What Does OTL Mean In Hockey?
Ever heard the phrase OTL and wondered what it means? Here’s the simple answer.
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What does OTL mean in hockey?
OTL stands for OverTime Loss – which means a team loses the game after going beyond regulation time and into an extra period known as a ‘sudden death overtime’. This is a five minute, 3-on-3 period during the regular season. It is a 20-minute period during the playoffs and repeats until someone scores.
What is Overtime?
In hockey, overtime is a way of finding a winner between two teams when the score is tied after regulation time.
While some minor leagues go straight to a shootout, most top-tier levels leagues like the NHL and AHL move to an extra, but shorter period of extra play. As mentioned, this is five minutes during the regular season of the NHL.
Interestingly play is with three skaters instead of the usual five, which opens up the space of the ice, creating more breakaway opportunities, therefore it increases the chances of a goal being scored.
In this scenario, the play ends when one team scores a goal. The team that scores wins automatically. This is known as ‘sudden death’ overtime.
If neither team scores during the play, the game moves into a shootout, where players can score in 1-1 battles with the goalkeeper.
Overtime in the Playoffs
During playoff games, the overtime is extended from five mintues to 20 minutes.
There is no shootout in the playoffs, so if the score is still level at the end of the first overtime, a new period of 20 minutes is introduced until a team scores. There remains a regular 17-minute intermission between overtime periods. As you can imagine, the players are exhausted to their limits at this stage, but each play is thrilling to watch.
In overtime during playoffs, it is also a ‘sudden death’ situation – where the first goal declares the winner.
However, teams have all five skaters on the ice, rather than three like in the regular season overtime.
NHL Overtime Points
Suppose a game is tied and you head into an overtime situation. In that case, both teams are awarded one point for making it to overtime. Then the winner of the overtime gets another point, so a total of two points. In comparison, if the game ended in regulation and did not require overtime, the losing team would receive zero points and the winning team would still receive two points.
So the phrase ‘overtime loss’ refers to the team that gets the one point for tying a game but then loses in overtime. They didn’t lose in regular play, but they lost in overtime play and got one point.
No team wants to lose, but it’s ‘better’ in terms of points to lose in an overtime situation than it is to lose in regulation time because you still earn that extra point, which ultimately helps your standings in the NHL and improve your chances of making the playoffs.
What is SOL?
SOL stands for a shootout loss, and it’s when a team loses in the shootout after overtime and the game is still tied. Same as winning in overtime, the winner of the shootout gets one extra point, so a total of two points for the win, and the loser gets the standard one point awarded for making it to overtime.
The extra point is recorded as a SOL rather than an OTL. Players who score in the shootout will not accumulate points towards their regular season totals.