The NHL Overtime system goes through debate each offseason, but actual changes have been incredibly limited since the advent of three-on-three.
Every offseason, hockey fans occasionally try to cure their boredom by debating various ways the National Hockey League could make their product better. For many very-online people, these debates often include overtime formats, point structures, and playoff format. Sure enough, just 10 days ago, Adam Proteau of The Hockey News published a call for the NHL to adopt the Russian Junior/Minor Hockey League’s brand new overtime rule. Proteau writes,
The KHL announced that starting next season in junior-league overtime, teams will not be permitted to bring the puck back to their half of the ice. Teams that twice violate this new rule will be assessed a minor penalty.
It would not be incredibly surprising to see the NHL come up with alterations to its current overtime rule, but I do not personally agree with this one. With the way teams collapse at three-on-three, taking the puck out of the offensive zone is a good way of creating rush chances in short order. While some teams, perhaps such as the Washington Capitals, might take 2-3 business days to skate from one end of the ice to the other, hence their nine shootouts, teams like the Edmonton Oilers (only three shootout results) or New Jersey Devils (only two shootouts) can pull off these regroups and attacks pretty quickly.
On the note of the Washington Capitals, though, more and more fans have voiced their displeasure with the loser point — the last vestige of the old tied point. The Detroit Free Press ran an article back in May stating that the Detroit Red Wings should be in the playoffs, if the point system was “fair.” They looked at the standings in three alternative forms. The first had overtime losses counting for zero points, and all wins counting for two. The second used the pre-overtime system of two points for a win and one point for a tie at the end of regulation. The third used the PWHL’s point system of three points for a regulation win, two points for an overtime win, and one point for an overtime loss. They did find that each of the changes resulted in an altered playoff outlook, but which makes the most sense?
For what it’s worth, the Devils might have benefitted a bit from some of these ideas last year, when they were eighth in the conference in regulation wins — both the Capitals and Islanders had fewer. But it is hard to take the Detroit Free Press’ claim about the Red Wings seriously when Detroit had the fourth fewest regulation wins in the conference, only ahead of the Senators, Jackets, and Canadiens. If anything, the Red Wings were worse at relying on overtime for extra points as the Islanders and Capitals.
The three-point regulation win idea seems to be somewhat popular, but I am not really one to get behind it. Still, Ian Mendes ran an article for The Athletic in January promoting that PWHL rule for NHL adoption. Fun note: the Devils were in a playoff spot when this article was written, and would have been even higher with a 3-2-1 system! Still, one team possibly benefitting from a rule change is not a good enough reason to support it — even if that team is my own. To me, there are ways to alter overtime to preserve the 2-1-0 point system in ways that promote “real hockey” while bringing more satisfying game endings to fans.
The Real Evils: The Reduced-Strength Overtime and the Shootout Point
Let’s talk about why the loser point came into existence for a moment. Before 1983, a tied game at the end of regulation was just a tie, with one point going to each side. From 1983 to 1999, teams could win the game in a five-minute overtime, earning two points for a win, one point for a tie, and zero points for an overtime loss. Prior to 1999, there was no loser point. Why? Because the game was always decided at a normal state — five-on-five hockey. There was no reason to reward a team for an overtime loss, but teams could still split tied points.
The loser point was only designed in 1999 because the league got the idea that, if they reduced overtime strength to four skaters on each side, then teams would probably score more goals and prevent a few ties. That was not enough, as evidenced by their eventual decision to implement shootouts after the 2003-04 Lockout. In abstract, the loser point makes sense. Why should a team get zero points for an opponent winning at four-on-four or three-on-three after regulation? If the standings are designed for which teams are most deserving to play playoff hockey, overtime should generally reflect the “real hockey” that teams will never get a break from when they get to the continuous overtime of the playoffs.
With the present system of two points for regulation, overtime, and shootout wins, alongside one point for overtime and shootout losses, I sympathize with the three-point system advocates. I still think that it is wrong to have an overtime in which a team cannot earn all possible points. It would also be wrong to assign 0 points to a team that loses at reduced-even strength or in a shootout. On this, I look to the other sports leagues of North America.
