Explained: NHL Overtime Rules 2023

When the NHL began using the 3-on-3 overtime rules during the regular season, it has become must-see television. Of course, there is nothing better than overtime playoff hockey during the postseason.

There are some distinctions between the two, and for those who don’t understand how NHL overtime works, here is an explanation of what occurs in both the regular season and the playoffs when a game is tied after regulation.

Before the 2015–16 season, the NHL adopted a 3-on-3 overtime system. This format was already in use by the AHL and ECHL when the NHL opted to switch it up from 4-on-4.

The key features of NHL overtime rules

NHL overtime rules for preseason and regular season

  • Teams play a five-minute overtime period of 3-on-3 hockey
  • The OT period is played sudden-death style, so the first team to score wins
  • After the five minutes, if no one has scored, the game goes to a shootout
  • Each team selects three shooters to go for the three rounds of the shootout. Each team shoots once per round
  • The team with the most goals scored after the three rounds wins the game
  • If the teams score the same amount of goals in the three rounds, then it goes round by round until one team scores and the other does not.

NHL overtime rules for playoff games

  • If the game is tied after regulation, the teams will play another full 20-minute period of overtime at 5-on-5 hockey
  • It is once again sudden-death style, so the first team to score wins the game
  • If no one scores in the first OT period, the game continues into a second, and a third, and so on and so forth until a team scores to win it.

Changes to NHL overtime rules

The elimination of ties was the primary aspect of overtime that changed around the turn of the century (more particularly, before the 2005–2006 season).

For a long time, if a game was tied after three periods, a fourth period would be played, and the winner would be the side who scored first.

If there was no winner after the overtime period in the regular season, the result would be a tie.

If it was a playoff game, the 2 teams would play as many periods as necessary until there was a goal.

Although the rules have changed, overtime games, at least during the regular season, have become a lot shorter.

The difference between overtime in the regular season and the playoffs

NHL Regular Season Overtime Rules

Ice hockey overtime moves much more quickly during the regular season because there are less players on the rink.

There is one additional 5-minute playing period after the normal playing time has ended. The overtime is played as a 3 on 3 game rather than a 5 on 5. In effect since the 2015–16 season is this regulation.

If there remains a tie after the allotted five minutes, a shootout—one of ice hockey’s most thrilling plays—is then used to decide the winner.

The side with the most goals at the end of the best-of-three shootout wins.
If there is a tie at the end of the shootout, then there are subsequent rounds until one team has scored one more time against the opposing goalie.

Overtime in the regular season affects both the winning and the losing team. The team that loses in regular overtime still gets one point in the standings.

For those who aren’t familiar with the way NHL division standings work, instead of simply counting wins and losses, there is a points system.

You get:

  • 2 points for a win (regardless of whether or not it is regulation or overtime)

  • 1 point for an overtime loss (before these new rules were put in place, it had to be a tie)

  • No points for a regulation loss

NHL Playoffs Overtime Rules

The overtime regulations during the playoffs are very different, and the players must have a different kind of tenacity.

Why? due to the fact that players participate in a subsequent 20-minute session, and if the score remains tied after that, they must play again.

Up until one of the teams scores, both teams continue to play. The winning team is the one who scores the winning goal.

The game proceeds into a second overtime if no one scores in the first one, and so on until someone does.

History of NHL overtime rules

Before shortening it to 10 minutes in 1927, the NHL introduced a 5-on-5, 20-minute extra period in 1921. The league continued to employ the sudden-death style at the time.

The league switched to non-sudden death the following season, making the session last the entire 10 minutes. At the conclusion of overtime, a draw resulted if the score remained the same.

Due to constraints placed on rail timetables during the Second World War, overtime was taken out of regular-season games in 1942. Every game that remains tied after regulation ends in a draw. Sudden-death overtime sessions of 20 minutes were still used in the playoffs.

The NHL reinstated the overtime session more than 40 years later, adding a five-minute sudden-death period this time. Up until 1999, the league played in a 5-on-5 style. Then, for the 1999–2000 regular season, the league switched to a 4-on-4 model. Teams received one point for a loss in overtime and two points for a victory this season as well. Both teams received a point if there was no overtime scoring.

In the wake of the NHL lockout in 2005, the shootout was implemented. The winner would be decided by a shootout if no team scored in overtime. This made hockey games without ties impossible.

In 2015, the 3-on-3 format was officially approved.

Famous NHL overtime games

1936 NHL Semis

The 1936 NHL Semis game holds the record for the longest overtime game in NHL playoff history.

6 overtime periods were added to this game before the Detroit Red Wings eventually won!

2000 Eastern Conference Semis

In May 2000, the Philadelphia Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins experienced a brutal game at the Eastern Conference Semis.

This game had 5 added overtime periods, making it the third longest NHL playoff game in history.

2020 East First Round

In the 2020 playoffs, Tampa Bay and Columbus played against each other in an East First Round game that experienced 5 additional periods.

This meant that the game lasted over 6 hours in total!

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