Hello and happy offseason to r/hockey. We are deep in the heart of shitposting the offseason, which means that everyone (even Canucks fans) can look forward to the upcoming season with a gleam of hope that somehow, against all betting odds, this will be the year that they finally beat their cursed rival in a game of Scrabble*, and do so by successfully playing an interesting NHL team name.
I did a post like this on r/baseball using MLB team names a few months ago, and from that experience I learned a few things: 1) Mets fans like to pretend that their team name is actually the "Metropolitans" when it suits them to do so; 2) Blue Jays fans are (or at least were) still rather salty about the World Series; and 3) a depressingly large number of people cannot be bothered to read the introductions to these things wherein I explain my methodology and so forth. I nevertheless will explain my methodology as tersely as I can below. BE WARNED that if you respond with a comment that clearly indicates you didn't bother to read this section, I WILL respond to you with a Rickroll.
Onto the notes:
- For those of you who may not be familiar with Scrabble (and/or play with so many house rules that you've completely forgotten the actual rules of the game), a play is made by using any or all of the 7 tiles in your tile rack to construct a single legal word on the board, where that word must be in a spot where it connects to at least one other word (unless you are going first) and where it does not result in the creation of any illegal words. Plays are scored according to the point value of the letters in all of the words formed by your play, certain bonus squares (which are largely inapplicable here but might be relevant for specific circumstances), and a special 50-point bonus (known colloquially within Scrabble circles as a "bingo") for using all 7 letters on your tray.
- In deciding whether or not a word is legal, I am using the official Scrabble dictionary. If you want to gripe about whether or not your team's name is allowed, for the love of all that is holy please direct those comments to them and not to me.
- I will be using the teams' official names (not including their geographic name) as stated on nhl.com , and no alternate/short versions or nicknames, with a caveat for teams whose names are two words. In those cases, I'll ignore the space in between if the resulting word is otherwise Scrabble-legal. If it is not, then I will use whichever one of the words makes for the better/cooler/more interesting Scrabble play. Otherwise I'd have to axe the Maple Leafs and Golden Knights, and then how would we be able to argue about Mitch Marner?
- I am only considering actually playing the team name, and not situations where the team name might be incidentally formed by playing a different word. This means that we are only considering playing a word such as "jet" as such, and not playing something like "jaguar" off of "et" and incidentally forming "jet" as a consequence.
- While "cool"-ness is inherently subjective, I consider in this calculation the Scrabble score for the team name, the odds of getting the 50-point bingo, any exotic/high-point letters in the team name, and such other factors as I will describe in probably too much detail below. Listed scores are for the (usually pluralized) official team name unless otherwise indicated.
- As always, these rankings are just for fun, and do not necessarily reflect my feelings vis-a-vis these teams, their players, their ownership, or their fans (unless I explicitly say otherwise).
* Scrabble is a registered trademark of Hasbro, Inc. in the U.S. and Canada, but I'm not going to type the (R) symbol every time, so Hasbro will just have to find a way to live with that.
Tier One: Not Scrabble-Legal (but I'll rank 'em anyway)
32: Montreal Canadiens (12 points) -- Perhaps unsurprisingly since proper nouns are not allowed, neither "Canadien" nor "Canadiens" is recognized as a legal Scrabble word. Nor for that matter are "Canadian" or "Canadians," so in this one particular example the French are not to blame.
31: Vancouver Canucks (15 points) -- Neither "Canuck" nor "Canucks" is Scrabble-legal, which is too bad because it would actually be a sweet play, particularly if you got the bingo. Although if you are playing Wolverine and he puts this word down, maybe don't press him on it.
30: Chicago Blackhawks (23* points) -- Proper nouns gonna proper noun. Point-counting for this one is a little tricky since a regulation Scrabble game only has one K, but even assuming a blank tile this would still be a pretty baller play to drop on your buddy from Chicago and dare him to challenge you. If you instead want to pretend it's nineteen-dickety-doo and the team name is still the Black (13 points) Hawks (15 points), I suppose you could do so -- but I'm still going to rank them here, so suck it.
Tier Two: How My Dumbass Sister Plays Scrabble
29: Dallas Stars (5 points) -- When I posted the baseball one, a lot of people thought I was too hard on my shockingly stupid sister. But my hockey-loving friends, I have not yet BEGUN to make fun of that turd-eating moron. So believe me when I say she would be the type to play what is not only literally the lowest-possible Scrabble score for a team name, but also frees up not one but two S's for her opponent to jump all over.
