Games

Your club’s games are played on the world’s schedule, whether you look in or not. Before a game, the pre-game page and your assistant’s read of the opponent help you set up. Each game day’s round goes out on a live broadcast that everyone in the world can watch together. Once it is over, you can watch any game again and read the game page and your assistant’s report; with Hide my games, the game waits for you before its result shows.

Game days

Each game day brings that day’s games, and the lineup and tactics you last saved are the ones your team plays. Set them before the day’s games start.

How often a game day comes depends on the world’s speed, and the countdown in the sidebar shows when the Next game is; see the game basics. A player who can’t play by game time is replaced for that game, as lineup explains. While you are away, your assistant sets the lineup instead; see manager absence.

While the day’s games are being played, and at some other moments, the changes you make to your club are turned away: your lineup and tactics, and also offers, trades, roster moves and the rest. The screen tells you so; try again shortly.

Your affiliate’s games have no game page, broadcast, replay or report.

Before a game

Every game your club plays has a page. Before puck drop it sets the two clubs side by side. Open it from Pre-game under Next game on your team page, or from Preview on the league schedule.

The comparison shows each club’s record, goals for and against per game, power play, penalty kill and goaltending, with their ranks; their form and last game; their leaders; their injuries; how the two have done against each other this season; and their home and road records. In the playoffs it shows playoff figures.

Before a game you can still change what that game will use: who dresses and how the lines are set (lineup), your systems (tactics), your team focus and your captains (team spirit and focus).

The assistant’s report on the opponent

If you manage one of the two clubs, the game page’s actions hold Assistant’s report… for any game of this season that is still to be played. On your club’s next game they also hold Tactics… and Edit lineup….

The report reads how the opponent has played in their recent games: how they create chances, how they defend, how their lines and pairs play, their discipline, how the score changes their game, and anything that has changed in their last few games. It is a read of their habits, not their plan for tonight. It reads only their regular-season and playoff games this season; until they have played one, it says so. How to counter what it reads is on tactics.

If you change your tactics to counter one opponent, the change stands for every game after it until you change it back.

Overtime and the shootout

A game is three periods. A game still tied after three goes to one sudden-death overtime period, shorter than a regular period, and the first goal ends it.

If no one scores in overtime, a shootout decides the game. Each team shoots five rounds, with the shooters you set on the shootout card in lineup, in that order. If the teams are still level after five, they keep shooting a round at a time until one side is ahead; in those extra rounds the shooter is picked at random from the top of your order.

The goal that decides the shootout is added to the final score. It counts as a goal for the player who scored it and as a goal against the goalie who let it in. The other shootout goals don’t. Playoff games end the same way as any other: overtime, then a shootout. What an overtime or shootout result is worth in the standings is on leagues.

Watching a game

Every game is shown in one view, live in the broadcast or as a replay afterwards. Press Watch game on the game page to watch it as a replay once its broadcast is over. With Hide my games you can also press Watch the game on the screen that waits after your club has played; see hiding results. You can watch any game in your world, not only your own, on the day it is played and the next two game days. While a game’s broadcast is on, its game page takes you into the broadcast instead, with that game in focus. National-team games can’t be watched.

The game plays out with the score, the period and the clock, a momentum band that shows who is pressing, and commentary on each play. Beside it, panels for the match stats, the scoring and the penalties fill in as the game goes. The board shows who is in the penalty box and lights up the team on the power play, and marks four-on-four and three-on-three. A standout play is marked Big save or Solo effort. In a shootout the clock gives way to the rounds, one mark per attempt. Nothing that has not happened yet shows.

The commentary tells each attack that ends in a shot step by step: who carries the puck and what he makes of it, a check along the way, who shoots, and how it ends. It speaks the language of the attacking team’s tactics: its offensive system at even strength, its power play, or its penalty kill when it attacks a man short. Not every attack follows the system. When an attack breaks down because a player loses the puck, the commentary names him. At a stoppage, an analyst now and then sums up what the game has shown so far: a player who keeps giving the puck away, one who is in on everything going forward, or one who keeps winning the puck back. At two and four times speed each play gets a single line, and the analyst stays quiet.

In a replay you can pause, play at half speed up to four times as fast, press Skip to end, open All events for everything so far, and turn the sound on or off.

The live broadcast

Each game day’s round is played out live, at the same moment for everyone in the world. While it is on, a band on the game’s pages says Starting soon, then Live, with your club’s matchup when it plays; press Watch to go in. Watching is your choice. Once the puck has dropped, the rest of the game is open: you can trade, sign, and set your lineup and tactics as on any other day. What you change then counts from your next game, since the games on air were played before the puck dropped.

Before puck drop the broadcast counts down to it. If your club plays, it sets the two clubs side by side under Tonight’s Matchup: their standing, their last five results and the season series, as they stood before the day’s games.

From puck drop the broadcast opens on your own game, or, when your club has no game, the biggest game of your league’s round, or of the world’s when your league has none that day. It shows the game in the same view as a replay, with fewer controls: you can pause, which leaves you behind the game everyone else is watching, and Back to live takes you to where the game is now. There is no speed and no skipping ahead. All events and the chat open at the side (as a sheet on a phone), one at a time. The sound is turned on or off at the top of the broadcast, and Leave the broadcast takes you out at any time.

