26 terms for new hockey fans to know

If you’re new to hockey and you plan to support the Utah Hockey Club, you’ll need to get familiar with the lingo. Here are the essential terms you’ll need to know. Bookmark this tab and refer to it as you watch hockey this season.
Goals are what count on the scoreboard: putting the puck into the net. The last player on the attacking team to touch the puck before it goes in the net gets credit for the goal — even if it barely touches him.
Assists are credited to the two most recent players on the attacking team to have control of the puck before it’s given to the player who scores. However, no assists are credited if a player on the defending team gains control between the time the would-be assister and the goal scorer touch it.
Unlike with goals, assists are credited to the players to have control of the puck, not the last players to have it touch them in any way.
Points are the sum of goals and assists. For example, Logan Cooley scored 20 goals and 24 assists last season, meaning he had 44 points.
The NHL standings are determined by a points system. When a team wins, it gets 2 points. When a team loses in overtime or a shootout, it gets 1 point. When a team loses in regulation, it gets 0 points.
The three teams in each division with the most points makes the playoffs, along with an additional two teams from each conference.
These are the main statistical categories for goaltenders, though some believe they’re influenced too much by the team around the goalie to give an accurate measurement of a goalie’s success.
Save percentage is exactly as it sounds: the percentage of shots that a goalie saved. It’s typically written in a decimal point format. For example, Connor Ingram had a .907 save percentage last season, meaning he saved 90.7% of the shots he faced.
As a rule of thumb, a save percentage above .900 is good and anything below that is bad. For reference, among goalies who played 25 or more games last season, Florida’s Anthony Stolarz had the best save percentage at .925.
Goals-against average is the average number of goals a goalie allowed per game. For example, Karel Vejmelka had a goals-against average of 3.29 last season, meaning he allowed 3.29 goals per game, on average.
A good goals-against average is typically in the 2 to 2.5 range.
Similar to a tip-off in basketball, a faceoff is when a referee or linesman drops the puck between two positioned players to start the play. They occur after every stoppage of play, and their location is dependent upon why and where the play stopped.
Note that in hockey, it’s “offside,” not “offsides.”
Offside is when an attacking player crosses the offensive blue line before the puck does, and then his team touches the puck in the attacking zone.
If that’s too complicated to understand, memorize this phrase: “Black over blue before you.”
An offside results in a stoppage of play. The faceoff takes place outside the defending team’s blue line, forcing the attacking team to retry its zone entry.
If that sounds confusing, maybe Snoop Dogg can explain it better.
An icing is the defensive equivalent of an offside: It makes the offending team retry its zone exit, just as an offside makes the offending team retry its zone entry.
It occurs when a team shoots the puck from its own half of the ice all the way down to the back of the other team’s zone. When this happens, the two teams race to the top of the faceoff circle on that end of the ice.
If the defending team wins the race, play is stopped and the faceoff takes place in the other team’s defensive zone. Additionally, the offending team is not allowed to conduct a line change, often resulting in players that are too tired to effectively defend.
If the attacking team wins the race, play continues.
It’s important to note that there are two things that determine the winner of an icing race: who gets to the top of the faceoff circle first and who would be in a better position to actually touch the puck first if the race had continued all the way there. The judgement is up to the linesman.
This rule is part of the Hybrid Icing system that the NHL introduced in 2013. Previous to that, it was simply a race to touch the puck, but it resulted in too many injuries because, well, going full speed toward a wall and stopping at the last possible second probably isn’t a good idea.
A team has a powerplay when the opposing team has a penalty. A team is on the penalty kill when it has a player with a penalty.
Penalties can last two, four or five minutes, depending on the infraction committed. A team with a penalty plays with one less player on the ice. A team can have two penalties at the same time, making them play two players short, but if a team has three penalties at once, it waits until the first penalty is over for the first one to start. Teams will never be forced to play with less than three skaters on the ice at a time.
When a team scores on the powerplay, the other team’s penalty ends. However, if it’s a five-minute penalty, the attacking team can score as many goals as it can and the penalty remains. Teams can score a maximum of two times on a four-minute powerplay because that’s technically just two consecutive two-minute penalties.
The NHL rulebook states that each team can have six players on the ice at a time. In 1931, Bruins head coach Art Ross interpreted that rule differently than most when, in an attempt to tie a game that the Bruins were losing, he took his goalie off the ice and replaced him with an extra skater. Soon enough, everyone started doing it.