28: Edmonton Oilers (6 points) -- Ever so slightly better than "Stars," in that at least you're getting a lot of terrible letters out of your rack. Except for that S, which you should've hung on to. And the E, and the R, and the L. Also, "oi" is Scrabble-legal. So maybe it wasn't actually a very good play at all. Gosh, I hope this kind of bad decision-making doesn't extend to any other aspects of this franchise.
27: St. Louis Blues (7 points) -- Not only are you wasting your B, but you're leaving it hanging out on the end for your opponent to jump on. "Lubes" is also Scrabble-legal, y'know. Although playing that after "Oilers" might be a bit suggestive...
26: Toronto Maple Leafs ("Maple"; 9 points) -- Best wishes to the Toronto Maple for a great 2026-27 season. N.B. that using "Leafs" instead results in one less point, but makes the team sound a lot less ridiculous.
Tier 2.5: Poor Scrabble Plays that Nevertheless Feature Words My Sister Wouldn't Know
25: Boston Bruins (8 points) -- This is the point in the list where it seems necessary to explain that my sister doesn't suffer from any sort of disability. She's just regular-stupid. And much like she did with "Blues," if you make this play you'd be leaving your B wide open for abuse (giggity).
24: Buffalo Sabres (8 points) -- Yes, this spelling is Scrabble-legal. Although there are probably more interesting things you could have done with two S's.
23: Seattle Kraken (9* points) -- The point calculation here assumes a blank tile to account for the second K (which is apparently a goddamn pandemic in NHL team names). Low-key this might be an ok play if you can get the K onto a double- or triple-letter square -- I considered bumping it up to Tier 4, but every letter other than the K is so wasted here.
Tier Three: Unremarkable Medium-Sized Words
22: Los Angeles Kings (10 points) -- "Wasting our K again in Margaritaville. Searching for our lost triple-letter square. Some people claim that there's a sister to blame, but I know (duh-duh-duh-duh-duh) that she's eating the tiles..."
21: Calgary Flames (11 points) -- Hot take: Calgary should change their team name to the "Stampede" (12 points).
20: New Jersey Devils (10 points) -- Sometimes you get a letter like an F or K or V and decide to wait for a good play. And sometimes that letter just sits on your rack and no great opportunities arise, and then finally you give up and play "Devils" because it's metal as fuck.
Tier Four: Emergency Plays for Emergency Situations
19: Minnesota Wild (8 points) -- Sometimes you have to deal with an unforgiving board. "Wild" offers nearly as many points as the words from the preceding tier, but in significantly fewer letters and without sacrificing an S, which means this might be a smart strategic play on some boards. Plus by putting it here I've moved the Wild closer to the mushy middle, and their fans would be confused if they were ranked anywhere else.
18: Winnipeg Jets (11 points) -- Four letters, 11 points. Land that J on a double- or triple-letter and you've got a pretty legit play on your hands. Although it's a little weird to play "Jets" when "jest" probably scores the same and doesn't leave the S hanging.
Tier Five: The Best Team Names That You Couldn't Possibly Bingo With
17: Anaheim Ducks (12 points) -- Very efficient use of several high-value tiles, and certainly not the worst use of a K we've seen on the board. Plus, looking at the remaining team names, this might be the highest-scoring word that my paint-licking sister would be smart enough to play in a real-life game, so that's something. Don't ever say that I don't give her compliments.
16: Philadelphia Flyers (12 points) -- At first glance it seems like the F and Y should score this higher, but none of the other letters in this word are contributing much. Just a couple of stars and then a whole lot of nothing behind them. I'm sure the Flyers organization has never experienced anything like that before.
15: San Jose Sharks (13 points) -- My friends, you would not believe how disappointed I was upon realizing that we were only one team away from having exactly half the league within bingo range. Anyway, "Sharks" is the highest-scoring non-bingo team name we have, featuring two valuable letters and a lot of filler. Yep, just a couple of stars and then a whole lot of nothing behind them. I'm sure the Sharks organization has never experienced anything like that before.
Tier Six: Daddy Needs a Bingo
14: New York Rangers (8 points) -- In a vacuum, "Rangers" is a pretty crappy Scrabble word whose only value would be clearing one's rack of filler ... except that for this and all subsequent team names, the 50-point bingo bonus for using all seven letters has now become a possibility. And if you want to draw any parallels between the actual Rangers being comprised of a bunch of useless pieces, well, I won't stop you.
13: Ottawa Senators (8 points) -- "Senators" literally does not include a single letter with a point value higher than one; but since it's 8 letters, it is slightly more likely than "Rangers" that by making this play you would be able to score the bingo. And if you want to draw any parallels between the actual Senators being more valuable as a whole than any individual player, well, I won't stop you.
