2026 Winter Olympics Hockey: How the Overtime Format is Different From NHL

Team USA will face Sweden in the quarterfinals on Wednesday. | Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

The hockey at the Milan Cortina Games has advanced to the playoff stage, where the winners will advance and the losers will either head home in the early rounds, or to the bronze medal game after the semifinal round.

So what happens if these games go to overtime? Well, unlike in the NHL regular season where they play 3-on-3 for five minutes before going to shootout or in the playoffs where they play 20-minute periods where the first goal wins, in the Olympics they play 3-on-3 hockey for 10 minutes. If the game is still tied after that, they will go to a shootout where each team will get five attempts.

Things then change in the gold medal game as they will play a traditional 5-on-5 with 20-minute periods until someone scores.

We get our first look at this format on Wednesday, as Canada beat Czechia 4-3 in overtime to advance to the semifinals. Mitch Marner scored the winner just 1:22 into OT.

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