The NHL has been bombarded with changes in recent years, affecting everything from on-ice play, to financial structure, to player movement. One of the first and, as it would turn out, most significant, changes was the elimination of the tie game. By first introducing the point awarded to teams losing in overtime and later the shootout, the NHL has created a system under which the incentive for teams to try and win in regulation has been diminished, if not destroyed.

Initially, of course, the NHL used a system which allowed ties, where one point was awarded each team in a tie game. Games ending in regulation netted two points for the winner and none for the loser. This system was initially changed for the 1999-2000 season, when teams losing in overtime were awarded one point (the same as if the teams had tied), the idea being that teams were too often becoming reluctant to play any sort of offensive hockey due to the fear of losing the standings point. Theoretically if a team had something to gain and nothing to lose, it would play all-out offense, leading to a wide open and exciting game. This system remained in place for a total of five seasons.

After the lockout the NHL switched to its current system, under which there are no ties, games can be settled via shootouts, and teams losing in a shootout or overtime would receive one point (the winner still receives two). The NHL believed that the elimination of ties and the inclusion of shootouts would create more drama and help the game appeal to more casual fans.

Ever since the introduction of the three point game, the concept has come under fire by fans who oppose it because it breaks with tradition, ague that that losing should not be rewarded, or argue that a game should not be decided by what is essentially a skills competition. Each of these arguments is partially based in opinion and can be argued for or against. What cannot be argued is that the current NHL standings system is bad for the sport because it removes the incentive to try and win a game in regulation.

Consider the case of an incredibly average team, one that has a fifty-fifty chance of winning every game on their schedule and a fifty-fifty chance of winning any shootout they may find themselves in. For this team the expected gain in standings from a game that ends in overtime is one point, but the expected gain in the standings for a game that goes into overtime is 1.5 points, and the team would thus be best served if all of its games were to go into overtime. Theoretically the most effective strategy would be one where a team convinced its opposition to stand around while the clock ticked down until to zero and then went into a shootout. The team would then have an expected record of 41-0-41 and 123 points – easily more than the 115 the Detroit Red Wings needed to wins the President’s Trophy last season. Obviously a team with skilled shootout players could do even better by winning more than half of their shootouts, which leads us to this conclusion: Hypothetically, the greatest team in NHL history could be one that never scores a goal, kills a penalty, or even takes a shot. Hypothetically, the greatest team in NHL history could be one that never actually plays a single game of hockey. Of course, this scenario would never unfold for a number of reasons. But the fact that the scenario exists, even as a hypothetical, ought to be enough to demonstrate that the NHL’s standings system is fundamentally flawed.

The most obvious solution to this problem might be to simply go back to the pre-1999 format of allowing ties. However, this is unlikely to ever happen. Traditionalists may not like it, but the fact is shootouts create drama and excitement, and an awful lot of fans don’t feel like they’re getting their money’s worth if they shell out $200 to take their family to see a tie. The shootout is here to stay. However, this doesn’t mean that the league can’t do anything about its broken standings system.

The solution for the NHL is to switch to a scoring system under which teams are awarded three points for winning in regulation, two points for winning in a shootout or in overtime, and one point for losing in shootout or overtime. This solves the problem of equal overall weight for games by having each game impact standings by three points and returns the incentive to go for a win in regulation by making the expected value of a game ending in regulation 1.5 points, the same as a game ending in overtime. Additionally if the league were to use regulation wins as the first standings tiebreaker, a regulation win would have even more value and thus going for the regulation win would be the best strategy for most teams most of the time.

While I came up with this idea by considering combining the current NHL scoring system and the scoring system generally used in soccer, I can’t claim it as an original idea. In fact, the scoring system I propose is already being used in some professional leagues around the world, most notably in Sweden and Germany. But the point here isn’t necessarily to come up with a groundbreaking new way of doing hockey standings, but to demonstrate why the NHL’s current standings system is flawed and propose an effective solution.

Below are spreadsheets designed to indicate what the league would look like if this system were implemented, using the results from the 2007-08 season.

Here playoff teams are shaded in blue; division winners in yellow. The standings are in the order of the actual 2007-08 standings, using only overall points (i.e. not accounting for divisions).  The biggest winner under this system would have been Carolina who would have gained not only a playoff spot, but a division title.  The biggest losers would have been Edmonton and the Rangers, both of whom played an incredible 25 overtime games last season.

Side-by-side comparison of standings under the current system and the three point system.