Hockey stat abbreviations explained

The tables below are sorted into four families: skaters (basic and game statistics), goaltenders, team and game, then advanced statistics. Each row gives the English abbreviation, its French variant when one genuinely exists on Quebec sheets and sites, the full name in both languages, what the statistic means in one sentence, and above all where you will see it: on the official scoresheet, in standings and apps, or only on pro player cards. That last column is the one missing almost everywhere else, and it is what keeps you from hunting for ice time on a U11 sheet that never contained it.

The filter field above the tables searches every column at once: type PIM, goalie, faceoff or shots and the rows narrow down live. Every abbreviation also has its own anchor, so you can point straight to a line from another page or a message: #PIM, #GWG or #ENG. Abbreviations that have their own Academy article (plus/minus, penalty minutes, faceoff percentage, goalie average, Corsi, expected goals) are clickable in the first column.

The official Hockey Québec and Hockey Canada scoresheet fits on one page and its logic has not changed in decades. At the top, both rosters with each player's number, name and position, the goalies flagged, and the coaches' signatures. In the middle, the goals section: for each goal, the period, the clock time, the scorer's number (G) and up to two assist numbers (A). Right beside it, the penalties section: the player's number, the infraction, the time it was called and its length in the Min column, which becomes PIM once added up. Finally, the shots-on-goal boxes per period and per team, filled in by the scorer or a volunteer depending on the association. Our guide on reading a scoresheet walks through each zone in detail, and the hockey scoresheet page explains who fills it in and who signs it.

The goalie line is the part most often misread. The sheet does not record goals against or saves per goalie: it records opposing goals with their time and the shot totals per period. To get GA, SV and save percentage you have to cross-reference the two, and when a goalie is replaced mid-game, the change note with time played (MIN) is the only way to split the goals between them. That is why the goalie standings of a youth league so often contain errors: the data is on the sheet, but it takes a calculation nobody has time for on the way out of the arena.

What never appears on the official sheet deserves to be said plainly, because it is what parents most often look for in vain. No ice time, no shifts, no blocked shots, no hits, no faceoffs, no scoring chances, no plus/minus: the sheet knows who scored, who was penalized and how many shots each team put on net, nothing more. Everything else in this glossary comes either from official scorers at the pro level or from someone in the stands logging events in an app. The diagram below shows where each abbreviation from the glossary sits on a typical sheet.

The number of abbreviations a player sees on his card grows with him, not because the game changes in nature, but because someone starts compiling more. A U9 player has, at best, G, A, PTS and his team's shot count, and many associations publish neither standings nor individual statistics at that age. A U13 player sees plus/minus, penalty minutes (MIN) and, in apps, blocked shots appear, because the game becomes structured enough for those counters to mean something. From U15 and especially in U18 AAA, league compilations and apps add faceoff percentage (FO%), scoring chances and hits, which only make sense in categories where body contact is allowed. Our page on youth hockey age groups explains each level, from U7 to junior.

This progression is a guide, not a rule: a league may compile less, an app may compile more at any age. What matters is not judging a U11 on a column that does not exist for him yet, nor being surprised that a U15 AAA player is compared on measures he never saw the year before. To choose which ones to follow at each age, read which stats to track in youth hockey and the guide to U11 and U13 statistics.

In the app, statistics are spelled out in full in the account's language: "Penalty minutes" rather than PIM, "Save percentage" rather than SV%, "Scoring chances for" rather than SCF. That is deliberate: a parent opening their child's card for the first time should not need a glossary to understand it. What the app actually tracks matches the rows marked "RinkLog" in the "Where you see it" column: goals, assists, shots on goal, missed and blocked, penalties, hits, faceoffs, scoring chances for and against, turnovers, ice time per shift, plus/minus per goal, the EV, PP or PK situation of every event, and for the goalie the saves, goals against and position of every shot. The derived numbers (points, S%, FO%, iCF, SCF%, xG, PDO, GAA, SV%, HDSV%) compute themselves.

CSV and PDF exports, on the other hand, use the usual abbreviations from this glossary, because that is the format a coach, a scout or a spreadsheet expects: a GP, G, A, PTS, PIM, SOG column is understood without a legend everywhere in North America. RinkLog does not replace the official scoresheet and does not claim to correct it: it completes it with what it does not contain, and a goal or an assist counts exactly as much there as a scoring chance. The permanent free plan lets you start without a card; the 7-day Premium trial opens the advanced sections.

The most frequent trap is PPG. In a special-teams column, next to SHG and ENG, it means power-play goals. In a production column, next to G, A and PTS, it often means points per game, which has its own page on points per game. The meaning always depends on the table where the abbreviation appears: when in doubt, read the full column header instead of guessing. The same reflex settles two other duplicates in the glossary. SO means shutout on a goalie's line and shootout in a team standings table. GA means goals against on a goalie's line, without empty-net goals, and goals against at team scale, empty-net goals included: a team's GA is therefore often higher than the sum of its goalies' GA.

Plus/minus misleads too, but differently: it counts neither goals scored nor goals allowed on the power play. A special-teams player who scores four power-play goals can end the night at zero or in the negative, and a penalty killer who scores shorthanded earns a plus. The game-winning goal (GWG) surprises for another reason: it is neither the prettiest nor the last goal, it is the one that puts the winning team one ahead of the loser's final total, and contrary to a widespread belief, an empty-net goal absolutely can be one, since ENG only describes the situation the goal was scored in and excludes it from no total.

Two last pairs look alike without being the same. TOI and TG are the same thing, ice time, in English then in French; the difference is only a choice of language, and ice time in hockey explains how to read it. S% and SV%, on the other hand, are two opposite statistics: S% is a shooter's shooting percentage (goals divided by shots on goal, 10 to 15% for a good scorer), SV% is a goalie's save percentage (saves divided by shots against, around .900 and up). A 91% S% would be absurd; so would a 12% SV%. The number itself tells you which column you are looking at.