In this article, I will talk about the circumstances leading up to the current overtime format in the NHL (“National Hockey League”), attempts to change it, and how to fix it.

A brief history of overtime in hockey.

The concept of overtime during the regular season is not a new idea. Little known is the fact that overtime dates all the way back to the inaugural 1917-1918 NHL season. The very first overtime game was a 6-5 Montreal Canadiens win over the Ottawa Senators on January 5th, 1918.

Teams that were tied played an unlimited amount of “sudden death” overtime, which was played 5-on-5. Play continued until a player scored. There were no ties during this era. Teams did not receive a single (“extra”) point in the standings for losing in overtime1.

The NHL modified the overtime format for the 1921-1922 season. Overtime was now limited to 20-minutes of “sudden death” play. A scoreless overtime resulted in a tie for both teams.

This change held up for a few seasons before the NHL decided to limit overtime to 10-minutes of “sudden death” play for the 1927-1928 season.

The following season, the NHL removed the “sudden death” provision from the overtime format. This format was unique because it was the only time in history that more than one goal could be scored in overtime. A tied game at the end of overtime was a tie in the standings.

It’s interesting to note that the WHA (“World Hockey Association”) would use this type of overtime period during its brief existence from 1972-1979.

The NHL abolished overtime very briefly into the 1942-1943 season because of World Word II travel restrictions. This ensured that teams would be able to catch their trains after games. Games that would have gone to overtime were now considered ties at the end of regulation.

The last game that used the 10-minute overtime was a 5-3 New York Rangers win over the Detroit Red Wings on November 10th, 1942. The NHL did not re-introduce the 10-minute overtime period at the conclusion of World War II.

The NHL re-introduced overtime before the start of the 1983-1984 season; nearly 41 years after it had been abolished. Teams that were tied played a shortened 5-minute overtime period, which was still played 5-on-5. With it, the NHL decided to bring back the “sudden death” rule, which hadn’t been used in the regular season since 1928. A scoreless overtime still resulted in a tie.

It was after the introduction of this new overtime period that things started to get complicated. The AHL (“American Hockey League”) experimented with new tweaks to the overtime formula starting with the 1986-1987 season.

In order to reduce ties, the AHL awarded teams that lost in overtime an extra point in the standings. If the game was still tied at the end of overtime, the game would be settled with a shootout.

These innovations didn’t last long, however. The AHL abolished the shootout after the season in which it was introduced. The extra point was soon to follow, as it was abolished after the 1987-1988 AHL season.

The AHL soon re-visited these ideas when it re-introduced the extra point for the 1995-1996 season. Two seasons later, the AHL modified overtime to the current 4-on-4 format in order to increase scoring.

This change proved to be popular, so the NHL and ECHL (formerly known as the “East Coast Hockey League”) adopted the 4-on-4 format for each of their their 1999-2000 seasons. The NHL would introduce the extra point during the same season in order to reduce the amount of tie games.

The AHL would adopt the shootout for a second time during the 2004-2005 season, a season which the NHL lost due to a long and intense labor dispute with the NHLPA (“NHL Players Association”). At its conclusion, the NHL went the same route when it adopted the shootout for the 2005-2006 season, thus eliminating ties altogether.

The last NHL game that resulted in a tie was a 3-3 draw between the Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Islanders on April 4th, 2004. All of these changes remain in the NHL today.

America’s Disdain for the tie game.

The need to constantly tweak and fiddle with the overtime format partly stems from the negative perception of tie games by American audiences. Oft repeated is the old adage, “a tie is like kissing your sister,” a quote that has been attributed to multiple people. The earliest known usage of this phrase dates back to 1953 by Navy Midshipmen football coach Eddie Erdelatz after a scoreless tie against the Duke Blue Devils.

The corollary, “and losing is like kissing your grandma with her teeth out,” attributes to George Brett, a famous third baseman who played his entire career for the Kansas City Royals of the MLB (“Major League Baseball”).

What we can surmise from this is pretty simple: Americans have a very low tolerance for any result that isn’t winning. People often feel cheated when a game ends in a tie because “sports is about winning and losing” and “if nobody won the game, everybody sure as hell lost it.”

This sentiment hasn’t changed in recent years; it’s stronger than ever. There have been at least two instances in which high school hockey teams have been declared “co-champions” because the game had gone on so long that it posed a significant health risk to everyone involved.

The first occurred in 2008, when the MHSAA (“Michigan High School Athletic Association”) Division I championship final between the Marquette Redmen and the St. Mary Eaglets ended in a 1-1 tie after 8 OT (“overtime”) periods and 109 total minutes played in the game2.

The second came earlier this year, when the OHSAA (“Ohio High School Athletic Association”) championship game between the St. Ignatius Wildcats and the Sylvania Northview Wildcats ended in a 1-1 tie after 7 OT periods and 101 total minutes.

Fans were outraged. They thought this solution made a mockery of the game and wanted the kids to keep playing “until they collapsed.” Nobody could fathom the idea of teams being “co-champions” and would rather have had the game end in a shootout than a dastardly tie.

In either case, postponement of the game would likely result in the kids having to miss an extra day of school for what amounts to an extra period or so. Sometimes the journey to a result is much more sastisfying than the result itself. Needless to say, if a kid had actually collapsed from exhaustion due to failure to stop either game, it would be a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Attempts to fix the overtime format.

This implies that the current format is fundamentally broken. The underlying problems are simple: too few games end in overtime, and the “loser point” rewards teams for playing conservatively late in the game3. This results in everyone and their grandmother trying to concoct some inane solution that only sounds good in their head.

