I apologize if I wrote about this before and I’m just repeating myself, but with all the talk about the shootout during the show today, I wanted to re-establish my position on how important shootouts are to the overall standings and how important they really should be. Simply put, the shootouts have way too much weight when it comes to point totals and can ultimately decide who gets into the playoffs.
I agree with everyone who says that the shootouts are nothing but skills competitions designed to give a false ending to a hockey game that should really end in a tie. However, everything is catered to Americans and with baseball and basketball never ending in ties, fair-weather fans and first-timers look at hockey ties more like soccer ties. So, a compromise had to be made between the players that didn’t want to keep playing overtime periods and the commish that wanted to see his American markets happier when leaving the rink.
What we get now is a watered-down version of the international shootout model with three skaters a side getting a shot before we go to sudden-death. But why stop there? That’s really only one aspect of the skills competition that we’re going to see the rookies take part in next weekend in Raleigh. While you’re at it, why not have a faster skater, accuracy shooting and puck control relay competition as well? That would be a full team competition and the winner of all that would certainly deserve the extra point.
I know I’m being ridiculous, but it should illustrate to you how much I think of the validity of having a shootout decides and games. As we saw last year, it even decided who got a playoff spot and who was able to book early tee times in April as the Flyers entered the Eastern Conference playoffs thanks to a shootout miss by Olli Jokinen.
However, I can’t see Gary Bettman ever bending on this subject. He’ll just throw a bunch of double-speak and legalese at me and I’ll end up falling asleep, therefore losing the argument. So, if you have no choice but to keep the shootout, I’ve always liked the idea of the 3-2-1 system which rewards teams much more for winning in regulation. Teams that rely on overtimes and shootouts for wins end up paying a small penalty for not beating their opponent outright in the 60 minutes allotted. They would still get 2 points if successful, the losing team in overtime or the shootout would get 1 and it would stay the same if you lost in regulation…zippo!
All I want as a fan is to know that the system in place for the regular season works well enough that it separates the winners from the losers, the contenders from the pretenders and the Top 8 in each conference are worthy enough of being able to move on and battle for the Stanley Cup. I just don’t think the system in place now allows for that to happen.