The Game Is
Over.

What counts as an empty-net goal

A goal scored while the opposing net has no goalie in it. Not a goal scored by the team that pulled — that happens and it is not the same thing. The net that was empty has to be the one the puck went into.

How we know

Two independent signals from the league's own play-by-play, and they have to agree.

• Manpower state. Every goal carries a four-digit code describing who was on the ice, including whether each goalie was in net. A zero means someone's net was empty — but on its own it does not say whose, so we check it against the team that actually scored.
• The goalie record. A goal scored on a goalie names that goalie. On an empty-net goal there is nobody to name, and the field is absent entirely.

When both agree, it is logged. When they disagree, it is flagged and not published. Across 440,768 goals analysed so far, they have never disagreed once.

Reading the feed

Every card on the feed carries the same four blocks. Here is what each part is telling you.

NJD

Team colour. The bar down the left edge and the three-letter mark are the scoring team's primary colour — all 32 clubs are mapped, so you can pick out who scored before you read a word.

Playoffs

Playoff badge. Postseason game. Empty-net goals are meaningfully more common here than in the regular season, so it is worth flagging.

Assists: …

Scorer and assists. Straight from the league's play-by-play. When nobody is credited it reads Unassisted rather than being left blank.

NYR vs BOS · 4 – 2 final

Matchup and final score. Away team first, then home — the league's own convention. The score shown is the final, not the score at the time of the goal.

P3 · 1:12 left

The clock. Period and time remaining at the moment the puck went in. Most empty-netters land inside the last two minutes of the third; the ones that do not are usually the interesting ones.

The lamp. Lit means the feed is live and polling. When a new goal lands while you have the page open, the lamp flares and the new card drops in at the top without a reload.

All · Regular · Playoffs

Season filters. The number beside each is the count of empty-net goals in that slice, not the number of games.

Demos

See the two big moments without waiting for a game. All demos

The numbers so far

Worth knowing: they are more common in the playoffs than the regular season — 971 in the postseason against 11,036 across a full regular year. Tighter games, longer gambles, more nets left open.

Why "Finish The Job"

An empty-net goal is not a highlight. Nobody makes a poster of it. It is the unglamorous act of closing something out — the shift a coach sends over the boards when the game has to end. That is the part of hockey this brand is about.

Where the data comes from

The NHL's public play-by-play feed, polled continuously during games. Every goal is recorded whether or not it qualifies, so the decisions can be audited afterwards rather than taken on trust. Nothing here is hand-entered.