Hockey Penalties Explained

Hockey penalties are the mechanism that keeps a fast, physical game from turning into a free-for-all, and they're also the single biggest source of goals outside of even-strength play. A team that kills penalties well and converts on the power play can win games it has no business winning.

This guide covers what each class of penalty is and how long it lasts, the infractions that actually get called on a nightly basis, and how the power play, penalty kill and the delayed-penalty rule work.

Hockey penalties: the types and how long they last

Every penalty falls into one of a handful of classes, and the class determines both how long the player sits and whether his team plays short-handed.

Penalty	Time	Team short-handed?	Ends early on a goal?
Minor	2 minutes	Yes	Yes
Bench minor	2 minutes	Yes	Yes
Double minor	4 minutes	Yes	First half only
Major	5 minutes	Yes	No
Misconduct	10 minutes	No	n/a
Game misconduct	Rest of game	No	n/a
Match penalty	Rest of game	Yes, 5 minutes	No
Penalty shot	n/a	No	n/a

A few points that follow from that table:

• Minors end early. If the team on the power play scores, the penalized player comes out immediately. This is why a two-minute penalty often lasts 40 seconds.
• Majors don't. A five-minute major is served in full even if the power-play team scores three times.
• A double minor is two consecutive two-minute penalties. A goal in the first two minutes wipes out that half and the second half starts fresh; the player is not released.
• A misconduct doesn't cost the team a skater. The player sits for ten minutes but a teammate takes his place on the ice. It's a punishment for the individual, usually for arguing with an official or for piling on after a scrum.
• A game misconduct ejects the player. A match penalty ejects him for attempting to injure an opponent, and a teammate serves five minutes in the box on his behalf.

Goaltenders never serve their own penalties. A teammate who was on the ice at the time goes to the box instead.

What actually gets called

The rulebook is long; the nightly reality is a short list. These are the infractions you'll see called in almost every game:

• Tripping — using a stick, leg or arm to knock an opponent off his feet.
• Hooking — using the blade of the stick to impede a player's progress, typically by hooking the hands or body from behind.
• Slashing — swinging the stick at an opponent. A slash to the hands that breaks a stick is almost always called now.
• High-sticking — contacting an opponent above the shoulders with the stick. If it draws blood it becomes a double minor, regardless of intent.
• Interference — hitting or impeding a player who doesn't have the puck.
• Cross-checking — hitting an opponent with the shaft of the stick held in both hands, no part of it on the ice. Common in front of the net.
• Boarding — checking an opponent violently into the boards, particularly when he's in a vulnerable position.
• Charging — taking more than a couple of strides or leaving the feet to deliver a check.
• Roughing — the catch-all for shoving, face-washing and the aftermath of a scrum.
• Holding — grabbing an opponent, his stick or his jersey.
• Delay of game — most often for shooting the puck over the glass from your own defensive zone without a deflection. It's a minor even though nothing violent happened, and it's the most complained-about call in hockey.
• Too many men on the ice — a bench minor for a bad line change, served by a player who was on the ice.

Fighting is a major for each participant. Because both players get five minutes at the same time, the penalties are coincidental and neither team goes short-handed.

Delayed penalties

When a referee sees an infraction committed by the team that doesn't have possession, he doesn't blow the whistle. He raises an arm and play continues until the offending team touches the puck.

The team in possession almost always pulls its goalie during that window, because the play cannot be stopped against them and they cannot be scored on — a shot into the empty net by the offending team would first require them to touch the puck, which ends the delay. That produces a 6-on-5 attack for a few seconds.

The important wrinkle: if the team with the puck scores during the delayed call, the penalty is wiped out. No power play follows. They've already collected something better.

Power play and penalty kill

The team with the extra skater is on the power play; the team a man down is on the penalty kill.

A standard power play is 5-on-4. If a second penalty overlaps, it becomes 5-on-3 for the remaining time, which is the best scoring situation in hockey short of a penalty shot. A team can never go below three skaters — a third simultaneous penalty is stacked and starts when the first one expires.

Most teams now use four forwards and one defenseman on the top power-play unit, set up in a 1-3-1 with a shooter on the off-wing half-wall, a net-front presence and a player in the slot. Penalty kills answer with a four-man box or a more aggressive diamond, pressuring the puck carrier and taking away the seam passes rather than chasing hits. The hockey positions guide breaks down how these special-teams units are built and who plays on them.

Two things that surprise newer fans:

• A short-handed goal does not end the penalty. The penalized team scoring while down a man is a great result, but their teammate stays in the box.
• Icing rules change. A short-handed team may ice the puck freely; the team on the power play cannot.

Power-play percentage and penalty-kill percentage are the standard measures of how well a team does each job — both are covered in the hockey stats glossary.

Coincidental penalties and 4-on-4

If both teams take a minor at the same stoppage, they cancel out. Neither team gets a man advantage, both players serve their two minutes, and the game is played 4-on-4 until they expire. This is the usual outcome of a scrum after the whistle, where the referees hand out matching roughing minors to settle it.

Four-on-four hockey is noticeably more open than 5-on-5 — more ice, longer possessions, more odd-man looks. That's the same logic the league applied when it made regular-season overtime 3-on-3; the NHL overtime rules guide covers how penalties work in that format, where the power-play team gains a skater rather than the penalized team losing one.

Penalty shots

A penalty shot is awarded when an illegal act takes away a clear scoring chance rather than merely fouling a player. The standard triggers:

• A player in control of the puck on a breakaway is fouled from behind.
• A defending player other than the goalie covers the puck with his hand in the crease.
• A defending player deliberately dislodges the net while an opponent has a breakaway.
• A player throws his stick or any object at the puck or the puck carrier in the defensive zone.

The shot is taken from center ice by the player who was fouled, one-on-one against the goalie, with the same rules as a shootout attempt. Whether it goes in or not, play resumes at even strength — no penalty time is served.

The bottom line

Two minutes for most things, four if a high stick draws blood, five for fighting or the dangerous version of a hit, ten for running your mouth, and out of the game if you tried to hurt somebody. The team that loses a player kills the penalty; the team that gains one runs the power play. Learn the dozen infractions that actually get called and the rest of the rulebook rarely comes up.