How Shootout Goals Affect NHL Scores and Player Stats

In the NHL, shootout goals do not count toward a player’s regular goal or point totals. They count in separate shootout statistics. For the official final score, the winning team receives one extra goal, regardless of how many shootout attempts either team converts. That team-level adjustment is not credited as a regular goal to any player.

Rule 84.4 of the NHL’s 2026–27 rulebook makes the distinction explicit: the shootout winner finishes one goal ahead of the score at the end of overtime, but the deciding shooter receives no personal goal credit and the losing goalie is not charged with that extra goal.

Choose the NHL statistic you are checking; the tool shows whether shootout goals count.

Shootout Goals Count Separately From Regular Scoring

A shootout settles a tied NHL regular-season game after overtime. Its conversions determine the winner, but they do not extend the individual scoring totals accumulated during play. The NHL statistics glossary distinguishes shootout goals, attempts, saves and game-deciding goals from their conventional counterparts.

The answer therefore depends on which field you are reading. A successful attempt is a goal in a player’s shootout record. It is not another goal in the player’s regular scoring record. The final score is a third type of record: it receives a single team-level adjustment rather than the total number of successful attempts.

Statistic	Shootout Treatment
Player goals and points	No addition to regular totals
Player shots and shooting percentage	Attempts stay in separate shootout statistics
Shootout goals, or SO G	Each successful attempt counts
Shootout game-deciding goals, or GDG	Deciding conversion is recorded separately
Goalie goals against, GAA and save percentage	Shootout results are excluded
Final score and standings GF/GA	One goal for the winner; one against the loser

This separation matters when comparing players. A scoring leaderboard and a shootout leaderboard measure different results. Adding their goal columns together would create a combined total that is not the NHL’s regular player-goal statistic.

The same distinction applies to points. A conversion can decide the game without increasing the shooter’s regular points total. The importance of the attempt does not change its statistical category.

A 2–2 Tie Becomes a 3–2 Win, Not 4–3

Suppose Team A and Team B finish overtime tied 2–2. Team A converts two shootout attempts, while Team B converts one.

The official final score is Team A 3, Team B 2—not 4–3. The teams do not add all their successful attempts to the score. Instead, Team A receives the single goal awarded to the shootout winner, and Team B’s score stays where it was at the end of overtime.

Record	Team A	Team B
Score after overtime	2	2
Successful shootout attempts	2	1
Official final score	3	2

Team A’s two successful shooters each receive a shootout goal. Neither adds a goal or point to his regular scoring total. Team B’s successful shooter also receives a shootout goal, even though his team loses. Separate shootout records preserve those individual results without turning them into goals scored during the game.

If the losing goalie played the entire game, his conventional goals-against total remains two. The third goal displayed beside Team A is the final-score adjustment, not an additional conventional goal charged to that goalie.

This example explains why a game summary can show a successful shootout attempt next to a player’s name while his season goal total remains unchanged. The conversion was recorded; it was simply recorded in a different category.

A Shootout Conversion Does Not Complete a Hat Trick

If a player scores twice during the game and then converts in the shootout, he still has a two-goal game, not a hat trick. His game goals remain part of his regular scoring total. The later conversion belongs to his separate shootout record.

The distinction does not depend on whether his attempt decides the result. A deciding conversion still receives no regular goal credit. Its separate designation is a shootout game-deciding goal, not a regular game-winning goal.

For player comparisons, keep those categories separate. A player’s regular goals describe scoring during play, including qualifying overtime and penalty-shot goals. His shootout goals describe successful attempts in the post-overtime contest. Treating both as one scoring total changes what the number measures.

When checking a milestone or a player’s game-by-game scoring line, use the regular goals column rather than counting every successful attempt shown in the game summary. The summary can contain both kinds of event; the scoring total does not combine them.

Standings Goal Totals Can Differ From Team Stats

The NHL’s Standings page includes the one-goal shootout adjustment in goals for, or GF, and goals against, or GA. Its Stats pages exclude shootout game-deciding goals from the corresponding team scoring totals. The league spells out the reporting difference in its GF definition.

That means the same team can have different goal totals on two NHL pages without either page being wrong. The pages are answering different questions: one reports goals with the standings adjustment included, while the other reports scoring without that adjustment.

