What Is a Shootout in Hockey?

After a tied game and a scoreless five-minute overtime, each team selects three shooters. They alternate taking penalty shots — a one-on-one breakaway from center ice against the goalie — and the team with more goals after three rounds each wins. If still tied, the shootout continues in sudden-death rounds until one team scores and the other misses in the same round.

Each team uses three shooters in the initial rounds. If the score is level after those three rounds each, the shootout moves to sudden death, where teams keep sending out shooters one at a time. After the first pool of skaters is used, teams can start reusing players, so a long shootout can see stars take multiple attempts.

Only in the NHL regular season, and only after a game is tied following the five-minute three-on-three [overtime](/overtime-rules-in-the-nhl/). It decides which team gets the second standings point. Shootouts are not used in the playoffs, where tied games go to continuous sudden-death overtime instead. Some other leagues and international tournaments use shootouts in their own formats.

The shootout decides the game, but shootout goals do not count toward players' individual goal totals or the game's official score in the usual sense — the final score is recorded as one goal higher for the winning team. Individual shootout attempts are tracked as their own statistic. So a hat trick in a shootout, for example, does not count as a [hat trick](/what-is-a-hat-trick-in-hockey/) in a player's season totals.

The league considers a shootout too arbitrary a way to settle high-stakes playoff games, so the postseason uses continuous five-on-five sudden-death overtime until a goal is scored. The regular season uses shootouts mainly to avoid marathon games during an 82-game schedule. The contrast is deliberate: entertainment and schedule management in the regular season, pure hockey in the playoffs.

A shooter starts with the puck at center ice and skates in alone on the goalie, and must keep the puck moving forward — no stopping and backing up. Once the puck is shot and the play is dead, the attempt is over. It is essentially a penalty shot, and the same restrictions apply: no second shots on a rebound, and the shot must be a continuous forward motion toward the net.

They are divisive. Many fans love the one-on-one drama and the creativity of the moves shooters attempt, while purists dislike settling a team game with an individual skills contest. The move to three-on-three overtime in 2015 was partly a response to that criticism, reducing how often games reach a shootout by making the overtime period itself more likely to produce a winner.