Rocket's Red Glare: Fed up with the NHL's overtime "loser point"

Thus, unlike every other sport I can think of right now as I write this post, NHL games fluctuate in the level of reward that they offer to the combatants. It is always best to be the winning team, which always gets two points. But if the losing team can manage not to lose until the absolute very end they are also given a point, presumably for trying hard and giving it their all. Perhaps it should be labeled the "Punto Point." In any event, Stu is a [redacted]. But getting back to the secondary theme of this post, the loser point has been around since the end of the lockout and it is probably not going to go anywhere no matter how much I complain (much like Stu). It annually produces a race to the playoffs that keeps more teams in for longer than they deserve. The almighty dollar being what it is, if you didn't pick that up earlier – the NHL is probably not prepared to sacrifice the extra revenue generated by keeping low-level teams in the quest for the Cup. Nonetheless, the loser point is stupid. It is a gimmick to generate interest in the fans of teams that should be much more worried about their future than their present. Hockey is an odd enough sport that it is not uncommon for a lower-seeded team to win a round or two, or even make it to the Stanley Cup finals, but the Cinderellas never win the whole thing. Eight out of the last nine years the Cup has gone to either a one or a two conference seed and the lone exception was the incredibly loaded Pittsburgh Penguins of two years ago who plowed through their share of injuries during the regular season. Perhaps the most logical thing to do would be to award three points for a victory. Thus, a regulation win would really mean something, and an overtime or shootout loss would still be preferable to a regulation loss but it would not be worth half as much as a win. A team that Puntoed its way through a full 60 without losing could achieve its rightful due, but it wouldn't be as egregious as giving that team a three-year, $8.5 million contract. Yet, I reject the three-points-every-game scenario. It has come to my attention that they maintain this type of league scoring in soccer. Truth be told, I am loathe to add any fuel to Marthaler's "soccer is not the product of the antichrist and will not force you and your loved ones to punch kittens in the face" campaign. So the three-point-system will not work. In its stead, I have what I think is a better system that will produce as much, if not more excitement for the NHL. It will not only maintain the atmosphere where lots of teams have a chance to make the playoffs deep into the regular season, it will actually provide a new level of drama for the late season games. I call it a modified one-point-system. How does this modified one-point-system work, you ask? Well, let me tell you because it really couldn't be simpler. A team that wins a regular season game gets one point. That's it. No loser point, no point for trying hard, no point for pushing the game past its regulation time. One single, lone point for a victory. But as this is a "modified" system there is one catch: There will no longer be a shootout to determine a game's winner after a five-minute overtime. Instead, if teams are tied after regulation, they will play a ten-minute, four-on-four overtime. Should neither team score in the overtime then no point is awarded for that game. Both teams go away empty-handed. The modified one-point-system will not only eliminate the shootout, which has caused much consternation amongst the purists ever since its inception, it will also make for a truly desperate and exciting overtime. Can you imagine, as the season winds down, the level of intensity late in the third and in overtime between, say, a team barely hanging on to a division lead and a team in ninth place in the conference? It would be riveting, especially since both teams could wind up frustrated. The current regular season scoring system is a mess. Despite its seeming success, it really only muddies the waters and makes it hard for fans to assess the relative strength of their team. It also relies on the gimmicky shootout to produce an artificial excitement that generally annoys anyone who really cares about the game. The modified one-point-system would maintain the excitement by reinvesting in the game itself and not a glorified skills competition. It would also give regular season games the kind of meaning they lack when the loser point is at the ready to salve the wounds of the defeated. That all being noted, Stu is still a [redacted].