One such concoction is to simply change the points system to the one used by the IIHF4. I don’t like this idea because it doesn’t solve the problem of points inflation or the problem of too few games ending in overtime. It’s also unnecessarily confusing for fans in a game that has a lot of idiosyncrasies5.

Another such hair-brained scheme is one offered by Ken Holland (General Manager of the Detroit Red Wings), in which teams that are tied after the 5-minute overtime period play an additional 5-minutes of 3-on-3, followed by the shootout. The logic behind this idea is the misguided notion that it’ll create “more offense6.”

I get irritated by this suggestion because it turns the game into a mockery7 of sorts. The increased offense is artificial at best, and the idea is arguably more of a gimmick than the shootout because it insists that it isn’t gimmick. Lastly, this still doesn’t resolve the problem of points inflation.

The last idea involves dry scraping the ice before overtime8 and for teams to switch sides before play starts910. The thinking is that it’ll be easier to score with a fresh sheet of ice and that the “long change”11 will incite teams to make more mistakes.

These ideas are cosmetic, at best. Over the course of a full period, sure, the “long change” makes a difference. Over the course of a 5-minute period, it’s not going to be very significant. It also wouldn’t solve the “playing for overtime” strategy that so many teams continue to employ.

How to fix overtime.

My solution is two-fold: scrap points altogether, and modify the overtime format to 10 minutes of 5-on-5 play.

The NHL standings would now be sorted by win percentage (wins divided by games played), just like the other major North American sports12. The barometer for which team is winning a given race would now be clearer, and it wouldn’t allow for sub-.500 teams to creep into the playoffs by losing more in overtime.

Tiebreakers would also come into play more frequently and lead to tighter races, because it’s easier to have the same number of wins than points13.

During the researching phase of this article, I compared four hypothetical points systems14 and applied them to the results of the 2011-2012 and 2013-2014 NHL seasons15. In 2012, the first three points systems wouldn’t have had any effect on the status of playoff teams. Under the last (win percentage), Tampa Bay (.463 + 1st tiebreaker), and Calgary (.512) would have made the playoffs over Florida (.463), and Los Angeles16 (.488), respectively. New York would have won the Presidents’ Trophy17 instead of Vancouver by virtue of the first tiebreaker.

In 2013, none of the four points systems would have affected the status of playoff teams other than seeding. Boston still would have won the Presidents’ Trophy under win percentage, but it would have come down to the last tiebreaker against Anaheim.

As it stands, regular season overtime in the NHL is way too short. While restructuring the standings system is a great start, it doesn’t make it any easier for a team to score in this period. My version of overtime fixes this.

I’ve never liked the 4-on-4 format, because it essentially means that a coach is sending out one less forward that has the ability to score. In the case of a 5-on-3 powerplay, the non-offending team will be able to play with an extra skater long after both penalties expire18, which unfairly punishes the penalized team. Play should always be 5-on-5 when there is nobody in the penalty box.

In order to gain some perspective, I counted every game that went to overtime19, dating all the way back to the 2005-2006 NHL season20.

During that timespan, ~24%21 of all games went past regulation. ~57% of those games were decided in a shootout, while the remaining ~43% were ended in overtime. I also counted the number of games over the same timespan that went only a single overtime period in the postseason22, and calculated the average amount of time it took for a team to score23.

The average time amongst those games was ~6:48, with single-postseason averages ranging from ~4:06 to ~9:31. ~60% of all recorded overtime games were over by 10:00, while only ~34% of those games were over by the 5:00 mark24.

With the 10-minute overtime, we could expect a significant decrease in the amount of games that are decided in a shootout without having to make any drastic changes. Those numbers could be slightly higher if we include the “long change” in that assessment.

In short: the NHL had it right in 1927.

Works Cited

“American Dialect Society Mailing List.” LISTSERV . N.p., 26 Nov. 2002. Web. 17 June 2014.

“Broadcast Blog: The Shootout Situation.” StockOnThunder.com . Stockton Heat, 10 Mar. 2014. Web. 17 June 2014.

Buckeit, Mary. “After Eight Overtimes, Is a Tie Wrong?” ESPN.com . ESPN Internet Ventures, 17 Mar. 2008. Web. 17 June 2014.

Duhatschek, Eric. “Duhatschek: Overtime Changes among Topics at GM Meetings.” The Globe and Mail . The Globe and Mail Inc., 10 Mar. 2014. Web. 17 June 2014.

Guiney, Austin. “Expanded NHL Standings.” Google Drive . N.p., 27 Jan. 2014. Web. 17 June 2014.

“NHL Major Rule Changes.” Rauzulu’s Street . N.p., n.d. Web. 17 June 2014.

“NHL Season Summary.” Hockey-Reference.com . Sports Reference LLC, n.d. Web. 17 June 2014.

“Statistics.” NHL.com . National Hockey League, 17 June 2014. Web. 17 June 2014.

Rushin, Steve. “It’s Time To Tie One On.” SportsIllustrated.com . Time Inc., 19 Dec. 2005. Web. 17 June 2014.

“Talk:American Hockey League § Pioneering Rules/innovations.” Wikipedia . Wikimedia Foundation, 15 Dec. 2006. Web. 17 June 2014.

Warsinskey, Tim. “Game With No Winner Ends in Shared Title.” The New York Times . The New York Times Company, 09 Mar. 2014. Web. 17 June 2014.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.