A coach typically pulls his goalie in the last few minutes of a game that his team is losing if he thinks there’s a chance to tie it up. More often than not, the team that pulls its goalie still loses the game, but it occasionally results in miraculous comebacks, such as the Vancouver Canucks’ win over the Nashville Predators in Game 4 of the Western Conference Quarterfinal last year.
When a player commits an infraction, the referee puts his hand in the air, signaling that a penalty will be called. However, he doesn’t blow the whistle to stop the play until the offending team touches the puck. The attacking team typically pulls its goalie during a delayed penalty because the other team can’t score. Well, unless you put the puck in your own net like Kris Letang did against the Arizona Coyotes last year.
There are several types of shots in hockey. The most common is the wrist shot, in which a player starts with the blade of his stick on the ice and slings the puck toward the net. It’s the quickest shot to release and it’s typically the most accurate, but it isn’t as hard as a slapshot.
For a slapshot, a player raises the blade of his stick above his shoulders and swings downward at the puck, usually with great force. With a backhander, the player uses the back part of his blade to shoot the puck. These are typically only done when it would take too long for the player to transfer the puck to his forehand because they’re weaker and less accurate than wrist shots.
A tip-in, also known as a deflection, is when a player gets a touch on another player’s shot, causing it to change direction. Because they happen so quickly, tip-ins are virtually impossible for goalies to track. If the goalie saves it, it’s because of good positioning and luck, rather than reflexes.
A one-timer is a shot directly from a pass. Rather than settling the puck first, a player launches it the second it reaches him. It’s called a one-timer because the player only touches it once.
Like slapshots, one-timers are typically fast but hard to control. They allow players to shoot before the goalie is set, making it hard for the goalie to track the shot.
Washington Capitals superstar Alex Ovechkin, who is 41 goals shy of the all-time scoring record, has made a career out of one-timers.
A breakaway is when a player has a clear path to the net with nobody between him and the goalie. Breakaways are always great scoring chances.
When a player is on a breakaway and someone commits an infraction on him, it results in a penalty shot instead of a two-minute penalty. A penalty shot is essentially a do-over on the breakaway, but this time there are no players on the ice to stop him, except the goalie.
A player with a penalty shot gets one attempt. He can skate the puck forward, but the second the puck stops or goes backwards, the play is dead. Similarly, he only gets one shot — you can’t score on the rebound of a penalty shot.
Penalty shots almost always make for some sweet goals.
When the game is tied after 60 minutes of playing time, it goes to overtime. Overtime in the regular season is different than overtime in the playoffs. In the regular season, it consists of five minutes of three-on-three play, rather than the normal five-on-five. When someone scores, the game ends immediately.
If nobody scores in the five minutes of overtime in the regular season, the teams go to a shootout. A shootout is essentially a series of penalty shots to determine the winner — not unlike penalty kicks in soccer.
Shootouts start with three rounds. The teams take turns shooting and whichever team has the most goals in those three rounds wins. If it’s tied, they add rounds, one by one, until one team wins.
In the NHL, each player can only shoot once in a shootout. The only exception is that if every player on the team has shot, then everyone can shoot again. That has only happened once, though.
Note that in international hockey, such as the Olympics, teams can send the same players to shoot as many times as they want after the first three rounds. Fans of the Olympics might remember TJ Oshie’s eight-round showdown with Sergei Bobrovsky at the 2014 Olympics.
Stickhandling is the movement that a player does with the puck when it’s on his stick. It has several purposes: controlling the puck, evading opponents, looking cool, etc.
Deking is fancy stickhandling for the purpose of fooling the goalie. If you’ve watched shootout highlights, you’ve seen plenty of cool dekes.
The crease is the blue D-shaped area at the base of the net. It’s meant to protect the goalie from unexpected contact. If a player enters the crease without being pushed in, and then makes contact with the goalie, resulting in a goal, the goal is disallowed. That sounds like something that shouldn’t happen, but in reality, it probably occurs every other game.
Players screen the goalie by standing in front of him to block his vision. The player must be standing outside the crease, of course.
The upper quarter of the net. Also known as “top cheese,” “top cheddar” and “where Mama keeps the cookie jar.”
In the 1980s and earlier, it was an impressive feat to score top-shelf because equipment was worse and players had less skill than they do today. Nowadays, a large percentage of goals are scored top-shelf.