A New Award And That's About It

PHILADELPHIA--Pretty thin gruel.

The content out of today's NHL general managers meetings at the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Philly was anything but explosive and pertained mostly to three matters:

• The announcement that Don Maloney of the Phoenix Coyotes had been named the first recipient of the GM-of-the-year award after somehow making the Desert Dogs into a playoff team in a season of turmoil.

• The agreement that the penalty for an illegal head shot next season - from the side or the back - will be a major and game misconduct, with no wiggle room for a minor penalty. This still needs the approval of the competition committee and the board of governors.

• Significant discussion over whether there are too many shootouts, and whether overtime needs to be tweaked from it's current five-minute, 4-on-4 format to something that would have more games settled in OT. The GMs basically agreed to monitor the issue.

Comments

[Kevin]

Too many shootouts - definitely. Here are a couple of ideas (maybe someone at the league reads this, but not likely). #1 - make every game worth 5 points, instead of either 2 or 3. The winner gets all 5 if they win in regulation, 4 if they win in OT, and 3 for a shootout win, and the loser gets what the winner doesn't. That way, there's more incentive to win earlier in the game. So what if the purists don't like it - the "old game" didn't have OT and shootouts, or helmets, or even teams in Florida and Arizona, either, but times change. #2 - extend the OT period to 10 minutes. Start by playing 4-on-4 like now, but at the first whistle after the 5:00 mark, change to 3-on-3, with a requirement that 2 of the 3 players be forwards.

[Bill Gotro]

One of the major reasons I no longer watch hockey - way too many shootouts, ie breakaways! Hockey is a team game and should end with the team playing, not a couple of individuals. I'm not holding my breath waiting for this to be rectified, though!

[koholeaf]

Just think if that game last night had been decided by a shoot-out, how exciting it would've been. In fact why play at all just set up a best of 10 and be done with it, an NHL dream games no longer than a half-hour and sell them as a reality show, TV revenues here we come

[Lou]

I forget who it was that suggested this reformat, but for pure motivation for teams, I think little beats this formula:
From now on, games will be worth 5 points (with asterisks for records for teams with most points in a season, etc etc)---if Team A beats Team B in the regulation 60 minutes, they get all five points.
If Team wins in overtime, they get 4 points and Team B gets one.
And if there is a shootout, Team A gets 3 and Team B gets two.
With a 4-point swing between a regulation win and shootout win, I predict there will be far fewer shootouts (and for that matter, far fewer overtimes).
Personally, I never felt there was anything wrong with a tie. But the shootout has, for me, made the game LESS exciting. A penalty shot used to be the most exciting play in hockey and now, it's just one round of a regulation shootout. So although I would love to see the shootout gone, I suspect this will drastically reduce the numbers at least.

[other mark]

"Monitor the issue"... what does that mean? I hate the shootout. Get rid of it. Regulation time win = 3 pts. Overtime win = 2 pts. Ends in a tie (including OT): 1 pt. This makes OT meaningful and the regulation time even more meaningful. It also means that the win is decided by how the entire team plays, not just the goalies and a handful of specialist snipers. Or, get rid of the OT altogether and make ties half a point for the road team and a full point for the home team. Do you think that would encourage the road team to go for win... which was the problem they tried to solve in the first place.

[Jeff]

i'm with mark, not a fan of the shootout. Extend it to 10 or 20 minutes and someone is going to score.

if the shootout is absolutly necessary, extend it to 5 shooters...its usually over before it begins...no suspense.

[Jeff]

Sorry i meant sto say extend the overtime to 10 or 20 minutes...however i think most understood that.

[KD]

I hate the idea of games being worth more depending on when they're won. Every game should be worth 2 points, or 3 points, or 50 points, but not 2 for some and 3 for others, which is what we have now.

[Conn Smythe]

The shoot - out is terrible. In OT the first 5 minutes should be 4 on 4. The next 5 minutes should be 3 on 3 and so on until the game is decided.

[Matt B]

Just do 10 mins of OT at 4-on-4. I bet you 85% of games would be decided then. Look at the Olympic gold medal OT — it went into the 7th minute, and was only Crosby's 3rd shift of OT. 5 minutes doesn't give the top players much time to get in a few good shifts.

I also agree with those who say: 3pts for regulation win, 2pts for OT or SO win, 1 pt for SO loss.

[Don Edmunds]

The game needs a reason for teams to go for the extra point in OT instead of getting to the shootout. Congratulations to Don Maloney, he definitely deserves the accolades.

[Omar]

How about 6 points for a win. 5 points for an OT win. 4 points for a shoot out win. 3 point for a shoot out loss. 2 points for an OT loss. 1 point if teams are tied after 2 periods. and 0.5 points to the team that wins more fights. Obviously I am JOKING - but some people here actually sound this stupid. Why are the rules of an NHL regular season game different from a playoff game? Tell me another sport that does this. 4 on 4 OT in regular season, 5 on 5 in playoffs. 20 minute OT in playoffs, 5 minutes in regular season. Shootouts in regular season, multiple OT's in playoffs. Reward for losing in OT during reg. season, ZILCH for losing in OT in playoffs. Why not just call a win, a WIN, and a loss a loss and be consistent throughout regular season and playoffs. You lose a game in 4 OT in regular seasons, its a LOSS (just like the playoffs). Of course doing this will help eliminate this "parity" that the NHL wants to falsely create, so chances of this ever happening or slim to none. In the meantime, you people can keep coming up with silly ways to reward teams in the regular season game.