The NCHC, the new league formed after the creation of Big Ten hockey and featuring six former members of the WCHA, announced Thursday it will use shootouts to add an extra point to conference games tied after a five-minute OT session.
"The conference office and our member institutions are committed to engaging our fans in ways that provide them excitement in our home venues," said NCHC Commissioner Josh Fenton. "The use of a shootout at the conclusion of our standard overtime to determine an extra point within conference standings will make for an exciting race to determine the NCHC regular season champion. We are confident our passionate fans will enjoy this aspect of the game in similar ways to how it is embraced in the National Hockey League."
All NCHC regular-season conference match-ups will feature a shootout should the game end in a tie at the conclusion of a five-minute overtime period. Any game that uses a shootout will be officially recorded as a tie within the overall record of each team. The Pairwise ranking will be calculated knowing the game was officially recorded as a tie.
The shootout will feature three shooters pre-selected by each team following the conclusion of overtime. The team that scores the most goals among the three shooters will be declared the winner. Should the shootout be tied at the conclusion of the initial three shooters, a sudden- death round with one shooter from each team will commence until a winner is declared. Goaltenders will remain on the same ends of the ice for the shootout as they were for the five-minute overtime period.
The Division-III MIAC also recently adopted a shootout system.
