[Discussion] Should the NHL give 3 points for regulation win?

[JAVA-1]

2 hours ago, goalie13 said:

Since the introduction of loser points, I have always been in favour of, and often advocated for, the three points for every game system.  But it's never going to happen.

 

The current system keeps teams mathematically in the playoff race longer.  It's artificial parity and the NHL owners love it.

Not sure how you figure it is a loser point involved???? The old system with no OT was 1 pt. each for a tie, is it not the same now? The only difference is you get a bonus pt. for OT win. I don't mind if they get rid of the shoot-out and keep the OT going till a team scores, at least that is really exciting.

[Makaramel MacKhiato]

1 hour ago, Ghostsof1915 said:

2 points for a win in regulation or overtime.

0 points for a loss. 

 

I like this idea too.

[joe-max]

We have been doing it here in Europe for years and it works just fine. It is fairer and it devalues the pond hockey gimmick (3:3; shootout). Will probably never happen, the NHL wouldn't want to rewrite its record books and the owners like their perceived parity.

[on the cycle]

I like the 3 point system better.

[goalie13]

2 hours ago, JAVA-1 said:

Not sure how you figure it is a loser point involved???? The old system with no OT was 1 pt. each for a tie, is it not the same now? The only difference is you get a bonus pt. for OT win. I don't mind if they get rid of the shoot-out and keep the OT going till a team scores, at least that is really exciting.

It's just not the same.  You can beat a team in OT and only gain a point on them.  You lose a game and you still get a point.  For that matter, technically, you could lose every game in the season and still come out with 82 points.  It's this new kind of system that helps teams stay mathmatically in the race even if they don't deserve to be there.

 

Besides, the old system (pre-1942 and 1983-2005), did have OT.  If you won in OT you got all the points.

[goalie13]

4 hours ago, -AJ- said:

Not to mention forward passing in all three zones. We already have asterisks by Esposito's shutout record to exclude those early days.

And don't get me started on the rule that forbid goalies from leaving their feet to make a save.  

[-AJ-]

4 hours ago, JAVA-1 said:

Not sure how you figure it is a loser point involved???? The old system with no OT was 1 pt. each for a tie, is it not the same now? The only difference is you get a bonus pt. for OT win. I don't mind if they get rid of the shoot-out and keep the OT going till a team scores, at least that is really exciting.

As far as I can tell (correct me if I'm wrong), teams only started getting points for OT losses in 1999-00, so for the first 15ish years, there was no loser point. I'm not 100% certain on this because it was before my time, but the stat "OT" only starts appearing in standings as of 1999-00, so that's what I've inferred.

 

@goalie13 Do you know if this is true or not?

[goalie13]

28 minutes ago, -AJ- said:

As far as I can tell (correct me if I'm wrong), teams only started getting points for OT losses in 1999-00, so for the first 15ish years, there was no loser point. I'm not 100% certain on this because it was before my time, but the stat "OT" only starts appearing in standings as of 1999-00, so that's what I've inferred.

 

@goalie13 Do you know if this is true or not?

My recollection is it wasn't until the 2005-06 season, after the lockout.  It was the same time the shootout was introduced.

[-AJ-]

16 minutes ago, goalie13 said:

My recollection is it wasn't until the 2005-06 season, after the lockout.  It was the same time the shootout was introduced.

I do recall there being four numbers to display team records for a few years, so I assumed one of them was ties and one was OT losses. I wouldn't see a reason to distinguish between normal losses and OT losses if they both didn't give any points. Were OT losses just used as a tie-breaker like ROW is now instead?

[goalie13]

12 minutes ago, -AJ- said:

I do recall there being four numbers to display team records for a few years, so I assumed one of them was ties and one was OT losses. I wouldn't see a reason to distinguish between normal losses and OT losses if they both didn't give any points. Were OT losses just used as a tie-breaker like ROW is now instead?

My mistake.  The loser point was introduced in the 99-00 season.

 

I still stand by my original assertion though that the loser point creates artificial parity when wins are only worth two points.

[-AJ-]

2 minutes ago, goalie13 said:

My mistake.  The loser point was introduced in the 99-00 season.

 

I still stand by my original assertion though that the loser point creates artificial parity when wins are only worth two points.

Thanks, I was kind of stunned that I didn't realize it until now so I wanted to confirm with another knowledgeable hockey person. I've done some analysis on what Tampa Bay's record this year would look like with older point systems and will try to post it sometime later when I have time. The results are interesting.

[goalie13]

4 minutes ago, -AJ- said:

Thanks, I was kind of stunned that I didn't realize it until now so I wanted to confirm with another knowledgeable hockey person. I've done some analysis on what Tampa Bay's record this year would look like with older point systems and will try to post it sometime later when I have time. The results are interesting.

If I had thought about it a little deeper I would have realized my mistake quicker.

 

The shootout didn't come in until I lived in Calgary.  I remember going to a pre-season game that year where every pre-season game had a shootout, regardless of the score.

 

I also used to listen to Dan Russel a lot, but that was when I lived in Kelowna, before Calgary.  Russel used to refer to the loser point as circus time, and the circus point.  So obviously the loser point preceded the shootout.

 

D'oh.

[Gollumpus]

My preference would be to go back to 2 points for a win, 1 point for a draw. No OT, no shoot-out.

