High time NHL extends overtime and kills the shootout

As a wild week nears its end, I'll reiterate a suggestion I made in January that would help the NHL determine its best teams at season's end: Lengthen overtime and kill the shootout.

A game shouldn't come down to a skills competition, so just bring ties back into the equation.

There's also a simple solution to keeping most games from ending in a deadlock, and that's to make the already wildly popular 3-on-3 overtime period last longer.

Some fear this will exhaust each team's stars, but what it should do is force coaches to use more of their bench.

And why shouldn't they?

Let a Ryan Carpenter, Andrew Shaw, Dominik Kubalik, David Kampf or Kirby Dach try to be the hero. Force a defenseman like Connor Murphy, Olli Maata or Calvin de Haan onto the ice a bit more often.

My thought is to make OT seven minutes, but Hawks goalie Robin Lehner would go even further.

"Ten minutes 3-on-3 would be nice because 3-on-3 is a lot more entertaining than a shootout," Lehner said. "The fans in the 3-on-3 (are) nuts.

"And there's always good chances, and we're playing hockey. We're letting hockey determine the fate of it. There's a lot of breakaways in 3-on-3, so you've still got a (shootout) element to it.

"But who am I to judge? Let the big boys decide that."

The 3-on-3 overtime already drastically helps reduce the need for shootouts. Extending the session to seven, eight or 10 minutes figures to get most games to end with a winner.

For fun, I decided to see how the standings would have changed if shootouts hadn't existed the past couple of seasons and games ended in ties. (Teams get 2 points for a win, 1 point for an overtime loss or a tie and zero for a regulation loss).

Last season Winnipeg would have won the Central Division, resulting in a Nashville vs. St. Louis first-round matchup as opposed to Winnipeg vs. St. Louis.

The year before the changes would have been dramatic in the Eastern Conference:

• Tampa Bay, which had 6 shootout victories, would have finished in second place in the Atlantic and been forced to play Toronto in the first round. That means Boston would have won the division and opened with New Jersey.

• Columbus, winners of six shootouts, would have been watching from home with Florida earning a playoff berth and an opening-round matchup with Washington, the eventual champs.

As for this season, the second wild-card spot in the West would look quite different.

To wit:

Right now, that spot is held by San Jose (27 points), with Vegas (26), Calgary (26), Nashville (25), the Hawks (25) and Anaheim (25) close behind. Take the shootout victories out and the Hawks would actually be in the second wild-card spot because they have played one fewer game than the Sharks and Canucks (who have 3 shootout victories).

This means San Jose would leapfrog Vancouver in the Pacific, and WC2 would look like this: Hawks (25 points in 24 games), Vancouver (25 points in 25 games), Anaheim (25 points in 25 games), Nashville (24), Minnesota (24), Vegas (24) and Calgary (23).

Admittedly, it's a bit of a crazy exercise because there's a large difference in games played between some teams like Nashville (23) and Calgary (27).

So, memo to the NHL: Just do it. Give the fans more of what they want while once and for all removing one of the few things that's wrong with the game at the highest level.

• The Blackhawks on Wednesday recalled forward Anton Wedin from the Rockford IceHogs and transferred forward Drake Caggiula from injured reserve to long-term injured reserve, retroactive to Nov. 10.

Wedin, 26, had 11 points (4G, 7A) in 17 games with Rockford this year, his first professional season in North America.

Oh, shoot

Percentage of games that have gone to a shootout since 2014-15. The NHL adopted 3-on-3 overtime in 2015-16.

Season Percent

2014-15 55.2

2015-16 38.9

2016-17 33.4

2017-18 34.8

2018-19 32.1

2019-20 37.3

Blackhawks' records in shootout and OT:

Season Shootout OT

2015-16 1-2 10-7

2016-17 4-1 9-8

2017-18 1-2 6-8

2018-19 3-1 9-11

2019-20 0-3 2-2

NOTE: 72 of 90 of the Hawks' games that have gone to overtime since 2015-16 did not require a shootout.

SOURCE: Hockey-reference.com