If you have been monitoring the action around the NHL
entering the weekend then you might have noticed that quite a sizeable amount
of games have been ending in the shootout. In fact, of the 16 games occurring
between Thursday October 17 and afternoon of Saturday October 19, 6 were
decided in the shootout, a 37.5% occurrence. Shootouts are a polarizing topic,
you may love the skill and novelty of it or you may despise the fact that it
isn’t a suitable representation of actual hockey, but the reality is that they
exist so we will have to deal with them until something better comes along.
One criticism of the existence of shootouts, as well as the
“loser point” a team receives if they loses a game in extra time, is that teams
tend to coast through the end of the game and overtime instead of playing hard
for the win. Understandable, it makes a loss more palatable as a player when
your standings don’t take a devastating hit from playing an extra five minutes
and matching up in a skills competition. But, for fans, it makes for some
pretty bad hockey. Also, since the 2010-11 season, shootout wins count against
you in terms of playoff seeding. In my opinion this contributes to the removal
of that cathartic joy when your team comes out on top during a big game.
I thought I would put the loser point to the test. Of course
the eye test is always a good indicator of “quality” hockey-a 1-0 game can just
as excitingg as a 7-6 game after all-but is there any statistical evidence that
less effort is being exuded in overtime as opposed to regulation time?
To explore this, I decided to use shot and goal statistics
as my main method of determination. If you don’t shoot, you can’t score goals
and goals are important to win games from what I understand.
Just to preface, my preference would have been to use Corsi
and Fenwick stats to back up my observations because they are more
representative of possession trends than exclusively shots that hit the net.
However none of these numbers are available for 4v4 situations, at least
through my go-to sources for that sort of information. I am aware that pure
shots-on-net won’t tell the whole story but maybe it can give us a glimpse into
what separates the regulation minutes of a game to overtime.
All numbers are relevant as of 6:00 PM Central Time on
Saturday October 19 and are based off of what is available for the 2013-14.
For the sake of simplicity and to present the underlying numbers, let us assume all situations
occur without penalties. Also let us assume the frame of reference for a
league-average team, Team A, playing against an opponent, Team B.
Team A plays 60 minutes against Team B entirely matched-up
5v5. At the conclusion of 60 minutes, Team A has executed 29.89 shots that
reach Team B’s net while Team B has shot 27.78 pucks that reach Team A’s net.
Combined, the two teams shoot 57.67 shots, a rate of .96 shots per minute. Team
A scores 2.35 goals while Team B scores 2.36 goals, a marginal enough
difference that we can send our hypothetical game into overtime.
In a 5-minute session of 4v4, Team A shoots 3.09 pucks that
reach Team B’s net while Team B shoots 3.17 pucks that do the same. Combined,
the two teams shoot 6.26 shots, a rate of 1.25 shots per minute. Team A scores
at a rate of .273 goals per 5 minutes of 4v4 while Team B scores at a rate of
.221 goals per 5 minutes of 4v4, 3.28 and 2.66 goals respectively per 60
minutes of 4v4 just for comparison’s sake to 5v5 play. Play, of course, does
stop once one team scores but our purposes only call for an indication of
scoring frequency, not an assumed result beyond overtime of our scenario.
At first glance, these numbers seem to suggest that not only
shooting but scoring is increased in overtime compared to regulation. However,
these statistics include ALL 4v4 situations, not explicitly overtime.
I went further down the rabbit hole and looked specifically
at overtime situations during this season. Games have ventured into extra time
a total of 24 times at this point of the season. Out of those 24 games, only 8
have been decided during the 5-minute frame, making the shootout a 66.67%
certainty in games that go beyond regulation time.
Teams have combined for a total of 384.9 minutes of 4v4
situations, but roughly 201.94 combined have been spent in overtime. Once
again, I assume a lack of penalty time in the extra session. Also, only one
goal has been scored in a 4v3 situation, a short-handed third-period marker by
Boston against Tampa Bay on October 3, so I didn’t find situations aside from
4v4 statistically significant enough to include.
This season has seen 20 goals scored while teams are locked
into 4v4 play. If you separate the 8 goals scored in overtime than these
numbers start to take a very telling shape. While the 2.38 goals per 60 minutes
in overtime don’t seem like much to make an assumption off of, being almost
identical to 5v5 statistics, in 4v4 situations during regulation teams score at
a rate of 3.94 per 60 minutes.
Just to bring shots back into the equation, 103 shots have
hit the net in the 100.97 game minutes of overtime (201.94 is the combined
minute total for all teams. Since it requires two teams to compete in a game,
that number must be divided by 2 to generate this statistic, hence 100.97
minutes). However, you can separate these numbers further, arriving at 20.97
minutes in games which an overtime goal has been scored and 80 minutes of games
that last the entire 5-minute extra session. This brings us to 6.68 shots per 5
minutes when the games ended in overtime compared to 4.69 shots per 5 minutes in
games going into the shootout, a full 2 shots fewer on average than games that
don’t see a full 5-minute overtime period.
To reiterate a point from earlier, these statistics don’t
paint the full picture in regard to how teams react during overtime but it does
suggest teams that enter overtime taking more offencive risks tend to settle
the game without necessitating the skills competition. Corsi of course would
have been a more indicative marker as it tells a better story of possession but
shot totals are currently the only measurements we have to date.
On a comparative level, however, I feel we can confidently
infer that overtime is not effectively fulfilling its purpose which is to increase
offence and scoring. This isn’t the
fault of overtime itself but there appears to be a stark contrast in the
systems teams employ when facing off in 4v4 situations between regulation time
and sudden death overtime.
Is there a way to reduce the amount of games concluding with
the shootout, which tends to hover around the 14% mark of all games played? The
most popular suggestion to date is change the overtime format to 4 minutes of
4v4 and 4 minutes of 3v3 or some modulation of that idea. While this has been
tested out at prospect/development camps it has yet to be legitimately explored
on the professional level.
Another solution would be to change the widely imbalanced
points system. Under the current rules, 2 points are awarded for any win, 1
point is awarded to teams losing in overtime or the shootout, and 0 points are
granted to a team losing in regulation. With this method the majority of teams
wind up with over .500 win percentages, a rather inflated result when a loss
can basically still leave you in the black, as it were.
I see two ways to correct this: either implement a 3-point
system, where points are awarded in the same manner for overtime results as
well as losses but a regulation win nets 3 points, or scrap the point system
all together and call a win a win and a loss a loss. The latter seems more
enticing, in my opinion, because it places the value on a win, regardless of
the method, and helps present the NHL as a more legitimate league in line with
the better-established NFL, MLB, and NBA.
If we want to embrace the gimmicky nature of the shootout,
however, Jeff Marek of Rogers Sportsnet has possibly the most far-fetched yet
palatable suggestion: Hold the shootout prior to regulation. In this format the
tiebreaker, should a game necessitate one, has been settled before a single
minute of actual hockey has been played. I wouldn’t anticipate there is a
single chance that this idea would come to fruition but it would satisfy both
the pro- and anti-shootout factions. Sure, there would be a shootout at every
game, but when all is said and done it would likely reduce the amount of games
actually decided by the shootout.
Some of these alternatives to the current format are gaining momentum so it will be interesting to see how the league decides to try them out.
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