Tonight’s Rundown shows where the broadcast is and what comes next, with the times. Open the round to see every game in your league (or the world’s, on a day your league has none) with its live score and clock, your own at the top, and pick one to watch it from where it stands now. On a wide screen the round’s scores also run along the bottom.

When every game of the round is over, your own included, a band says so and counts down to the end of the broadcast. Go to the intermission when you like. The Intermission Report brings the round’s final scores, the goal that decided each game with yours first, and a word from your assistant coach on your game. His full report opens when the broadcast is over. Back to the game returns you to the game you were watching.

Until the broadcast is over, the round has not happened anywhere else in the game: standings, stats, injuries and form show the world as it was before puck drop. When it ends, the whole round counts at once: scores, standings, stats, injuries, notifications and the Assistant report. A player hurt in the broadcast is injured wherever he plays by then, and the game counts for the club he played it for. The broadcast tells you when it is over; keep watching as long as you like, then press Continue.

Hiding results

Hide results keeps your club’s results back until you have seen the games. Set it in Settings, under Preferences: Hide my games, which a new account starts on, or Show all. If you want to find out how a game went by watching it, keep Hide my games; with Show all, every score shows as soon as the round’s broadcast is over.

With Hide my games, once your club has played, every page of the game takes you to one screen first: Your game has been played. Choose Watch the game to watch it play out, or Reveal the result to see it at once. After Reveal the screen shows the final score, and whether the game went to overtime or a shootout, before anything else; from there Watch the game still plays it, and Next game or Continue takes you on. When more than one game is waiting, the screen shows the oldest first, says which game of how many it is and offers Reveal all, which asks you to confirm and then shows every game the same way, each with its own Watch the game, and one Continue. After the last one you go on to the page you were opening. Until then the screen offers only Settings and Sign out, so your lineup and tactics wait too.

The screen comes only once the broadcast is over. A game counts as seen once you have been in the broadcast after its final horn, or once you have watched the replay to the end, pressed Skip to end or revealed it. Close the replay before that and you are back at the screen. A game waits only while it can still be watched; after that it no longer stops you. If you run clubs in more than one world, each world waits only for its own games.

Past that screen nothing is hidden: scores, standings, stats and notifications all show as they are.

After the game

Once a game is played, its page has four parts: Summary with the scoring by period, the three stars and the shots; Stats with each player’s line, PER included, and the goalies; Play-By-Play with the game as it went; and Lineup with who dressed and how the lines were set. Under the Summary, the Team confidence block shows what the game did to each club’s team confidence; see team spirit and focus.

Below the Summary’s Game stats, Advanced sets the two clubs side by side in expected goals at every strength, and in Corsi share and PDO at even strength. Blocked shots counts the opponents’ shots each club blocked, and Missed shots its own shots that went wide of the net, at every strength. A game played before expected goals were added shows ”—” for them, and one played before missed shots were counted shows ”—” for those. What the measures mean is on team stats.

From your team page, Game report under Last game opens the game page.

The assistant report

If you manage one of the two clubs, Assistant report… in the game page’s actions opens your assistant coach’s report on your own team. It is there as soon as the broadcast is over, and only for your club, never the opponent’s. Once the game can no longer be watched, the report can no longer be opened either.

The report opens with his verdict on the game: the result, and which team had the better of the play. Then come what Went our way and what Went against us, a paragraph on each subject that stood out, each with Details. Under The details, every subject has a meter and a word, from Poor through Weak, Even and Good to Strong, and what Went to plan is listed apart. The subjects include your start, the chances you created and gave up, your goaltender, your shooting, missed shots, the power play and penalty kill, discipline, chemistry, how the lines played their roles, faceoffs, hitting, sustained pressure and, when there was one, the shootout. The Chemistry card is explained on lineup chemistry.

Our game plan sets out what both clubs played with: the two clubs’ tactics side by side, your team focus for each score, and each line’s focus and ice time.

Under Who dressed, pick a player to read His night and What we ask of him. His night says when one of his goals came from distance, and credits a defenseman who got in front of shots, unless his role already reads his blocked shots under What we ask of him. What we ask of him lists the box-score columns his role reads, each marked Met, Not met or Covered, then how he takes his role and ice time and how his recent games have gone. What it reads feeds his happiness with his own form and with his role and ice time, not his confidence; see player form and happiness.

One report reads one game. If the same subject keeps turning up under Went against us, that is the part of your game to look at. A loss in which you had the better of the play was decided by where the goals went.

Worth knowing

• Playoff games are settled like any other: an overtime period, then a shootout if no one scores.
• The goal that decides a shootout counts in the final score, as a goal for the player who scored it and as a goal against the goalie who let it in; the other shootout goals don’t.
• A game can be watched and its Assistant report read only on the day it is played and the next two game days; in a Fast world that is less than a day.
• With Hide my games, closing the replay before the end takes you back to the screen that waits, with the game still unseen.
• If you change your tactics to counter one opponent, the change stands for every game after it until you change it back.