Each NHL team plays a total roster of 41 regular season home games and 41 away games during the season. Every team will play 10 inter conference games(outside their particular conference) for the season. In this way one game will be played against every team in two out of the three divisions in the opposing conference.

Every team also plays 40 games against other teams in the opposing conference. This totals four games against each of ten teams. All teams also play 32 games in their own division consisting of eight games against each of the four teams.

A winning game for a team is worth 2 points. A losing game in overtime or a shootout wins the team 1 point and a loss in regulation time gets zero points.

In every division the champion is the team winning the most points in the regular season. Every conference has three divisions and each divisional champion along the five next best teams will make up the Stanley Cup playoff roster for every conference. This comprises a total of eight teams from each conference which will enter the playoffs.

Two teams play a best of seven series of games in the Stanley Cup playoffs. The losing team is eliminated and the winner of the best of seven games advances to the next round. Overtime periods are played until a winner is decided in the case of a draw at the end of the three regular game periods.

Twenty minutes of hockey is played in each overtime period by full teams of five players. The first goal scored ends the game for the winning team. This is known as sudden death overtime.

The Stanley Cup playoff series is immensely popular and is definitely amongst the most watched series in professional sports. The playoffs generate intense inter team rivalry and make millions of spectators stay glued to television for the length of the series.

Relatively few people are aware that they can watch the NHL regular season games and the playoffs on their computer monitor. In fact you can watch thousands of sports events from around the world with the phenomenon of satellite TV on your PC. You simply have to download a program from the internet to do this.

If you wish to view satellite TV on your own computer you can download the program.You can then watch more than three thousand TV channels on your computer monitor.