Next season, the NHL should eliminate the guaranteed point for an overtime or shootout loser.
Actually, the change would eliminate the need for points at all, and the NHL could decide to use the more traditional standings used in other sports. If it is considered necessary to retain points for historical comparisons, including from the days when each team got one point for a tie, the system should be two points for a win, none for a loss.
Either way, three-point games should be history.
I’ve changed my mind on this one. I used to think the alternative could be to make all games worth three points, with a regulation winner getting all three, an overtime or shootout winner two, and an overtime or shootout loser one. I don’t think that anymore. The point inflation and the third column for overtime and shootout losses have distorted how teams are really doing, and it drives me nuts to hear coaches and others brag about being above .500 if they have more wins than losses in the first two columns. Entering Saturday’s games, 22 of the league’s 30 teams had more W’s than L’s in the first two columns.
The per-team average was 92 points last season, not the 82 it was before three-point games came into vogue. But few seem to consider that inflation when making comparisons to the past.
Make the overtime eight minutes. Have five shooters per team in the shootout.
And when purists grouse about allowing a “gimmick” shootout to decide a regular-season game, shrug and say: “And your point is?”
New owner, old owner.
Craig Leipold said he quickly regretted selling the Nashville Predators in December, despite what he said were $70 million in operating losses in nine years. So barely more than a month later, the Racine, Wis., resident Thursday was trotted out as the new majority owner of the Minnesota Wild.
Leipold was one of the hard-liners in the 2004-05 lockout as a member of the league’s executive committee, and he is one of commissioner Gary Bettman’s biggest supporters. He said he planned to purchase a home in the Twin Cities area and be at most of the Wild games. The franchise’s original owner, Bob Naegele, will retain a minority interest in the team.
The Wild franchise is one of the NHL’s major success stories, selling out every game in its seven-season history in downtown St. Paul. Before the salary cap era, the Wild deserved to be criticized for playing it as close to the vest financially as it did stylistically on the ice under Jacques Lemaire. Now the challenge for Leipold is to not foul up a good thing, while being sensitive to the need to reward the State of Hockey’s fans for their support. As we’ve seen in Denver, and as happened in the NHL’s first incarnation in Minnesota, once the honeymoon is over and the season-ticket base erodes, the negative momentum is difficult to stop.
Silence.
Wondering what Avalanche veterans Joe Sakic and Ryan Smyth are thinking as they wait out their injuries and won’t be playing again until at least March?
Could it have Sakic pondering retirement — or have him more determined not to go out this way?
Good questions.
Problem is, the Avalanche’s policy is that injured players are not available to the media, and it’s a prohibition the players are told to honor, too.
It’s not a savvy move for a franchise attempting to remain in the forefront of the Denver sports market.
CHL All-Star Game.
The Central Hockey League All-Star Game is Wednesday at the Broomfield Event Center, and it can be a fun way to sample minor-league hockey — as long as everyone understands that the game, in typical all-star fashion, has dulled edges of competitive emotion.
Colorado has become the league’s showcase territory, with the Colorado Eagles — featuring Greg Pankewicz, the “Crash” Davis of minor-league hockey — selling out every game in Loveland, and with the second-season Rocky Mountain Rage suddenly tearing up the league in Broomfield.
Suggestion: Sample the All-Star Game, which features a postgame fan mingling session with players and coaches, and then go back for the Saturday night Eagles-Rage rivalry.
