How NHL Overtime Works

Three points. That is what suddenly sits on the table the moment an NHL game pushes past regulation, and it is the quiet wrinkle that decides playoff races every spring. Here is how NHL overtime works, start to finish: two points go to the winner, and one goes to the team that loses in overtime or a shootout, the famous loser point. A game settled in the third period hands out only two. So overtime does not just decide who wins, it changes how many points even exist. I call that the Three-Point Game.

That one-point gap, paid out for losing after 60 minutes, is the whole quirk, and it is why two teams with the same number of wins can finish miles apart in the standings.

How regular-season overtime works

If a regular-season game is tied after 60 minutes, the teams play a five-minute overtime at three skaters per side, plus goalies. It is sudden death, so the first goal ends it. And three-on-three is wild on purpose, all that open ice turns a tie game into a track meet, with odd-man rushes flying both directions.

Here is the part casual fans miss: both teams are guaranteed at least one point the second overtime starts, because nobody can drop to a regulation loss anymore. That safety net changes how teams play, and it is the root of every loser-point argument later in this guide. If the five minutes solve nothing, the game heads to a shootout. The full sudden-death drama plays out on a bigger stage in the playoffs, the kind of stakes our 16-win playoff map breaks down round by round.

How the shootout works

The shootout is a tiebreaker, not really hockey, and it only exists in the regular season. Each coach picks three shooters. They alternate, one skater alone against the goalie, and the home team chooses whether to shoot first or second. Most goals after three rounds wins.

Still tied after three? Then it becomes sudden death of its own, one shooter per side per round, until one team scores and the other does not. A team can roll the same sniper over and over once the named three are used. It is a coin flip dressed up as skill, which is exactly why the league keeps trying to make overtime end before it ever gets here.

How playoff overtime is different

Playoff overtime throws the regular-season rulebook out. There is no three-on-three and no shootout, ever. Instead, the teams play a full 20-minute period at five-on-five, sudden death, and if nobody scores they take a quick intermission and play another full period. They keep going until a puck crosses the line, even if that takes two, three, or more extra periods, the format every series in our playoff schedule and TV guide can swing on.

This is the sheet where legends get made. A single bounce in the second or third overtime ends a season, and a fourth-line winger can become a folk hero on one shift. We saw the purest version of it at the 2026 Olympics, where the gold medal came on a sudden-death winner, the moment our Olympic gold recap was built around. The clock anchored at zero, everyone bone-tired, one shot deciding everything, the barn at its loudest.

The points: where the Three-Point Game lives

Now the part that warps the standings. The NHL awards two points for any win, whether it comes in regulation, overtime, or a shootout. It awards one point for losing in overtime or a shootout. It awards zero for losing in regulation. Read those three lines back and the quirk jumps out: the same loss is worth one point or zero depending only on what time the winning goal goes in.

That extra point for the overtime loser is why a game past regulation is worth three total points and a regulation game is worth two. When ties need breaking, the league reaches for ROW, which stands for regulation plus overtime wins. Shootout wins get stripped out of that number, because the NHL decided in 2010-11 that beating someone in a skills competition should not count as much as beating them while actual hockey is being played. Cap-strapped contenders chase every one of these points, and the math feeds straight into the playoff picture our standings and wild-card tracker follows all season.

Why the loser point is so divisive

The 2025-26 Los Angeles Kings made the whole argument flesh. They set an NHL single-season record for games that ran past regulation, and 20 of their losses came in overtime or a shootout. That is 20 standings points banked for not winning. They finished 35-27-20 for 90 points and slid into the Western playoff bracket on the back of that loser-point pile, the same survival math our look at Buffalo's long playoff exile keeps circling.

Critics hate it because it rewards failing to win and bunches the standings so tightly that bad teams look fine into March. Defenders, including the commissioner, love it for exactly that reason. Speaking in April 2026 as the playoff field firmed up, Gary Bettman said the league has no plans to change the points system, arguing it keeps races tight and games meaningful, per Daily Faceoff. The most-floated fix is a 3-2-1 system: three points for a regulation win, two for an overtime or shootout win, one for an overtime or shootout loss. The same tug-of-war hangs over trophy races too, the way it shadowed our Presidents' Trophy breakdown.

"I would prefer the games to get decided in the overtime, and there's evidence that when you go from 4-on-4 to 3-on-3, it increases the likelihood of a goal in the overtime." — Jarmo Kekalainen, then Columbus GM, via NHL.com (2015)

How the overtime rules got here

None of this arrived at once. Regular-season overtime came back in 1983-84 as a five-minute, five-on-five period, and games could still end in a tie. By the late 1990s too many nights were ending even, so in 1999-2000 the league switched overtime to four-on-four and handed the overtime loser a point to chase decisions. The 2004-05 lockout brought the biggest change: the shootout, introduced for 2005-06, which killed the tie outright. For a decade after that, teams played four-on-four and then shot it out.

The current look arrived in 2015-16, when the league dropped overtime to three-on-three to choke off the shootout it had created. That one had real buy-in around the room.

"This could be very exciting. It's another tweak to the game that could be very fan-friendly." — David Poile, then Nashville GM, via NHL.com (2015)

And they nailed it. Three-on-three made overtime appointment viewing, even if coaches have since learned to slow it down and hold the puck for the perfect look. Rules nerds who like this stuff will enjoy our other explainers on the salary cap, the difference between an NMC and an NTC, and the cap-recapture penalty.

Sources and Reporting

• ESPN: regular-season and playoff overtime rules
• NHL.com: 2015 GM meetings and the 3-on-3 decision
• NHL Records: historical overtime and shootout rule changes
• Daily Faceoff: Bettman on the points system, April 2026
• The Hockey News: the case for and against the loser point
• 2025-26 Kings season record: overtime games and standings

The Verdict: The Three-Point Game

So how does NHL overtime work? Five-minute three-on-three then a shootout in the regular season, endless five-on-five sudden death in the playoffs, and a points system that quietly hands out three points whenever a game escapes regulation. The Three-Point Game is the part that matters most, because it is the reason a wild-card race can hinge on losing the right way. Expect the 3-2-1 system to roar back into the conversation the moment a 90-point team knocks a 95-point team out of a playoff spot. Would you scrap the loser point, or is a tight race worth the weird math?