NHL standings points system: Toss it, keep it or change it?

To reiterate, the point of the current system was to make it more attractive for teams to try and score in overtime.

Many of the plans on here do not adress this. If you are going to play an overtime, you need to offer an incentive to win it. Otherwise, teams will take their chances with the shootout.

 

So then A) go straight to a shootout or B) play overtime until someone wins.

Win. Lose.

There should be no other option.

 

That's cool, but I think the NHL really likes the shootout option.

Maybe just straight to a five-man shootout?

 

Translation: I finally realise JR is usually right.

 

I like the five-man idea.

But I also love watching overtime until someone wins (i.e. playoffs). Imagine how hard a team would play if it knew it would get NOTHING for a loss.

 

But it's an 82-game schedule.

Imagine both teams coming off a long road swing and playing three or four ten-minute overtimes.

Imagine.

 

I know Zeke, but I'm a firm believer in wins and losses and nothing else.

I also believe the schedule is 10 games too long.

The problem with the NHL is its multitude of problems. Fixing one causes another or you can't fix one because of another (i.e. what we're talking about; overtime is out of the question because the road trips, schedule. But shortening the schedule won't happen)

 

Take the schedule down to 52 games and play them all until there is a winner, and I've got no problems.

But if you need 82 to make your nut, then you better give the paying customers a winner in a reasonable amount of time.


Hell, baseball is the most American of games, but people don't hang around for 18 innings.
I can't imagine trying like hell to lure someone into paying good money for their first hockey tickets, and then having them watch two teams on the back end of a roader trap their way into a 1-1 tie in the third overtime before they have to pack the kids up and go home.

Something tells me they won't be back.

 

There is a system in place -- for good or bad -- so games do not end it ties.
So why are they giving a team a point for a tie?
Scrap the point system...you win or you lose.
Why can't it be that simple?

 

For two reasons, spnited:

The hockey establishment has never fully embraced the shootout. I think the OT loss point was designed as a panacea to folks who were against the shootout.

Two, and this is really a corollary to part one, there are no shootouts in the playoffs. You play until there is a winner. So the single point is designed to get people to try to win in overtime and to differentiate between a playoff win and a shootout win.

Again, I'm not necessarily in agreement, just representing the arguments I have heard.

 

It is that simple. The problem is, Bettman is an idiot.