Teams Cannot Afford to Fall Behind in New NHL

It is still very early in the NHL regular season, but teams that are falling behind now are quickly putting themselves out of playoff contention.  With the parody in the league these days and the extra overtime/shootout points teams that fall behind early in the season really put themselves up against the wall in terms of coming from behind and grabbing a playoff spot.  I saw it last year with my Ottawa Senators.  The Sens started off slow and then they were fighting a losing battle all year long.  Even a huge three week span to start March where the Sens earned 18 of a possible 22 points didn’t event put the Senators within a reasonable striking distance of a playoff birth.  I’m writing this article because I keep hearing fans of teams low in the standings talking about how their team has a legitimate shot at the playoffs.  It’s getting to that time of year where teams are already finding themselves out of the hunt.

Take the Toronto Maple Leafs for example.  Leaf fans are the worst.  Most of them probably still think their team is going to win the Stanley Cup this year.  The will say things like, “we are just 7 points out of the playoffs.  That’s just four wins.”  But the truth is that’s four wins for the Leafs, four losses for the 8th place team, three losses for the ninth, tenth and eleventh place teams, and two losses for the 12th placed team.  That equals out to 19 games having to go as planned, and a lot of the time that’s just not possible because these teams that have to lose will likely be playing each other.  Not to mention that these losses have to be in regulation.  The extra point makes it even more difficult for teams to come from behind to make playoffs because even when teams ahead of them are losing they will still be receiving a single point many of these times.

Let’s look at this logically.  I think even fans making these outrageous NHL predictions in favour of their favourite team can agree that a playoff team needs 90 points at an absolute minimum.  The average of the two 8th placed teams last season was 92 so we will use that number to make our following calculations.  The Maple Leafs currently have 25 points in 29 games.  This means that they need to earn, at an absolute minimum, 67 points in their remaining 53 games.  That is an average of 1.265 points per game.  So far this season, only the top 6 teams in the league have a point % greater than 1.265.  To put it into perspective at an absolute minimum, the Leafs would have to win about 31 of their last 53 games, lose 17 in regulation and lose 5 in OT/SO.  Does anyone really think the Maple Leafs can be a top 6 NHL team for the last two-thirds of the season?  I certainly don’t.

Once a team falls behind in this new NHL where the teams are all very equal and many games award the loser a point it is very difficult to make up any ground.  The games at this time of year are extremely important, so if your team is starting to fall off the pace, I advise you to treat every game like it’s the playoffs and watch it intently.

NHL 2008-2009 Standings Using 3-Point System

I’m a big believer in the NHL switching over to a 3-point system that awards 3 points for regulation wins, 2 points for overtime/shootout wins, 1 point for overtime/shootout losses and nothing for regulation losses.

I feel that the current system of awarding 2 points some games and 3 points others is completely ridiculous because it encourages regulation ties and makes it difficult for teams to gain any ground in the standings during the playoff races.

I’m going to be adding a detailed article outline why I think the NHL should make the switch to the 3-point system in the near future.  In the mean time I have done some research and analyzed how the standings would have looked last year had the 3-point system been used:

Eastern Conference

Standings Using Current System vs Standings Using 3-Point System

	Team	GP	Wins	OT Wins	OT Losses	Losses	Points
1	Boston	82	46	7	10	19	162
2	Washington	82	40	10	8	24	148
3	New Jersey	82	37	14	4	27	143
4	Philadelphia	82	34	10	11	27	133
5	Carolina	82	35	10	7	30	132
6	Pittsburgh	82	33	12	9	28	132
7	Florida	82	34	7	11	30	127
8	New York Rangers	82	30	13	9	30	125
9	Montreal	82	30	11	11	30	123
10	Buffalo	82	31	10	9	32	122
11	Ottawa	82	29	7	11	35	112
12	Toronto	82	24	10	13	35	105
13	Atlanta	82	24	11	6	41	100
14	Tampa Bay	82	19	5	18	40	85
15	New York Islanders	82	20	6	9	47	81

As you can see using the 3-point system would have made some significant changes in the Eastern Conference.  Most notably, the Florida Panthers would have finished seventh with 127 points, passing the New York Rangers and pushing the Montreal Canadiens out of the playoffs.  The Habs played 22 overtime/shootout games in 08-09 and this played a major role in allowing them to sneak into the 8th playoff spot in the East.  Another change would be the Penguins falling from 4th to 6th position.  This would have meant that the Penguins play the New Jersey Devils in the first round of the playoffs, which could have caused the entire Stanley Cup run to play out differently.  Most people would agree at the Panthers deserved to be in the playoffs and likely would have put up more of a fight than the Canadiens.

Western Conference

Standings Using Current System vs Standings Using 3-Point System

		GP	Wins	OT Wins	OT Losses	Losses	Points
1	San Jose	82	44	9	11	18	161
2	Detroit	82	42	9	10	21	154
3	Calgary	82	40	6	6	30	138
4	Chicago	82	36	10	12	24	140
5	Vancouver	82	37	8	10	27	137
6	St. Louis	82	31	10	10	31	123
7	Columbus	82	31	10	10	31	123
8	Minnesota	82	33	7	9	33	122
9	Anaheim	82	30	12	7	33	121
10	Nashville	82	28	12	8	34	116
11	Edmonton	82	31	7	9	35	116
12	Phoenix	82	32	4	7	39	111
13	Dallas	82	25	11	11	35	108
14	Los Angeles	82	26	8	11	37	105
15	Colorado	82	20	12	5	45	89

Using the 3-point system, the Minnesota Wild would have squeaked into the 8th place spot and the Anaheim Mighty Ducks would have missed the playoffs but 1 point.  If that’s not a good race then I don’t know what is.  Sixth through ninth in the West has only a 2 point difference in the West.  This was a 4 point difference using the current system and it’s much more difficult to make up points the way points are currently allotted.  So there goes the argument that the playoff races would be less exciting with the 3-point system.  Both Nashville and Edmonton would have been in it right to the end as well with 116 points a piece.  The only other change the 3-point system would have made is Calgary and Vancouver switching places (but they would both have likely still lost to Havlat and the ‘Hawks anyways ).

As you can see the 3-point system isn’t going to drastically change the standings.  However, it is the fairer way to award points and the slight differences would have been huge for both Florida and Minnesota who really each deserved to be in the playoffs based on their records.  Minnesota played in 3 less overtime games than the Ducks and Florida played in 4 fewer OT games than the Habs.  The current NHL point system is supposedly rewarding competition, but in reality it is rewarding mediocrity.  The teams that play for a tie are rewarded, while the teams that play for the win are penalized.

That’s it for now.  I’ll have another post on this topic within the few days outlining why the NHL should switch to the 3-point system.