5:35 PM ET

The Situation Room is starting to stir as we’re almost 30 minutes away from the first puck drop of the night in Philadelphia.

Kris King, Rod Pasma, Sean Ellis and Brad Smith have been here for about an hour. King is the executive vice president of hockey operations. Pasma is a group director of hockey activities. Ellis is the vice president of hockey operations and the official scoring manager. Smith is director of technical services.

Kay Whitmore arrived a few minutes ago. He is also the group’s vice president.

There are more and more game loggers.

This is the central hub of the NHL world, where every decision on every goal is made, where rule changes are born, where every play is recorded and every call from every referee on the ice is analyzed and dissected.

And this is the busiest night of the season with 16 games starting from 6:00 PM ET to 11:00 PM ET. It doesn’t end here until around 2 a.m. ET, when the final buzzer sounds in the final game of the night between the Vegas Golden Knights and the Los Angeles Kings.

I sit in the back of the room with Smith and his IT group to my left. There are four here plus Smith who ensure that the operation runs smoothly, that there are no technical problems, and if there are, they can be resolved immediately.

I have a full view of the room, including the 16 large screens on the main wall. King, Whitmore, Pasma and Colin Campbell, the senior executive vice president of hockey operations who runs the venue, in a row of stations directly in front of the wall of screens.

Halfway through the game action, twelve game loggers will be present here, four of which are assigned to two games. They are spread around the room, each with their own four-screen station. They log everything they see, cut it and color code it based on the system they have.

Yellow is for penalties and missed calls. Red is for injuries and safety clips for players. Blue is for coach challenges, video reviews and close plays on the net. Green is for beautification, arena operations or equipment issues. Purple focuses on officiating. Gray doesn’t call on plays that aren’t clear.

These clips can be used for a number of purposes, including supervisory evaluation and education, trends in the game that may lead to rule changes, or the need for further interpretation of the current rules, as we have seen in recent years with cutting and cross-checking. .

It starts here and it will get busy quickly.

The Philadelphia Flyers and Washington Capitals are on the ice for warm-ups.