Record	Shootout Adjustment
Standings GF	Includes the winner’s extra goal
Standings GA	Includes the loser’s extra goal against
Corresponding team Stats totals	Exclude shootout game-deciding goals
Sum of players’ regular goals	Contains no shootout goal credit

In the 2–2 example, Team A’s standings record receives the final-score goal that makes the result 3–2. No Team A player receives that extra goal in his regular scoring record. Consequently, adding up player goals does not reproduce a standings GF total that includes shootout adjustments.

The losing team has the matching distinction. Its standings GA includes the extra goal against, but that goal is not charged to the losing goalie’s conventional goals-against total. A mismatch between those records is therefore not automatically a missing goal or a data-entry error.

For a spreadsheet or comparison chart, identify the source of GF and GA before joining them to individual scoring or goaltending totals. A column copied from standings should not be silently treated as the same measure as a column copied from the team Stats page. For other column definitions, see our hockey stats abbreviations guide.

Shootout Results Do Not Change Conventional Goalie Rates

Shootout goals do not enter a goalie’s conventional goals against, goals-against average or save percentage. Shootout saves and goals allowed are tracked separately, just as a shooter’s attempts and conversions are tracked separately.

The final scoreboard can therefore show a goal that is absent from the goalie’s conventional record. In the 3–2 example, the losing goalie’s goals against remain two if he played the entire game. Neither the shootout conversion nor the winner’s final-score adjustment increases that conventional total.

This also means a shootout attempt should not be folded into a calculation using ordinary shots faced and saves. Mixing shootout events into one part of the calculation, while retaining conventional totals elsewhere, produces a number that does not represent the NHL’s conventional save percentage.

The separate shootout statistics are the appropriate record for evaluating performance in that contest. Conventional goaltending statistics remain the appropriate record for what happened before it.

A 0–0 Shootout Loss Can Still Be a Shutout

If both goalies play the entire game and the score is 0–0 after overtime, both retain a shutout even though the official final result becomes 1–0. The NHL defines shutouts by goals allowed before the shootout.

The losing goalie has not allowed a conventional goal merely because the final scoreboard shows one against his team. The added goal identifies the winner; it does not undo the scoreless performance during regulation and overtime.

That qualification matters: the example assumes each goalie played the entire game. It should not be used to assign individual shutout credit in a game where the goaltending circumstances were different.

Overtime Goals Count as Regular Goals

An overtime goal counts as a regular player goal. It occurs during play, before any shootout, and belongs in the game’s ordinary scoring record. “After regulation” is therefore not a sufficient reason to exclude a goal from a player’s total.

The dividing line is the event type, not simply when the event occurred. An overtime goal is a goal scored during the game. A shootout conversion is a successful attempt in the separate contest used to resolve a tie after overtime.

Stanley Cup playoff games have no shootout. Under Rule 84.5, teams play successive 20-minute overtime periods until someone scores. The goal that ends such a game counts as a regular goal; there is no shootout adjustment to substitute for it.

When reading a late-game scoring entry, distinguish an overtime goal from a shootout result. Both can decide the winner, but only the former adds a regular goal to the scorer’s total.

In-Game Penalty-Shot Goals Also Count

A successful penalty shot awarded during the game counts as a player goal. Although the attempt resembles a shootout attempt, it is a scoring event within the game, governed by Rules 24 and 78 on penalty shots and goal credit.

The visual similarity is not the statistical rule. A shooter facing the goalie alone can be taking an in-game penalty shot or participating in the shootout. The former can add a regular goal; the latter cannot.

Scoring Event	Regular Player Goal?
Goal during regulation	Yes
Goal during overtime	Yes
Successful in-game penalty shot	Yes
Successful shootout attempt	No; separate shootout goal

A penalty-shot entry should therefore not be removed from a player’s goal total just because the play looks like a shootout. Equally, a shootout conversion should not be added because it looks like a successful penalty shot. Use the official event classification.

For the treatment of unsuccessful attempts, see how penalty shots count as shots on goal, which separates a goal, a save and a miss.

Keep Shootout Attempts Out of Regular Shooting Percentage

A player’s shootout attempts are not added to conventional shots on goal, and his conversions are not added to conventional goals. His regular shooting percentage therefore does not increase because he converts in the shootout, or decrease because he fails to convert.

For shootout performance, use the separate attempts and goals fields. For ordinary shooting performance, use regular goals and shots. Combining shootout goals with conventional shots would mix events included in the numerator with attempts excluded from the denominator.

The same principle resolves the original question across NHL records: a shootout conversion counts as a shootout goal, not a regular player goal. The winning team’s single added goal counts in the final score and standings GF/GA, while conventional player scoring and goalie statistics remain separate.