Time to kill shootout?

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Aaron Vincent Elkaim / the canadian press The New York Rangers' Artem Anisimov faces off against the Toronto Maple Leafs' Tyler Bozak Saturday, in a game the Rangers won 4-3 in a shootout. (CP)

OTTAWA -- The NHL is the only professional sports league that rewards failure.

By offering a point in the standings for an overtime or shootout loss, the league is not only taking away some of the sting of defeat, it's distorting the standings and helping some teams improve their playoff chances based on their losses.

As of the start of play Saturday, the Florida Panthers had lost two more games than they'd won, but sat near the top of the Eastern standings, the third seed in the conference, because 14 of their losses have happened after regulation time. That put them first in the Southeast Division, one point ahead of Washington, even though the Capitals had a higher winning percentage.

The whole thing makes about as much sense as the CFL awarding a point for a team that misses a field goal.

The NHL introduced the extra point for an overtime loss as a remedy for a problem that existed before the shootout was introduced. If a tie game wasn't resolved in overtime, each team would receive one point, so there was a disincentive for teams to play for a win in overtime because there was a risk they could end up with no points.

As a result, there was a lot of conservative play in overtime and the vast majority of games that went past regulation still ended in ties. But since the shootout was introduced, a game can't end in a tie. Every game has a winner; it's just that some now don't have a loser.

Now, the extra point is awarded because of the perception that it's not fair for a team to get zero points for a loss that comes late, especially if it happens as a result of the shootout, a fun spectacle for fans, but a silly way to decide a hockey game. As a result, there's still an extra column in the standings for overtime losses and the impact is significant.

As of Saturday, the Carolina Hurricanes looked like a .500 team, with a record of 30-30-15. But their real record of wins and losses was 30-45. It's just they had lost some of the games later than others. So they were two points and two spots ahead of Tampa Bay, which has won 45 per cent of its games, compared to 40 per cent for Carolina.

In every other league, a loss is a loss. In the NHL, if the winning goal against you is scored with one second left in the third period, you get nothing. If you lose five seconds into overtime, you get a point. The idea that losing late is better than losing early goes against the basic principles of competition. If timing matters so much, why not award five points if a team leads from the first period to the end of the game, four points if they take the lead for good in the second and three if they score the winning goal in the third?

The simplest solution would be for the league to eliminate the shootout and just keep playing until someone wins. That's how baseball and basketball games are decided (and the losing teams get no reward for losing in extra time). And those are the rules for the NHL playoffs.

After all, these are superbly conditioned professional athletes who travel on charter planes, so they can handle a few games a year that stretch on a bit longer than normal. This isn't 1960, when a long bus or train ride would follow a game.

Even without eliminating the shootout, the NHL could simply do away with the extra point for an overtime loss and go back to giving two points for a win and zero for a loss, regardless of when it happens.

Some people have suggested awarding three points for a regulation win, but that's still giving out points for losing and it would still distort the standings almost as much as the current rules.

Eliminating the extra point, on the other hand, would dramatically alter this season's playoff picture.

The Pittsburgh Penguins have the highest winning percentage of any team in the NHL, but as of Saturday they were the fourth seed in the East because the New York Rangers had one more overtime loss.

Instead of being the third seed, the Panthers would be tied for eighth place with Buffalo, fighting for the last playoff spot in the division. Washington, which had won a higher percentage of its games than Florida, would be the third seed.

In the Western Conference, Phoenix is currently the seventh seed. Without the benefit of the 12 points they had for losing after regulation time, the Coyotes would be out of the playoffs, six points back of eighth-place Colorado.

Some general managers, like Detroit's Ken Holland, have talked recently about tinkering with the overtime rules. The NHL should go all the way by eliminating the shootout, playing until someone wins and giving zero points for any loss.

Sports is about winning and losing, and there should be no reward for defeat, no matter how and when it happens.

-- Postmedia News

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 25, 2012 B4