Photo by slidingsideways
Every year, as the NHL winds down the regular season and the races for playoff seeding come to a close, I like to take a look at how much the “loser point” reeks havoc with the standings. Usually I do it before the final week of the season, but traveling out of the country for work has left me without access to games, or decent wifi, so this is it.
To keep it simple, I take a look at what OT and the shootout have done to the standings, comparing it to what it would look like if the NHL magically went back to ties after regulation and OT.
In the East the current standings look like this:
Atlantic Division
Montreal 48-22-10 (42 ROW)
Tampa Bay 48-24-8 (46 ROW)
Boston 41-25-13 (37 ROW)
Detroit 41-25-13 (37 ROW)
Ottawa 40-26-13 (34 ROW)
Florida 36-29-15 (28 ROW)
Metropolitan Division
NY Rangers 50-21-7 (46 ROW)
Washington 44-25-11 (39 ROW)
NY Islanders 46-27-6 (39 ROW)
Pittsburgh 42-26-11 (38 ROW)
Columbus 39-35-4 (31 ROW)
Actually, adjusted for counting OTL and shootout wins as ties, the playoff spots wouldn’t change much. The big change would be Tampa being clearly ahead of Montreal, Florida and Columbus would have been out of the playoff picture much earlier, and Ottawa would not be still be alive. So you could make the argument that the loser point is creating a playoff race that wouldn’t be there in the East. You could also argue that the extra points are artificially inflating the point totals of teams that don’t deserve to make the playoffs too.
In the West, however, where there is truly a race ridiculous race for playoff spots, the shootout rules are clearly having an impact.
Central Division
St. Louis 49-23-7 (40 ROW)
Nashville 47-22-10 (41 ROW)
Chicago 48-25-6 (39 ROW)
Minnesota 44-26-8 (40 ROW)
Winnipeg 40-26-12 (33 ROW)
Dallas 38-31-10 (34 ROW)
Colorado 36-31-12 (27 ROW)
Pacific Division
Anaheim 50-23-7 (42 ROW)
Vancouver 45-29-5 (40 ROW)
Calgary 43-29-7 (39 ROW)
Los Angeles 39-25-14 (37 ROW)
San Jose 39-31-9 (35 ROW)
The Central is being decided by shootout wins. Nashville has the most ROW, but find themselves second to St. Louis, and with Chicago right on their heels mostly due to those teams having 9 SO wins. At the edge of the playoffs, Winnipeg is clearly benefiting from both their 7 SO wins, and their 12 SO/OT losses. Their 33 ROW should have them out of the running (in fact, it’s one less than Dallas has and two less than San Jose, yet Dallas sits 6 points behind the Jets and the Sharks are 5.), but those extra points have them right there. Ironically, they are battling Los Angeles for the final wildcard spot, a team who’s real record is exactly .500. They’ve won 39 games and lost 39. But, they managed to get 14 of those losses to OT, so they sit with 92 points. Colorado is the team that should have been out of the playoff picture much earlier.
Oddly enough though, as of right now, the shootout rules appear to be a non-factor. The top 8 teams in ROW in each conference are, in fact, in the top 8 positions. The exact positioning is being altered slightly, but no one is missing the playoffs, as of right now. However, Ottawa and Winnipeg are still alive, so that could very well change.
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