*Course: Sportswriting (JOUR381W; Spring 2021)*
*Photo courtesy of Brendan Henne*
Successful teams being hurt by inexplicable method.
Entering play on Tuesday, the Nashville Predators hold the fourth and final playoff spot in the National Hockey League’s Discover Central Division.
They’ve won 27 games, six better than the Dallas Stars, who sit in the division’s fifth position.
With just six games to play, the Predators should be on the verge of locking up a berth. Nope. Instead, they are left fighting for their playoff lives.
How is that possible? Why is a team with six more victories than the team trailing them in jeopardy of missing the Stanley Cup Playoffs?
Well, Dallas can thank the overtime point system for keeping its playoff chances alive, for now.
The Stars are currently 21-15-12, with 54 points and two games in-hand on Nashville. They trail the Predators, who hold a record of 27-21-2 and have 56 points, by just 2 points.
Make it make sense.
Dallas is being rewarded for essentially being a sub-.500 team at 21-27. The best they can finish is 29-15-12 (or 29-27). Yet, thanks to 12 free points (and possibly more to come) via losing games that they were able to extend into overtime or a shootout, the Stars still have a pulse.
Why are teams being rewarded for losing? A core objective of any sport is to win the most games. Is it not?
By no means has Nashville been among the league’s elite this season. In fact, a postseason berth seemed to be out of the question deep into March.
However, things have started to shift in a different direction.
Since March 14, the Predators have gone an impressive 16-5-1, vaulting themselves back into playoff contention. Nashville has made the Stanley Cup Playoffs in six consecutive seasons, tied with the Washington Capitals for the second-longest streak in the league, trailing only the Pittsburgh Penguins (14 straight seasons).
That doesn’t matter. Nashville has only lost two contests in overtime or a shootout. Because of that, the streak is very much at-risk.
Another team’s mediocrity is compromising Nashville’s success. It’s incomprehensible.
The league introduced the overtime loss concept prior to the 1999-00 season. Just six years later, in 2005-06, ties were abolished, and shootouts were introduced to the sport.
Sounds good on the surface. Ties are typically synonymous with soccer (and occasionally, football), right?
There is still a major flaw.
Each team being awarded a point following a tie was a product of the fact that neither team could break through and win the game.
Nowadays, why is a team who comes away from overtime or a shootout as the losing team still awarded a point? They weren’t victorious, so why do they get a free point?
The Edmonton Journal published an article this past Feb. 7, in which writer Bruce McCurdy referred to the system as awarding losing teams with a “Bettman point,” symbolic of Gary Bettman, the league’s commissioner who has enabled these changes.
That freebee point has also been commonly known as a “loser point.” It’s so fitting.
At the moment, Dallas is a losing team. But that losing may soon be rewarded.
Unfortunately, Nashville is not the first team to be potentially punished by such a flawed system.
In 2015-16, the Philadelphia Flyers went 41-27-14 (41-41), earning 96 points and the Eastern Conference’s final playoff berth. The Boston Bruins were 42-31-9 (42-40) with just 93 points.
Win one more game, lose five fewer games in overtime or a shootout and be penalized by missing the playoffs.
Where’s the logic?
In 2016-17, the upstart Toronto Maple Leafs wiggled into the Eastern Conference’s final spot with a 40-27-15 (40-42) record.
It’s not great, but a record close to .500 can’t be complained about too much.
Until one looks down in the standings and realizes that the two teams that Toronto finished ahead of actually won more games.
The New York Islanders went 41-29-12 (41-41), while the Tampa Bay Lightning went 42-30-10 (42-40).
Both teams won more games than Toronto. It didn’t matter.
The Maple Leafs’ 15 loser points were enough to earn the final berth with 95 overall points, one better than the 94 that both the Islanders and Lightning finished with.
Winning clearly isn’t the most important criteria for the league. If it were, the team with the most victories out of the three (Tampa Bay) would’ve been in the postseason.
The postseason structure that the league utilized from 2013-14 until 2018-19 (and could possibly pick up again in time for the 2021-22 season), which sees each conference take the top three teams from each division and two wild card teams, has also played a hand in more-qualified teams being left out.
In 2018-19, the Penguins’ aforementioned streak was saved by the Bettman point. In all reality, it should’ve been snapped that season.
Pittsburgh went 44-26-12 (44-38), but still slid into the Metropolitan Division’s third slot.
The Montreal Canadiens posted a very similar record at 44-30-8 (44-38), but were somehow left out of the postseason.
It’s even more frustrating to think about when one considers that Montreal won 2 of the 3 games played against Pittsburgh that season.
The Canadiens won the season series and finished with the same amount of wins. Montreal clearly proved to be the better of the two teams.
Again, it didn’t matter. Having fewer loser points kept them from the playoffs.
Ironically enough, all three of the previously-mentioned teams to benefit from the loser point were all first-round exits in their respective postseasons, with no team winning more than two games in a series.
So, where can the league go from here?
Abolish the point system, while keeping 3-on-3 overtime and shootouts around. It’s that simple.
Reward the victorious teams, while keeping overtime and shootouts around as a source of heightened fan entertainment.
The NHL is currently the only 1 of the 4 major professional sporting leagues in the United States to utilize a point system in order to determine its playoff teams.
In a standard year, the league wants to take the top eight teams from each conference, right?
Then do it. Take the eight teams with the most victories from each conference and award them playoff berths.
The idea of giving teams a point for a tie made sense. Giving teams a point for a lost game (regulation or overtime/shootout) does not make sense.
When a tiebreaking scenario comes in to question (like it should’ve with Pittsburgh and Montreal in 2018-19), refer to head-to-head meetings. If two teams are fighting for a berth, let their regular-season meetings decide the worthy team.
Take a look at the head-to-head series between Nashville and Dallas this season, with 7 of the 8 scheduled meetings already having taken place.
The Stars are 3-0-4 (3-4) against the Predators this season. Seriously.
Dallas has won just 3 of 7 meetings against Nashville, yet has been awarded at least 1 point in all seven instances.
To this point, Nashville has proven to be the better head-to-head team by the slimmest of margins. The final regular-season meeting, scheduled for Saturday, should be determining whether the Predators will win (5-3) or split (4-4) the season series.
Instead, that meeting will determine whether the Stars earn at least 1 loser point in half or more than half of the contests.
Those 4 (possibly 5) extra points earned against Nashville could prove to be the difference between Dallas making or missing the postseason.
It shouldn’t be that way, but Dallas can’t be faulted for playing games, earning points and letting the system operate the way it is designed to.
Nashville has and will (in all likelihood) win more games than Dallas this season. Please don’t let them be penalized by being a more successful team.
The ball is in the league’s court. Change needs to come sooner rather than later.
Please, make it make sense.
*Photo courtesy of Brendan Henne*
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