Should the NHL finally extend overtime?

The NHL season is in full swing, and one of the trends we’re seeing so far at the outset is an increase in the percentage of games that are decided after 60 minutes of regulation.

A number of teams have been able to bank extra points in the standings through the first month at a much higher clip than is usual. The Colorado Avalanche have five overtime losses, and five different times have four loser points, including three in the Pacific Division alone.

The more games that go to overtime, the more will go undecided after that period and thus will be determined by a shootout. There’s little question that 3-on-3 is not a perfect way to determine a winner, but it much more closely resembles real hockey than the shootout does.

On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed whether five minutes of 3-on-3 is enough before deciding a game via the shootout.

Tyler Yaremchuk: If you include games that have gone past regulation, last year through a month of the year we had 44 games that just made it to overtime. This year we are all the way up to 60 games. Overtime games are up a little bit; shootouts are up a lot… The argument that always gets thrown against extending OT is that it’s more taxing on the players in all of this, but like if you’re a star player in the NHL, don’t you want your overtime moments?

Carter Hutton: I also think it hurts the goalies more than it hurts the players because if you get scored on in overtime it still counts against your stats, and there’s a higher percent chance you’re going to get scored on 3-on-3 than you would 5-on-5, and the vice versa to that if you’re a player if you’re a star there’s a better chance of getting more points with more time at 3-on-3.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…