 

If people feel there has to be some sort of circus aspect to awarding points then I suggest one of the following:

 

Option 1.) If you win in regulation you get 1 point. If there is a draw, there is no OT or shoot-out, and neither team gets a point. This will increase the urgency of winning a game in the regular season, and allow teams to play the spoiler role right at the start of the season.

 

Option 2.) Forget about the 60 minute game and go directly to a 60 minute shoot-out. If there is a tie after regulation time, then they have a 5 minute shoot-out cuz the fans find that really, really exciting. 

 

Option 3.) Same as Option 2, except that we introduce the possibility of penalties. If (for some reason) penalties are given, then the offended team gets to put a second player out for the duration of the penalty. The extra player cannot be substituted out. This would mean that the defending team could have a defender and a goalie vs a shooter for two minutes, or two offensive players vs a goalie, but only until a goal is scored.. The extra player is out there for the entire 2 minutes if he is acting as a defender, or until a goal is scored if he is for the attacking team. Only the active shooter can score a goal in this circumstance, not the extra player who can only defend, or pass the puck to the shooter. 

 

                                                               regards,  G.

[IBatch]

Terrible idea.  A much better idea just got back to how it used to be, ditch the shoot-out all together,  no loser point, and maybe just do 10 minutes of 3 x 3 or something...the loser point backfired and is more of an incentive to lock things up defensively in a tie game in the third because it guarantees a point so I get the idea of the OP, but what in the heck is wrong with a tie now that we know teams will play for it AND the loser point?

 

Maybe the guys that made the rules in the first place were on to something, and it needed no alteration 90 years later.  Or at least the game evolved into a way that  worked for the majority of the leagues history.  

 

No need to throw 100 years of statistics out the window and start a new era or way to do it....just have ties.  And call this a blip (shoot-out)...the vast majority want to see it gone, wonder when Bettman will get the memo.

[CrippledCanuck]

Eliminate loser point for ot loss and shootout loss. 

[Wilbur]

21 hours ago, -AJ- said:

I like the idea of a 3-point system. It would muck with some records, but we could still count things by point percentage.

The moment they went to the loser point and every game had a win they mucked with the record books.

 

Like has been said before either every game is worth 2 points or every game is worth 3 points.  Personally, I prefer the 3 point game.  I don't have much issue with a loser point for getting to overtime/shootout as long as teams are rewarded 3 points for a regulation win.

[-AJ-]

*Note - this work was done before Tampa's most recent win.

 

So I did some research and looked into how Tampa Bay's record this year would look under older point systems. I compared it under the three more recent systems:

1. 1999-2004: No shootouts

• To convert to this time, I took every shootout win and backed it down to 1 point instead of 2, as these would have ended in ties.

2. 1982-1999: No loser points for OT losses

• To convert to this time, I took every shootout and OT loss and backed it from 1 point to 0 points, as there were no points for losses in this era.

3. 1942-1982: No OT

• To convert to this time, I took every OT win and backed it from 2 points to 1 point, as these would have ended in ties during this era.

 

Here's an image the results of my analysis:

 

For reference, in the late 70s, Montreal regularly hovered at .775 Points % or higher.

 

This difference was far greater than I expected it to be, but there are some caveats to this research:

 

1. It can't be assumed that modern day Tampa Bay would play the same under older point systems. For example, if they knew they were possibly ending up with only a tie instead of the opportunity to for an overtime win, they might have pushed harder for another goal near the end of the 3rd period instead of waiting for overtime like they did, meaning that some of these points may not have been lost.

                        a. This can be seen by the number of extra time games Tampa Bay currently has. In just 65 games, 16 games have gone to extra time. If we were to pro-rate that to 80 games, like the Montreal Canadiens of the 70s played, it pro-rates to a plausible, but still very high 20 ties. 20 ties was a mark that teams hit on occasion in the old days, but not very often. This to me suggests that less games would likely have gone to extra time (ties) if Tampa Bay played in the old point system.

 

      2. The change to 3-on-3 overtime also changes things as it lessens the number of shootouts in modern day hockey, meaning that the change from modern day hockey to the pre-shootout era (1999-2004) is smaller than it would have been during the 5-minute 4-on-4 overtime days with shootouts to follow.

 

     3. It's also worth noting that older teams like the 70s Montreal Canadiens probably would have played differently near the end of the 3rd had overtime existed during the regular season during their era, so more games may have gone later and they may have had less urgency at the end of games to take late leads.

 

 

Even with all those caveats, I still feel that the results of this analysis are stark enough to make me strongly believe that the best teams of today's game come nowhere close to the dominance of teams in the eras of the past The difference in point percentages (0.662) to the great teams of Montreal (as high as 0.825) is just too stark for me to say they're comparable.

[KelownaCanucksFan]

Yes but the league won’t change because it gives the image of parity, it’s all a sham. Can’t sell the game in Gary’s favorite markets if the teams are way out of the playoff race 

[SergioMomesso]

It would be great but the league would never go for it. It’s all about the money. No way the league wants meaningless games in Feb for teams other than the Oilers, Panthers Sabres and Canucks. 

[ey40]

Shootout is not being considered as the tie-breaker so I am not sure why it is needed when the game is still tied after OT. 

So I would suggest:

1. Get rid of shootout.

2. Award 3 points for a win, 1 for a tie. No loser point in OT.

3. OT minute up to 7 or 10, and remain 3-on-3.