft from memory and test how well you know the game.

What Would 82-0 Mean in the NHL?

An NHL regular season is 82 games — the same number as the NBA, which is why hockey fans keep typing '82-0 NHL' into search bars. No hockey team has come anywhere close: the best regular season ever, the 2022-23 Boston Bruins, finished 65-12-5, and the legendary 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens lost only eight times in a 80-game slate. Winning all 82 would mean surviving back-to-backs, road trips, hot goalies, and six months of bounces without one bad night.

That is exactly the fantasy this game simulates: not whether a great team can dominate, but whether a perfect lineup could literally never lose.

How the 82-0 NHL Challenge Works

The slot machine deals you a random franchise-and-era combo — the 1980s Oilers, the 1990s Red Wings, the 2020s Avalanche — and you draft one player from that team into your six-man lineup: a center, both wingers, a defense pair, and a goalie. Five decades of legends are in the pool, from Gretzky and Bourque to Crosby, McDavid and Makar, each carrying a real statistical line from his era.

Fill all six slots and the engine projects your 82-game season. Goaltending and center play carry the heaviest weight, and the simulation punishes any passenger in the lineup — one weak slot is usually the difference between a Presidents' Trophy run and 82-0. You get one team re-roll and one era re-roll per draft, so spend them wisely.

Hockey's Perfect-Season Math Is Crueler

Basketball's 82-0 is already absurd, but hockey adds two extra layers of chaos: a goalie can steal any game from either side, and one-goal margins decide almost half the league's nights. Even the deepest lineup in this game needs an elite goalie and zero soft spots before the engine will even consider handing out a perfect season — exactly the profile a real 82-0 team would need.

If you finish perfect, download the poster and share your lineup. And if you want to compare sports, the original basketball 82-0 challenge, the 17-0 NFL version and the rest of the family are all playable on this site.

Play the Original 82-0 Basketball Challenge

Frequently Asked Questions

► Has any NHL team ever gone 82-0?

No — nothing close. The best NHL regular season by points percentage was the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens (60-8-12), and the 2022-23 Boston Bruins set the wins record at 65. An 82-0 season has never happened in any major pro league.

► How is the NHL version different from the basketball 82-0 challenge?

Same core loop — random team-and-era spins, a draft of legends, an 82-game simulation — but the lineup is six hockey slots (C, LW, RW, two D, G) instead of five basketball positions, and goaltending carries the most weight of any single slot.

► Which eras and players are included?

Five decades of NHL history, from the 1980s to the 2020s, covering era-defining franchises like the Oilers dynasty, the 1990s Red Wings and Avalanche, the 2010s Blackhawks and Penguins, and today's stars like McDavid, MacKinnon and Makar.

► Is the 82-0 NHL challenge free?

Yes. It runs in the browser on desktop and mobile with no download or sign-up, and you can replay as often as you like.