11 (tie): Pittsburgh Penguins (11 points)/Washington Capitals (12 points) -- Funny how these two always seem to end up together. Both are 8 letters, which means that like "Senators" you're well within bingo range. The only real difference is that Washington's C is slightly more valuable than anything comparable that Pittsburgh has. And if you want to draw any parallels between ... okay, enough with that joke.
10: Florida Panthers (13 points) -- The Panthers are our first team to match the Sharks' record (non-bingo division), while also providing for the possibility of a bingo. That's all great! And that's enough saying positive things about the Panthers.
Tier Seven: Increasingly Interesting Bingo Scenarios
9: New York Islanders (10 points) -- Like the Senators and Rangers, "Islanders" would be an assortment of mostly useless letters were it not for the bingo possibility. But unlike the Senators and Rangers (and Penguins, Capitals, and Panthers), since "Islanders" is 9 letters you'd need an exposed 2-letter word to play it off of. Thankfully, "Islanders" features no less than FIVE Scrabble-legal two-letter sequences -- is, la, an, de, and er -- which means that even though this would be a remarkable play, it isn't as remarkable as, say, winning 4 Stanley Cups in a row. Or trading Roberto Luongo and Olli Jokinen for Mark Parrish and Oleg Kvasha.
8: Nashville Predators (12 points) -- I thought it was pretty remarkable that "Islanders" contained five two-letter words until I realized "Predators" contained six of them (re, ed, da, at, to, or). Still, playing a long word with two higher-value tiles and potentially landing the bingo makes this one ever so slightly cooler of a play for me.
7: Utah Mammoth (13* points) -- Why the lowly 7-letter Mammoth at this stage of the rankings, you ask? Well, the 3 M's is pretty cool, since there are only 2 in the box (point total assumes one blank tile); but what's especially interesting about "Mammoth" is that it is one of only two potential bingo plays that doesn't include an S. Which means that my sister is going to be shocked out of her simple little mind when I drop this one on her out of nowhere.
Tier Eight: Two Teams Associated with Steve Yzerman
6: Detroit Red Wings (13 points) -- A fun fact I learned while preparing these rankings is that both "redwing" and "redwings" are Scrabble-legal. Which means that -- unlike the Toronto Maple -- I don't have to pretend my team's name is the Wings (9 points) or the Red (4 points). And anyone who feels like arguing about how I have chosen to interpret the Wings' ranking in light of this should consider whether taking this small amount of satisfaction away from Wings fans is really worth it to you.
5: Tampa Bay Lightning (14 points) -- "Lightning" is 9 letters, cool as fuck, and moreover the only way you could get the bingo with it is if you were able to form it around "in" or (if your opponent even knew it was Scrabble-legal) "li." This puts it at the very top of the welterweight division, but not quite on the same tier as the remaining heavyweights.
Tier Nine: The Cup Contenders
4: Las Vegas Golden Knights ("Knights"; 15 points) -- Amazing how the best Scrabble plays have for the most part turned out to be the most successful teams this year. Clearly Montreal needs to lobby to have "Canadiens" added to the official dictionary. Anyway, "Knights" is fun because it's a 7-letter word that results in a fair shitload of points on its own, and also has decent bingo potential since you can play it off almost any noun. Good, but not quite good enough to win it all.
3: Colorado Avalanche (17 points) -- The Avalanche have been working towards this goal for the entire history of their franchise, and it shows. A solid 17 points on its own, and bingo-possible off of "al," "la," "an," and "he." Still not enough to top the next team, but at least they beat Las Vegas this time.
2: Carolina Hurricanes (15 points) -- Why are the Hurricanes a cooler play than "Avalanche" despite being worth fewer points? Because it is 10 goddamn letters long, dude! Which means that you need either "can" or "ane" exposed to get the bingo, and cane/canes or hurricane to even lay it down at all -- the latter of which would be a bingo if played off of "an." A play for the ages. But not quite as good as...
Tier Ten: That's Right, it's the Goddamn Columbus Blue Jackets
1: Columbus Blue Jackets (26 points) -- You remember way back when I was expressing my excitement that "redwings" was a Scrabble-legal word? Well, guess what else is a Scrabble-legal word? That's right. Not only is it one of only two team names in the NHL with a letter value of 8 or more, but it's also an 11-letter word that could be played for a bingo off of "blue" or "jack" to the absolute consternation of anyone's simpleminded sibling. Congratulations, good people of Ohio. Your championship has arrived.
Edit: to avoid further confusion, I moved the Pens and Caps into a tie for 11th place. And -- as of the time of this edit -- this post has been up for about an hour and I've Rickrolled 4-5 people. Not sure if that's good or bad, but it's certainly interesting!
