If you bump OT from five minutes to 10 minutes, you get more of the good stuff and less of the bad stuff. But if some games are going to still make it to the shootout, why don't we attempt to fix that too while we're at it? There haven't been many memorable shootouts in recent memory -- at least not at the NHL level.
Think about the last great shootout you remember. What was it? Let me guess, it was this one:. Yeah, thought so. Jocelyne Nicole Lamoureux-Davidson's game winner in the Winter Olympics of course comes to mind as well, but she only shot twice in that shootout.
Oshie was sent to the ice SIX times, and scored on four of them. That's the chaos I'm going for with this. NHL shootouts would be a lot more interesting if they took the international rules and allowed the best players to take multiple attempts, notably like Oshie did in the clip above.
You'd likely have more goals, more highlights and the potential for epic player-vs-player showdowns to remember. Imagine an Oilers-Avalanche game goes to OT and still can't find a winner. Are you bummed, or are you excited about the possibility of seeing Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon square off in a back-and-forth breakaway showdown?
Even if the NHL made three different different skaters take attempts before getting to use a repeat shooter it would be an improvement from the current state of things. The Problem: In , the league switched away from a scheduling format that saw teams play 32 inter-divisional games, 72 within the conference and only 10 out of conference. Now, every team plays 29 games within their division games per opponent , 21 games within the conference 3 games per non-divisional opponent and 32 out of conference games 2 games per opponent.
That may be part of the reason the league changed its playoff format in to put an emphasis on divisional rivalries. Instead of using a straight-up seeding format, each conference is broken up into two separate divisional brackets.
While each division winner draws a Wild Card, the two- and three-seeds in each division automatically match up against one another in the first round. The most glaring issue with all of this is that a strong division forces good, successful teams into tougher and more unfair first-round matchups than they deserve. Note: During the season there is no wildcard playoff spots and the top 4 teams in the division will make the playoffs.
As well, there is no cross-division play — the first two rounds of the playoffs will be within the respective division. In determining who is in the playoffs and who is not, the Wild Card version is the most important.
League — This is a list of all the NHL teams in order of their point totals from greatest to least. It has no bearing on how teams are placed in the playoffs, and may be most useful to see who is at the bottom in helping to determine placement in the NHL draft.
Conference — This version divides the teams into their respective conferences: Eastern and Western. Now, to reach the Stanley Cup finals, you have to beat out the teams in your conference to get there, but this version of the standings does not give a definitive answer as to who you would be playing if the playoffs started today. This is more relevant because the top 3 in each division will make it to the playoffs.
The winner of each division gets one of the two top seeds in their conference in the playoffs. The second and third place teams in a division will end up meeting in round one of the playoffs.
Wild Card — This view of the standings is a combination of the Division and Conference standings. The view shows the top three teams in each of the two divisions within the conference. The rest of the conference is then placed under the divisions in a wild card race for the final spots to make the playoffs.
The top two point leaders in the wild card race qualify for the playoffs and play the two division winners. Z — it means it has clinched the conference and their division title and will finish first in the conference.
Y — it means it has clinched their division title and will finish first in the division. There you go, now you can read the NHL standings! Remember that as you watch your team throughout the season, the standings will change a lot. It seems like no two sources report the National Hockey League standings in the same way, so sorting out where your team is and how it got there can be confusing for a hockey beginner. But the statistics used in the NHL standings are actually easy to understand once you get the hang of it.
The most important numbers are wins, losses, ties, overtime or shootout losses, and points. All of the other numbers are important only for breaking ties or for analyzing strengths, weaknesses, and trends.
NHL conference standings differ from division standings, and it's the conference standings that really matter. This NHL shorthand is the easiest to understand. Teams are awarded two points for each win, one point for each overtime or shootout loss, and one point for each tie; however, ties were eliminated as of the — NHL season.
Goals scored during a shootout do not count toward a team's total. A team that wins a shootout is credited with one extra goal in the game and one extra goal in its season total. Again, goals allowed during a shootout do not count toward a team's total.
This Wild-Card format, sometimes labeled "Playoffs" by media, keeps more fans engaged and hopeful. That's why most media outlets list NHL standings for both "Division" and "Wild Card"-prompting newbies to ask hockey-fans friends to explain, hey, why the two formats?
Here's a quick example: The Chicago Blackhawks, who won three Stanley Cups in the just-finished decade, are dead last in the Central Division. But the team's fans might take heart that the 'Hawks are within a four- or five-game winning streak of being atop the wild-card standings.
Fun fact: North American sports vernacular is "standings" while European soccer fans refer to team places in their leagues as "tables. Let's turn to the columns in NHL standings, especially the concept of team points. When an NHL wins a game, it is awarded two points. With an game regular season schedule, there is a maximum of points for any team.
If NHL teams surpass points, it almost always qualifies them as a top-three finisher in their divisions. The top team each year is usually above points. Last season, Tampa Bay finished with an incredible points.
This is where is gets even more complicated. You can lose in the NHL and still gain points. If you lose in regulation-three minute periods-then the loss garners zero points.
But if the game is tied after 60 minutes, each team is in position to earn at least one point in the standings. The game could be won in the five-minute overtime or extend to shootout in which each team gets three penalty shots or "breakaways" with just the shooter bearing down on the goaltender.
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