An assist is credit for setting up a goal. When a goal is scored, up to two teammates can also get their names in the scoresheet if they are the last two teammates who touched the puck before the scorer, as long as the other team didn’t take control of it in between.
Each NHL team plays 84 regular-season games with 42 at home and 42 on the road. That’s new: the schedule was 82 games for about 30 years, and 2026-27 is the first 84-game season since 1993-94.
Hockey was born outside on frozen ponds, backyard rinks, lakes. The NHL moves a few games outdoors every year as a nod to those roots, and because it’s a spectacle: tens of thousands of fans packed into a football stadium, watching under the open sky.
Fighting isn’t exactly “allowed” in hockey as it’s penalized, just not with an ejection. When two NHL players fight, each gets a five-minute major penalty and sits in the penalty box, then returns to the game. Because both players are penalized equally, their teams keep playing 5-on-5.
Frozen Frenzy is one night where all 32 NHL teams play. 16 games on the same evening, each starting at a different time, about 15 minutes apart. Instead of picking one game, you can watch a whip-around show on ESPN2 that jumps live from game to game, showing every goal, big save, and wild finish as it happens.
A hat trick is when one player scores three goals in a single game. Fans celebrate by throwing their hats onto the ice. Seeing them raining down while the ice crew scrambles to collect them is one of hockey’s best traditions.
If an NHL game is tied after three periods, it goes to a 5-minute sudden-death overtime played 3-on-3 where the first goal wins. If nobody scores, it goes to a shootout: three shooters per side, then sudden death.
When a team is losing late in the game, they pull the goalie and send out a sixth skater, six attackers against five defenders. It’s a gamble: much better odds of scoring the tying goal, but an empty net means the other team can fire the puck the length of the ice into it
A player is offside if they cross the blue line into the attacking zone before the puck does. That’s the whole rule the puck has to go in first, then the players. Jump the gun and the whistle blows, and the faceoff moves outside the zone.
A power play is when one team has more skaters on the ice because an opposing player is stuck in the penalty box. Most often it’s 5 skaters against 4, for two minutes. The team with the extra skater is “on the power play,” and the short-handed team is “killing the penalty.” It’s hockey’s version of a free advantage and a huge scoring chance.
