Endless OT part of NHL lore, but alternative game-enders exist
Mike Milbury didn’t shoot anyone.
He didn’t even climb into the stands and beat up a fan with a shoe like he did as a member of the Boston Bruins 41 years ago.
Just the same, the NBC colour commentator certainly hurt the pride of hockey players and fans everywhere earlier this week, touching a sensitive nerve in suggesting an alternative to an extended sudden death, 5-on-5 overtime as the Tampa Bay Lightning and Columbus Blue Jackets played on and on in the opening game of their first round playoff series.
Milbury opined about playing with four players a side or going on to a shootout after two or three overtimes were complete.
Ultimately, Brayden Point scored for the Lightning midway through the fifth overtime period, ending the fourth-longest game in Stanley Cup history.
In some quarters, Milbury was accused of sacrilege. Stanley Cup playoff lore is full of overtime heroes and about surviving all the marathons that come from winning four rounds of best-of-seven series.
I also disagree with Milbury. I wanted Joonas Korpisalo to make 100 saves and Seth Jones to play 100 minutes — of course, as a middle-aged Canadian who grew up with a certain set of rigid rules about what the NHL playoffs always have been, I’m conditioned to certain beliefs.
Perhaps there’s a different train of thought among a younger generation that has embraced the shootout as normal. I can at least listen to Milbury’s arguments about the potential longer-term impact of injuries or fatigue resulting from an endless opening game.
One significant difference in the revamped 2020 playoffs is the fact there is no travel between games.
All around the world, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to settling tie scores.
Different sports — even factions within the same sport — offer up a variety of tiebreaking solutions to games or matches that go on endlessly.
Let’s take Olympic hockey. In 2010, Sidney Crosby scored in overtime to defeat the United States and give Canada the gold.
What’s often forgotten about one of the shining moments in Canadian hockey history — right up there with Paul Henderson in 1972 and Mario Lemieux in 1987 — is that the teams were playing four a side, as per Olympic hockey overtime rules.
If Canada and the U.S. had been tied after the 20-minute overtime, a shootout would have been in order.
That was the case four years later when T.J. Oshie and the Americans defeated Russia in Sochi.
It was also the case in the 1998 semifinal in Nagano when Wayne Gretzky stayed on the bench as Canada lost the shootout to Dominik Hasek and the Czech Republic.
OK, not such a good memory for Canadians.
The shootout is also the ultimate deciding factor in international soccer, introduced to playoff action by FIFA in 1970.
Under World Cup rules introduced in 1982, tied teams play two non-sudden-death, 15-minute extra periods. (If one team scores, the game isn’t over until the entire 30 minutes expire).
If still tied after the 30 minutes, the game is decided on penalty kicks.
In the 1994 World Cup final, Brazil defeated Italy after penalty kicks.
In terms of American football, the NFL’s overtime rules are full of controversy. After a coin-flip to decide who receives the ball first, a team that marches down the field to score a touchdown immediately wins. It’s not a fair system. Ask Kansas City Chiefs fans how they feel about losing the 2019 AFC Championship Game to the New England Patriots in that fashion.
The CFL’s approach is to give each team an equal number of opportunities to score from the 35-yard line in. If teams score a touchdown, they must attempt a two-point conversion.
The NBA has opted for five-minute overtime periods until a winner is determined.
While Major League Baseball has introduced regular-season changes for extra innings — teams begin with a runner on second base — that doesn’t yet apply to the playoffs.
And then there’s individual sports such as tennis and golf, where the major championships are governed by differing rules when matches are deadlocked after normal regulation time.
Clearly, when it comes to the best way to tackle overtime, there is plenty of room for debate.
Does a younger generation of athletes and fans want a quicker resolution to deadlocks?
Milbury haters notwithstanding, the NHL should take a deep dive to see if there’s any way — or any will — to tinker with the current approach.