What is Power Play?

When one team has more players on the ice than the other because the opposing team committed a penalty.

What this tells us

When the opposing team takes a penalty, your team gets a numerical advantage — typically 5-on-4 or 5-on-3 — for a set amount of time (usually 2 minutes). This is your team's chance to score while they're short-handed. You'll see power-play percentage (PP%) on player pages, which measures how often a team scores when they have this advantage.

Limitations

Power-play situations are different from even-strength play — defenses are tighter, spacing is compressed, and the team with the advantage is more likely to score. So power-play and even-strength numbers shouldn't be directly compared. That's why we track them separately. Also, a team's power-play success depends on both their personnel (who's on the ice) and the opponent's penalty kill, so context matters.

Example

If your team goes on a power play and scores on 25 out of 100 chances, that's a 25% power-play percentage. Elite teams might convert 22–24% of their power plays; struggling teams might be closer to 15%.