Three points, no gain
OT awards create mediocrity
Professional sports leagues, driven by an unquenchable thirst for revenue and profit, desire the greatest possible parity in their standings. But parity is the friend of mediocrity, and the enemy of excellence.
For the NHL, a key to maintaining that parity is the current system under which teams earn points in the standings. Any win earns the victor two points. A loss in regulation time gives the loser nothing — but a loss in extra time means one point.
As of Wednesday, there had been 161 overtime games, the “three-point games,” in which one team received two points and the other got one. Such games make it very difficult for even good teams to gain much ground — and help to keep weaker clubs in the race.
And the more teams with playoff dreams, the longer fans remain engaged and hopeful, and the more obscenely overpriced tickets and concessions they will buy, and the more TV ratings will stay high.
Here we are well past the midpoint of the 201617 campaign, and there are only two teams, Arizona and Colorado, that are hopelessly out of the playoff race. That means that of the league’s 30 teams, 28 can see scenarios in which they earn a playoff slot.
The dream regular season for a pro league is one in which virtually every team still has a shot at making the playoffs nearly until the final game.
We’re just about there now in the NHL.
“You look at your standings every night after games and you shake your head at all the three-point games,” Buffalo Sabres coach Dan Bylsma said recently.
It’s easy to see why Bylsma is vexed. If you’re trying to hold off teams a few points behind you, and you win your game in regulation, your team gains no ground on the victor of a three-point game, and only a point on the other team — despite the fact it skated off the ice as a loser.
Bylsma was asked at a press conference late last month about the desirability of changing the NHL standings methodology to one modeled on European soccer and hockey leagues:
• In games decided in regulation, the winner receives three points, the loser gets zero.
• A team that wins in overtime of any sort — sudden-death or shootout — earns two points.
• The team that loses in extra time gets one point.
Just imagine the value of wins in regulation — and the motivation that would provide for players to give their all, and not simply hang on until OT.
An awful lot of NHL games are mighty boring these days, and this system might just spice up the action. Teams would play with desperate urgency to grab the big three-point prize — and avoid leaving the ice empty-handed.
Picture a showdown game between two closely ranked division foes within a point or two of each other in the standings.
The match is tied late in the third period. But then one team scores in the final seconds to get a regulation victory. How painful it would be for the losing team, which would earn zero points while its opponent collects three?
The basic value of the 60-minute regulation would be enhanced — and the gimmicks of 3-on-3 play and shootouts would be reduced in importance.
“I have mixed feelings on this,” Bylsma said in response to a query about the European model by NESN play-by-play man Jack Edwards.
“Prior to (being involved in) international competition I would have said, ‘No, I like two points. I like the old system,’” Bylsma said. “But having played some games under the international system, and getting three points for a win vs. two, the winning in regulation is much more valued.
“I’m not sure what the point total would be if we did three. You’d have to rearrange the record books in a lot of cases. But I do like the value of winning in regulation.
“(Now), you win in a shootout and it’s only worth one more point than if you lose in overtime. You still get that point. We see repeated games go for three points, night after night. It makes the standings really close. It creates the situation where we see 10 teams within a whisker of each other in the standings.”
Which is just what the league office wants. Sell a lot more tickets and popcorn that way.