What Is the Hertl Game? The NHL Player Guessing Game Explained

Hertl is a daily word-style guessing game where you identify a mystery NHL player within eight attempts. Named after Czech star Tomas Hertl, it uses a Wordle-inspired colour grid — green and yellow highlights on team, division, position, nationality, age and jersey number — to narrow down the answer. It is free, needs no sign-up, and gives hockey fans one fresh challenge each day.

What Is Hertl?

Hertl is a fan-made daily browser game for hockey fans, first released as an open-source project on GitHub by developer nserr (github.com/nserr/hertl). The concept is simple: instead of guessing a five-letter word like Wordle, you guess the name of a current NHL player, and the game tells you how close your guess is through colour-coded attribute columns.

The game takes its name from Tomas Hertl, the Czech centre who made his name with the San Jose Sharks — a nod to hockey insiders rather than a commercial tie-in. It plays at hertl.app and has spawned many mirror and guide pages across the Wordle-variants web (Word Hurdle's Hertl NHL guide walks through the same rules in detail).

How to Play Hertl

Playing Hertl takes about two minutes once you know the drill:

1. Type any active NHL player's name. Only current league players are valid guesses, which keeps the challenge fresh every season.
2. You get eight attempts. Each guess fills a row of the grid with that player's attributes.
3. Read the colour feedback. After every guess, columns light up:

• Green — the attribute matches the mystery player exactly (same team, same division, same position).
• Yellow — a partial match. For example, the guessed player is in the same conference but not the same division, or their age or jersey number is within 2 of the target's.
• Grey/unlit — no match at all.

1. Higher/lower arrows. The age and jersey-number columns show arrows telling you whether the mystery player's value is higher or lower than your guess.
2. New mystery player daily. Like Wordle, there is one shared puzzle per day, so everyone faces the same challenge.

Some versions also offer a random mode alongside the daily challenge, letting you play back-to-back mystery players for practice.

The Clue Columns at a Glance

Hertl vs Other Hockey Word Games

Hertl sits in the sweet spot: a strict 8-guess limit makes it tenser than unlimited-guess variants, and the yellow "within 2" logic for age and jersey number adds a deduction layer that pure tile-flip games lack.

Tips and Strategies for Hertl

• Open with a well-known veteran. A guess like Sidney Crosby or Alexander Ovechkin reveals conference, nationality and rough age in one move — veteran players give you maximum information about where the target sits.
• Split conferences early. If your first guess is an Eastern Conference player and the division column stays dark, your next guess should come from the West.
• Use the age arrow aggressively. The higher/lower arrow on age is the fastest filter — each guess can halve the age pool.
• Goalies are great probes. Goalie guesses instantly resolve the position column and test a whole roster category at once.
• Mind the trade deadline. Because only active players count, rosters shift mid-season — a player's team column reflects their current club, so check for recent trades if you are stuck.
• Jersey numbers within 2 matter. A yellow number column means you are close; try numbers two up or down rather than guessing wildly.

Where to Play Hertl

The original game lives at hertl.app. Because it is open source, mirrors and guide pages host playable versions too — WeddleGame's Hertl page is one such playable mirror. Avoid any site asking for downloads or sign-ups; the real game runs entirely in the browser for free. If you enjoy quick daily guessing rituals, our own Plusword offers the same two-minute habit in word-deduction form.

Is Hertl Free?

Yes. Hertl is completely free with no account, no download and no paywall — a two-minute daily ritual you can learn in one sitting, much like our own daily puzzle. It is an unofficial fan project, not affiliated with the NHL, and earns nothing from players — the open-source code is public on GitHub.

Hertl Mistakes That Burn Your Eight Guesses

Eight guesses, six clue columns, one mystery NHL player — Hertl punishes shallow hockey knowledge. Fix these habits:

• Guessing only current stars. The answer pool spans eras, and veteran players know the grid loves a 90s or 2000s name. If your knowledge starts in 2015, expand backward — older players are often the intended answers.
• Ignoring the division column. Team, position and nationality get all the attention, but division is a powerful filter: it instantly narrows the team list to a handful of clubs. Read every column, not just the famous ones.
• Forgetting jersey numbers. The number column is the most underused clue in Hertl. Star players' numbers are memorable, and a correct number with a wrong team still tells you enormously much about the answer's era and profile.
• Wasting guesses on impossible combos. Each guess should satisfy as many known clues as possible. Throwing a random name that contradicts two green columns is a burned guess — with only eight attempts, every guess must be a genuine candidate.
• Neglecting nationality patterns. Certain nationalities cluster by era and position in NHL history. Using nationality plus position together often leaves only a few plausible names.
• Not learning the namesake. The game is named after Tomas Hertl — studying his career line (Czech centre, Sharks stalwart) is both a tribute and genuinely useful context for the game's clue style.