With the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs well underway, there's never been a better time to support one of the eight teams still alive in the sport's postseason.
To get a sense of which NHL fanbases are the least supportive long term, RotoWire.com broke down each team's supporters across a variety of metrics, giving us a "Bandwagon Score" for each club. Here's what we found:
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Methodology
The Bandwagon Score is a 0–100 composite built from four publicly available signals, weighted by how directly each one captures bandwagon behavior. All inputs are pulled for the 2025-26 NHL regular season window (Oct 2025 – Apr 2026) plus the opening rounds of the 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs and normalized to a 0–100 scale before weighting.
Which NHL Teams Have The Highest Bandwagon Totals?
While their quest for a three-peat as Stanley Cup champs came up short, it still seems like the fanbase supporting the 
Florida Panthers is a bit short on passion. That's because the Panthers, who missed the postseason entirely in 2026 after finishing with 84 points, have the highest Bandwagon Score leaguewide, at 82.4.
Unsurprisingly, the No. 2 team on our list is another Sunbelt franchise, with the 
Vegas Golden Knights riding the high of the club's Stanley Cup title in 2023 and eight postseason berths in nine years to score the second-highest Bandwagon total leaguewide, with 78.6 points in total.
The highest placing traditional NHL power on our list was the 
Edmonton Oilers, who finished with the third-most points overall, at 76.3, thanks to employing superstar forward Connor McDavid and reaching the Stanley Cup Final in 2024 and 2025.
Conversely, the NHL's leader when it came to loyalty was its newest member, with the Utah Mammoth posting a total of 24.3 points after moving to the Beehive State in 2024. Outside of Salt Lake City, the NHL's teams that scored the lowest totals, bandwagon wise, were the Winnipeg Jets (26.1 points), Columbus Blue Jackets (27.6 points) and the Minnesota Wild (29.4 points), with the latter of the quintet being the only team still standing in the Stanley Cup playoffs this year.
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Which Bandwagon Leaders Are Still Alive?
While our top team, bandwagon wise, missed the postseason entirely, the Golden Knights are still alive, squaring off against the Anaheim Ducks in the 2nd round after beating the Utah Mammoth in six games to open the playoffs.
While McDavid and the Oilers weren't as lucky, losing in six games to the Ducks, our No. 5 team, bandwagon wise, is also alive out West.
That's because the Colorado Avalanche, who are fifth on our list with 71.8 points (one spot behind the Toronto Maple Leafs, who had a score of 73.9 points), currently lead the Minnesota Wild 1-0 on the other side of the 2nd round bracket out West.
Looking at the odds posted by BetMGM, the Avs' have the best shot at hoisting some hardware of the top five NHL teams on our Bandwagon Score list, with the Las Vegas mainstay listing them as the No. 1 suitor leaguewide, at +190, while the Golden Knights are third, at +600.
The No. 2 team on BetMGM's Stanley Cup championship odds board (the Carolina Hurricanes, at +195) posted the 13th highest Bandwagon Score across the 32-team NHL, with 54.3 points, while the Montreal Canadiens were 16th on our list (with 48.9 points), to go with their current +900 championship odds right now.
The NHL team with the longest Stanley Cup title odds on BetMGM (the Philadelphia Flyers, at +4000), ranked 22nd on our Bandwagon Score board, with a total of 39.7 points, speaking to the loyalty that sports fans in the City of Brotherly Love have for their hometown teams, even when they face daunting odds in hockey's gauntlet of a postseason.
