It was only a little more than three minutes, but what a three minutes it was.

With only two defencemen on the ice and six skaters total, the action was furious, especially given the two teams involved – the Colorado Avalanche and Toronto Maple Leafs – aren't known for their defensive acumen.

Because of a run of overlapping penalties, they found themselves at 3-on-3 for a long stretch of end-to-end play in overtime on Thursday, a potential preview of what NHL overtime could look like in the future.

It already does in the American Hockey League, which is serving as a guinea pig this season for a new overtime format aimed at ending more games before the shootout.

And it's working. After 171 games, there have been only five shootouts in the AHL this year. The new rule, which has teams play 4-on-4 for three minutes and then 3-on-3 for another four minutes, has essentially made the skills competition what it should be: an absolute last resort.

Instead of 15 per cent of games being decided by breakaway trick shots and addled goalies, as is the case in the NHL, less than 3 per cent are now going the distance in the minors.

That's not to say everyone loves it. "Three on three is a goofy situation on the ice," Travis Morin, the AHL's most valuable player last year, told defendingbigd.com. "I am not a fan of it but whatever."

There's no doubt it may take some getting used to, if indeed the NHL goes this route. In fact, 3-on-3 is so uncommon that the 3.3 minutes the Leafs and Avs played the other night constitutes 90 per cent of the 3-on-3 in the NHL this season and 4 per cent of the 3-on-3 played league-wide in the last eight years. It occurs so infrequently that there is only about 11 minutes of 3-on-3 each season, spread over all 1,230 games. There's no question that those have been exciting parts of games, however.

In a typical NHL game, teams generate roughly 2.4 goals and 29 shots per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 play. That rises to 2.8 and 32 shots per 60 minutes if you go to 4-on-4.

But 3-on-3 is a whole new animal. Teams have put up more than 60 shots and scored more than eight goals per 60 minutes, with all the odd-man rushes and chaos proving great fun for everyone but the coaches.

The quality of chances is so high that the average shooting percentage at 3-on-3 is more than 13 per cent, way up from the 8 per cent average at 5-on-5.

It's a change that would certainly help end more games in overtime. The only question for the league is if it can handle the "goofy" of 3-on-3 compared with what the shootout is.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this article said the AHL plays 4-on-4 in overtime for four minutes. The correct number is three minutes. This version has been updated.