Evaluating The Overtime

After watching the Rangers lose in a shootout to the Islanders last night I got to thinking about how awful it was for a game to be decided in the skill competition. While a fellow Ranger fan pointed out to me that the sloppy play by both teams showed how ties should still be allowed as neither team played well enough to win. But this is not a debate as to whether or not there should be shootouts, but rather is the value of overtime has lessened.

By my math, an astounding 125 out of the 217 extra-time games (as of the games finished on March 4th) have been decided in shootouts. The Edmonton Oilers won 14 of the 17 shootouts they participated in. Having seen a few of their games, after a minute or so into the overtime, they start playing not to lose rather than to win since they have a better chance coming out on top in the one-on-one competition rather than the four-on-four overtime.

And they aren't the only team. The Rangers are one of them as well. Disagree? Then how can you explain them putting slower skaters out on the ice *cough, cough, Marek Malik, cough* when there is more room to skate? Ryan Callahan, the fastest Ranger in yesterday's loss, was relegated to the bench (as was the red hot Nigel Dawes) for the slower - yet more responsible - Brendan Shanahan.

The league initially made overtime 4-on-4 to increase scoring with more room. That clearly is not happening as 58% of games that go beyond regulation remain even. Shootouts are certainly a fan-friendly device to decide games but the brass tacks of it is that hockey becomes an individual sport, which it is not. The shootout certainly isn't going to go away, so what is the solution?

Rather than turning to the idea of 3-on-3 play, how about a change to the offside rules? The league could make it a carry-over offsides where a player can already be in the offensive zone as long as the puck is carried over the blueline or can get rid of the blue line entirely. Do these sound familiar? They should, at least for folks who play(ed) roller hockey. There was a lot more scoring in Roller Hockey International and that wasn't necessarily a symptom of lesser-quality players. Having lax offsides rules opens up the ice surface even farther and allows longer home run passes and even cherry picking. The latter has some negative connotations but shouldn't.

Say a team wants to send one of their guys to camp out at the far crease. If the other team leaves a defender there, then its a 3-on-3 situation in the zone. If they leave the player alone with the goaltender, then its a 4-on-3 in deep. Say the three are able to get the puck out, then the goaltender can try to come out of his crease to challenge the goal hanger or stop the home run pass, which increases the odds of a good scoring chance even farther.

If the five minute extra period still doesn't produce a winner, then you can still have the skill competition declare a winner, but I would rather see games ended based on team play rather than individual. And by changing up the offsides, that increases those odds.

If I Was The NHL Commish ... #1

Something tells me that I will do this pretty often, thus the No. 1 in the header.

So here are some random things that I would do if I held the top spot in the league right now ...:

*Bring back the original conference and division titles - Prince of Wales, Clarence Campbell; Adams, Smyth, Patrick and Norris. Since there are now two more divisions than there used to be, add the (Frank) Calder and the (Herb) Brooks. The divisions are named after old guard builders and Calder was one of them so he is an obvious choice. And Brooksie is one of maybe two coaches worthy of such a large honour (the other being Scotty Bowman, but he isn't dead yet). If not for Brooks, hockey would not have its biggest most transcendent moment so I think it would be a good PR move. Not to mention that he still has massive name recognition so the public would understand. Hockey isn't basketball; we don't have to be as dry and boring, and the NHL doesn't have to provide a geography lesson ...

*Also I would bring back the old logo; the silver, 'climbing a hill' logo is silly. Make it gold, to complete the trilogy - first the copper (ok, it was orange), then the silver and now gold.

*The NHL is dumping a massive amount of money in its new New York store that will open this fall (for details click here). So to draw people to the store, the I would mandate that some players from each team that comes to play the Rangers or the Isles should spend an hour or two signing autographs.

*Forcefully encourage Nashville to move to Hamilton. The less teams there are in the Southern U.S., the more teams there are in Canada, the better.


*Smack Chicago Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz upside the head. There is no reason that one of the Original Six teams should be mismanaged so badly. That squad has a ton of potential right now, let the hometown fans watch them on TV. There is no reason that the AHL team in that city should draw better than the NHL team. Idiot.

*Bring the NHL Network to America - most cable carriers include the NBA Network (and soon the NFL), they should also have the NHL.

*ESPN did some inside-the-locker room documentaries a few years back on the Wings and the Aves if I remember. I would see if HBO would be willing to do a few new ones - then you wouldn't get the white-washed, selectively-cut version; you would get to see how things really are. While it is classic as is, something tells me Dino Ciccarelli wouldn't have said, "I can't believe I shook that freakin' guy's hand."

*I would stop the marketing/PR machine from dictating the highlights of the games. If you go to NHL.com and look to watch a game highlight, you won't see the fights in the game ... and that is insane. The Chris Simon incident aired all over the place but not on NHL.com. The biggest on-ice incident never happened if you watched from there ... for the thousandth time, stop trying to 'clean' up the NHL's image. That isn't the appeal. If people wanted to see long seasons of hockey with no fighting or hitting then they would watch the women play. Olympic hockey happens once every four years and has the best in the world playing on a dozen teams. Unless you are going to reduce the NHL to those restrictions, then you have to have the rough stuff. Thirty teams playing long, grueling seasons need to get physical to help stay motivated. Look at a baseball game now in mid-August - could it get any more boring?? And on that note, I have to get back to my 'day' job ...