Hockey Shootout Game: Play a Free NHL Shootout on Tonight's Matchups

How to play tonight's shootout

Pick a mission or any game on tonight's NHL schedule, and the team you want to play for. The shootout then runs the way the league runs it: three rounds with the two teams alternating, then sudden death if it is still level, until one side scores and the other cannot answer. Before every attempt a card tells you exactly what happens next, whether you shoot or play goal, and nothing moves until you press the button and the three-second countdown runs out. The player you control always carries a floating YOU tag in your club's color, with a ring on the ice under his skates.

1. Skate in and shoot

   Steer your shooter with the mouse, the WASD keys or a finger. Hold the button to charge the shot and let go while the meter under your skates is in the green. The ring in the goal mouth shows where the puck is headed: move it left or right to pick a side, and charge longer to lift it higher.

2. Make the goalie move

   A quick cut with Shift, or a swipe on a phone, pulls the goalie across. Q switches the puck to your backhand, which is a little slower but harder to read. A goalie who bites on the fake leaves half the net open for a moment.

3. Play goal against their scorer

   The same camera, now with you in the crease. Their real top scorer skates in, cuts or fakes, and you see him wind up before he shoots. Slide across with the mouse or the A and D keys to stay in front of the puck, click or press Space to drop into the butterfly for a low shot, and press E to poke the puck off his stick when he comes too close.

Every goal and every save is shown again in slow motion from the same view, and a click skips it. Between attempts a card shows the result, the running score and who is next, with one Continue button. When the shootout is decided you get the final, your shooting turned into an American price next to what real NHL shooters convert, and a share image of the score.

How their goalie reads you

The goalie stays on the line between the puck and the middle of his net, and he comes out a step to cut down the angle as you approach. When you shoot, he reacts after a short delay, moves toward where he thinks the puck is going and drops or reaches for it. How long that delay is, how fast he slides and how far off his read is all come from his real save percentage against the league average. A goalie well above average reads you sooner and more accurately; a goalie below it commits late.

Missions line tonight's goalies up from the lowest save percentage to the highest, so the first opponents are the friendliest. Beat one and the next unlocks, and every win in a row adds a little to the difficulty. The goalies you have beaten on this slate carry a badge on the menu, and your streak and record sit above the rink.

Shoot where he is not, and make him move first.

His body covers the middle and his pads cover the ice in front of him. The glove and the blocker cover the upper corners when he is square. The openings appear when he is moving: low on the side he is leaving, or high after he drops.

Power, accuracy and the deke

The charge meter is the timing test. In the green band the puck goes almost where the ring in the goal mouth points and arrives fast. Let go too early and the shot is soft and easy to read; hold it too long and it gets harder to control and can rise over the bar. Skating at full speed while you shoot also costs some accuracy, so the cleanest shots come after the cut, not during it.

In goal, the shooter's quality works the same way. A shooter with a high shooting percentage hits corners from farther out, and the trickiest ones cut across or sell a fake wind-up before they release. Watch the stick: when it comes up, the shot is coming.

How real NHL shootouts work

In the NHL regular season, a game tied after 60 minutes goes to five minutes of three-on-three overtime. If nobody scores, the shootout decides it. Each team sends three shooters, alternating. If the teams are still level after three each, it becomes sudden death, one shooter per team per round. No player can shoot a second time until every eligible skater on his team has gone. Playoff games never use a shootout: they play full overtime periods until someone scores.

For betting, the shootout matters more than its frequency suggests. In 2025-26, 9.1% of games went to a shootout, about 119 games, while 15.8% were decided in overtime. The winner is credited with one goal in the final score, and sportsbooks settle on that score. So a shootout game always finishes one goal apart, the -1.5 favorite on the puck line can never cover, and the extra goal counts toward the total. Our overtime and shootout rules guide walks through how every market settles.

A goalie who is strong in the shootout can quietly win a team a few points a season. That is one more reason to check who is likely in net on the goalie board before a close game, and to look at tonight's slate for teams that play a lot of tight ones.

Table hockey, the second game

At the top of this page sits a quicker game: table hockey against a bot, first to three goals. You hold the left half of the rink and cannot cross the red line; the bot holds the right. Hit the puck with your mallet and use the boards, because a bank shot is far harder to read than a straight one. The bot gets behind the puck before it shoots, but it picks a new speed and a new shot strength every time it touches the puck, so the same move will not work twice in a row. Pick Rookie, Pro or All-Star before you start: the higher levels skate faster, shoot harder, aim tighter at the corners and shadow the puck more closely in defence. Each level keeps its own win streak and best streak in your browser.

It plays with a mouse, a finger or the arrow keys, and the sound is off until you switch it on. There is nothing to win and nothing to bet: like the shootout, it is here to make the numbers on the rest of the site a little more fun to come back to.

Controls, accessibility and your score

• Mouse: point to skate, hold the button to charge and release to shoot; in goal, move left and right and click for the butterfly.
• Keyboard: WASD or the arrow keys skate or move your goalie, Space charges and shoots or drops you into the butterfly, Shift cuts, Q switches to the backhand, E pokes.
• Touch: drag on the rink to move, and use the Shoot and Deke buttons (Butterfly and Poke in goal). The fullscreen button gives you the whole screen; turn the phone sideways for a bigger rink.
• Screen readers: every card, the score and each result are announced as text, and the card button takes the focus.
• Sound and motion: sound is off by default and one button switches it on. With reduced motion set on your device there is no screen flash and no shaking.

There are no stakes, no prizes and no accounts. Your streak, record and the goalies you have beaten are saved only in your browser's local storage on this device, and they never leave it. If you would rather keep money out of hockey entirely, the responsible gambling page lists free help, including 1-800-GAMBLER.

And if a goalie seems to read you a little too well, change the order: cut first, then pick the corner. He reacts to what you do, not to what you did last time.