THE ICEDOESN'T FORGIVE.

A game is played over three periods of 20 minutes of playing time, with an intermission between periods. The clock stops at every whistle, so a game lasts well over two hours in real time. Each team has five skaters and a goalie on the ice, usually a centre, two wingers and two defencemen in front of the goalie. Players change on the fly in short shifts, which is why lines seem to swap constantly. The team with more goals at the end wins.

Two rules shape the flow of play. Offside means an attacking player may not enter the attacking zone ahead of the puck, so an attacker cannot cross the opponent's blue line before the puck does. Icing means shooting the puck from your own half all the way past the opponent's goal line without anyone touching it. Play stops and the face-off is held back in the offending team's end, so icing cannot be used freely to relieve pressure. A team that is short-handed because of a penalty is allowed to ice the puck.

Play restarts with face-offs, where an official drops the puck between two players. Body checking is part of the game, but illegal hits are penalised. A team that is behind late on often replaces its goalie with an extra attacker. If the other side then scores into the empty net, that is an empty-net goal.

When a player breaks the rules, the referee signals a penalty and the offender usually serves time in the penalty box. The offender's team plays short-handed, with fewer skaters on the ice, while the opponent has a power play and a numerical advantage. Killing the penalty means surviving that time without conceding. The length of the punishment depends on how serious the offence is; the table below shows the main types in general terms.

If the score is tied after three periods, extra time is played. In recent seasons the regular season uses a short sudden-death overtime period, where the first goal wins, played with fewer skaters per side than normal to open up the ice. If it is still level, a shootout follows, with players taking turns one-on-one against the goalie. The shootout winner is credited with one extra goal on the scoreboard, but shootout goals do not count in players' season totals. Playoff games that are tied continue with further sudden-death periods until someone scores.

The standings are built on points. A team earns two points for a win, whether it comes in regulation, overtime or a shootout. A team that loses in overtime or a shootout earns one point, and a loss in regulation earns none. That is why N4's standings table has separate L and OT columns: L shows losses in regulation, and OT shows the overtime and shootout losses that still earned a point.

Because teams can have played different numbers of games, points alone can mislead. N4's game stage also shows points percentage, which is the points a team has earned divided by the points available (two per game played). The standings table on the hub uses the league ranking supplied in the NHL feed and draws a highlighted playoff line after the first 16 rows. Treat that line as a guide, because places are decided within conferences and the qualification format has changed over the years.

The Stanley Cup playoffs are the postseason. For many years 16 teams have qualified, through their place in the standings in their division and conference, and each round is a best-of-seven series, so the first team to win four games moves on. After four rounds the two conference champions meet in the Stanley Cup Final.

Skaters are centres (C), wingers (left wing L and right wing R) and defencemen (D), and goalies (G) guard the net. Centres take many of the face-offs and work at both ends of the ice, wingers play mainly along the boards and in attack, and defencemen protect their own zone and start attacks with passes. N4's player database uses the position codes C, L, R, D and G, and you can filter the list by any of them.

Goals and assists add up to points. An assist goes to up to two players who made the passes before a goal. Shots count shots on goal: those that went in or were saved. Plus/minus is the goals scored by a player's team minus the goals it conceded while that player was on the ice; goals scored on a power play and shootout goals are not counted, and the number is heavily affected by team quality. Time on ice shows how much a player is used, and power-play goals are goals scored while the team had the advantage.

Goalies are judged differently. Save percentage is saves divided by shots faced, and goals-against average is the goals conceded per 60 minutes played. A shutout is a game with no goals allowed. Both numbers depend partly on the team in front of the goalie, so read them with the number of games played in mind.

Scores, standings, rosters and player bios come from the official NHL data feed, which N4 refreshes and stores. The hub shows a live-and-next ticker with times in UK time, game cards with a countdown to puck drop, featured players and the standings table. The Live now page opens a full live stage for each game, and live game detail is refreshed frequently while a game is on.

Each stage has five tabs. Rink is a shot map: every shot attempt is drawn where it was taken and marked as a goal, a shot on goal, a miss or a block, and you can filter by team, by period or to goals only, with a chart of shots on goal by period below it. The map shows the away side attacking the right-hand net and the home side the left. Goals & penalties lists each period's goals with scorers, assists and strength (PP for power play, SH for short-handed, EN for empty net), plus each penalty and its length.

Box score lists skaters (goals, assists, points, plus/minus, shots, hits, blocks, penalty minutes and time on ice) and goalies (saves, shots against, goals against and save percentage). Team stats compares the two sides and Matchup shows records, points percentage and recent form. N4 shows only what the feed has published, so before a game starts the stage opens on the matchup, and a missing figure appears as a dash or an empty panel rather than a guess.