Jack Hughes, Laila Edwards and Declan Farmer announced the men’s, women’s and sled hockey teams for the Milan-Cortina Olympics on TODAY.
NHL players are heading back to the Olympics for the first time in 12 years, so hockey’s biggest stars will need to brush up on the international rulebook.
The 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics will be the first to feature active NHL players since the 2014 Games in Sochi.
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The Olympics use International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) rules. While there are many similarities between the NHL and IIHF versions of hockey — such as three 20-minute periods for games — there are also differences that NHL players will need to adjust to.
Let’s break down the key differences between NHL rules and those in play during the men’s ice hockey event at the Winter Olympics:
For years, the biggest difference between the NHL and Olympic hockey was the ice.
Olympic games have traditionally been played on a bigger rink, 197 by 98.5 feet, compared to the NHL, where the surface is 200 by 85 feet. The extra width generally allows for less hitting and more flow.
However, the Milan Cortina Games will be the third Olympics in history to be played on NHL-sized ice, joining the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and 2022 Beijing Olympics.
While fighting is a staple in the NHL, fighting is not allowed at the Olympics.
Players who partake in fighting face major penalties and possible ejection.
For regular season NHL games, there are five minutes of sudden-death, 3-on-3 overtime before a shootout. For the Stanley Cup Playoffs, there is sudden-death, 5-on-5 overtime with unlimited 20-minute periods until one team scores. There are no shootouts or ties in the playoffs.
For the Olympics, overtimes and shootouts vary by round:
Rules for icing (shooting the puck from behind your half of the ice past the goal line) and offside (crossing the opposing blue line before the puck) are generally the same between the NHL and Olympics.
However, the Olympics embrace more continuous play with stricter whistle timing and fewer commercial breaks.
While NHL and Olympic games both feature three 20-minute periods, there is a difference in the time between periods. NHL games have 18-minute intermissions, while Olympic intermissions are just 15 minutes.
Olympic rosters are also capped, with men’s teams at 25 players (22 skaters and three goalies) and women’s teams at 23 players. NHL teams can have 20 players suit up for a given game while pulling from a larger active roster.