What Is an Empty Net Goal in Hockey? Rules, Strategy, and Records

An empty net goal in hockey is a goal scored into a net with no goaltender guarding it, almost always because the goalie has been pulled for an extra attacker late in a close game. It’s one of the most common ways a two-goal lead becomes a three-goal final score, and it comes with its own strategy, statistics, and even its own hat trick trivia.

When and why teams pull the goalie

By the rules, a team can have up to six players on the ice at once, and nothing says one of them has to be a goaltender. Coaches use that freedom late in games. When a team is trailing in the third period, usually inside the final one to three minutes, the coach calls the goalie to the bench and sends out an extra skater, going from a 5-skaters-plus-goalie lineup to 6 skaters and an open net.

The math is simple: with the score already lost if nothing changes, a coach accepts the risk of conceding an empty net goal in exchange for one extra body pressuring the opponent’s zone. Modern NHL coaching has pushed this earlier than it used to be. Analytics departments across the league found that the extra-attacker advantage is worth more time on the ice than older conventional wisdom assumed, so pulls with over two minutes left are now common, and some teams pull the goalie down just one goal with well over two minutes remaining.

Goalie pulls aren’t limited to desperate, game-ending situations. Two other common triggers are covered below.

The delayed penalty connection

A delayed penalty is called when an infraction happens but the non-offending team still has possession of the puck. The referee raises an arm and lets play continue, because stopping it immediately would erase the advantage the fouled-against team just earned. Play only stops the moment the offending team touches the puck, at which point the whistle blows and the penalty is assessed.

This creates a free window for the team on the man advantage. Since the opponent legally cannot play the puck without stopping the whistle, there’s no danger in leaving the net open. So the non-offending team frequently pulls its own goaltender for a sixth attacker the instant a delayed penalty is signaled, then sends the goalie back to the net as soon as the whistle blows or the penalty is over. It’s a completely safe empty-net situation, unlike the late-game version.

Two-man advantage pulls

Less common, but part of the same logic: a team already on a two-man advantage (a 5-on-3 power play) will sometimes pull its goaltender too, turning it into a 6-on-3. This isn’t about running out of time, it’s about maximizing a short window of overwhelming numbers, and it can happen at any point in the game, not just the closing minutes.

How empty net goals are scored and tracked

Once the net is empty, any shot that crosses the goal line from anywhere on the ice counts, including a shot fired the length of the rink into an unguarded net after a clean defensive-zone clearance. That’s the most common empty net goal: a defenseman just chips the puck out and it slides untouched into the net 180 feet away.

Statistically, these goals are tracked with the abbreviation EN or ENG (empty net goal). They’re excluded from a goaltender’s save percentage and goals-against average, since the goalie wasn’t on the ice to have a chance at the save. That does create an odd wrinkle: a goaltender can be charged with the loss in the final box score even if their opponent’s only goals that period came after the goalie was already on the bench.

Situation	Goalie pulled by	Typical timing	Risk level
Trailing late in the game	Losing team	Final 1-3 minutes of period 3	High (net fully exposed)
Delayed penalty	Team with possession	Any point in the game	None (opponent can’t legally touch puck)
Two-man advantage	Team already on 5-on-3	Any point in the game	Low (opponent has only one skater to clear it)

Can a goalie score one?

Yes. Nothing in the rules stops a goaltender from shooting the puck the length of the ice into an empty net, and if it goes in, it’s credited to them as a full goal. Legendary New Jersey Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur is the most famous example: all three of his career NHL goals were empty netters, launched from his own crease after opponents cleared the way by pulling their goalie.

Empty net goals and hat tricks

Because an empty net goal counts the same as any other goal in the box score, a player’s third goal of the night, completing a hat trick, can absolutely be an empty netter. It happens fairly often in blowouts: a player scores twice against a goaltender, then adds an empty net goal in the final minutes to seal the hat trick. In rarer cases, all three goals of a hat trick have come into an empty net across separate stretches of a single dominant game, though most empty-net hat tricks mix in at least one goal scored on a goaltender.

Empty net goal vs. other late-game hockey terms

An empty net goal is closely tied to a handful of other situational terms that show up in the same late-game stretch. The “extra attacker” is the sixth skater added when the goalie is pulled. A “delayed penalty” is one of the two safe windows described above. And the crease, the blue-painted area in front of the net, is still governed by its usual rules even once the goalie is off the ice, since goal-crease interference calls apply to the goaltender’s replacement position, not just the goalie in net.

For the full breakdown of terms like these, see our hockey terminology glossary, and check our explainer on the crease in hockey for how that zone works even when it’s unguarded. Empty net situations are also shaped by clock management, so pairing this with how many periods are in a hockey game helps explain why the final minutes matter so much. For more rules explainers like this one, visit our Ice Hockey hub.