A win is a win in the MLB, NFL, and NBA, regardless of whether it comes in regulation or overtime. And most notably about this comparison, all of those leagues allow for a much longer overtime than the NHL. While the MLB has its recent issues with its artificial extra-inning runs, a game could technically still go 14, 15, or 16 innings. The NBA will play until there is a winner at the end of consecutive five-minute overtimes. The NFL will play one overtime period, which was formerly 15 minutes — and is now 10. That NFL system is one I want to center in on.
Like the NHL, the NFL plays a 60-minute game. Unlike the NHL, the NFL does not alter the number of people on the field. Unlike the NHL, NCAA football, and the MLB, the NFL does not make it easier to score in overtime. And unlike any of these leagues, the NFL still allows for ties. But very, very importantly, those ties come after 10 minutes of real football. This gets me to my proposal.
If the NHL wants to improve opinions of overtime and make the playoff standings more reflective of true team strength, it needs to eliminate the shootout and bring back ties, but only if they play a ten minute overtime period at five-on-five. This would return the point system to the 1983-1999 format of two points for a win, one point for a tie at the end of overtime, and zero points for a loss. But in comparison the 1983-edition of overtime, the time in which teams could break that tie is doubled, like the WHA overtime that spurred the introduction of the five-minute overtime period.
For the shootout, I would most quickly compare it to the modern MLB extra-inning rule, in which each team gets a runner in scoring position at the start of each half-inning past the ninth. This is a reviled system among baseball fans, as it makes games feel cheap in extra innings — just as many hockey fans have come to revile the shootout. Wins and losses should not feel unearned. Aside from that, who benefits from playing an extra half-period to decide overtime?
Elite players, who play somewhere between two and four minutes in current overtime, would probably play about the same or a tad more, due to the longer period. Even if Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt are incredibly fun to watch at times in overtime at the moment, I know I would change it in a heartbeat. More defensive players and bottom six forwards would get a couple shifts due to needing to keep legs fresh in overtime. Goalies would see, in all likelihood, a greater volume of shots of more varying danger. Best of all, fans would see more hockey, with overtime games that end, at the latest, probably a few minutes later than a shootout would.
People like Adam Proteau or Colin Campbell, the NHL VP of Hockey Operations, would no longer have problems with teams turning three-on-three overtime into a possession game. They would probably worry that too many games would not end in overtime. However, the elimination of the shootout would also prevent teams from running out the clock, knowing they have a guy like Alex Ovechkin, Brock Nelson, Auston Matthews, or Artemi Panarin that can still deliver them two points by taking practice shots with no defensive pressure.
I think we can agree that the shootout win does not deserve as many points as a regulation win, but does it even deserve twice as many points as a shootout loss? The most boring teams in the NHL would continue, even with an expanded overtime, to take their chances at winning in a game state that feels like fake hockey. Only by limiting the amount of points teams can earn by taking the game past the 65 or hypothetical 70-minute cutoff can overtime return to its rightful place as a function for more games to end with a definitive, justifiable winner in a way that preserves the integrity of the standings and point system.
In my opinion, though, the loser point cannot be eliminated without both eliminating the shootout and returning to five-on-five for overtime. If a team loses in three-on-three or four-on-four overtime, I think they should get the traditional, pre-1983 point for being tied at the end of regulation — altered game states that will not exist in the playoffs should not be a huge factor in qualification. If loser points exist, though, then ties cannot — unless ties earned zero points. However, since a tie should function as a half-loss (as they function in the NFL), this does not work either.
The best solutions are sometimes the simplest ones. And in this case, I wholeheartedly believe that just playing a bit extra hockey — at full strength — is the best way to keep fans engaged while giving the players a chance to win games before they end in a tie. Would the occasional tie be annoying? Sure, but not nearly as much as seeing an opponent get two points for a shootout win. It would all be worth it to see ten extra minutes of full-strength hockey, which will only help to prepare teams more for the reality of playoff hockey, where every goal is a grind.
Your Thoughts
What do you think about the overtime issue? What about the points system? What idea have you seen for “fixing” overtime that you would want to get behind? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and thanks for reading.