The NHL has a lot of problems — and gets called on them.
The league also does many things right, and one of them is the tiebreaking shootout, instituted in the 2005-06 season.
The Avalanche won its fifth shootout decision of the season Sunday, beating Vancouver 5-4 at the Pepsi Center. If Colorado makes the playoffs, it will be able to look back at the early-season shootout successes — or season-long successes, if the trend continues — as what kept it within shouting distance of eighth place in the Western Conference.
“Every competitive person enjoys shootouts, because it’s one-on-one,” Avalanche goalie Peter Budaj said after he stopped one of the Canucks’ two attempts in the shootout and the Avalanche went 3-for-3 against Vancouver’s Cory Schneider. “It’s you against the other guy,” Budaj continued, “so you want to outplay them. You want to beat them.”
This time, “the other guy” was Schneider, the former Boston College goalie and 2004 first-round draft choice called up from Manitoba of the American Hockey League in the wake of Roberto Luongo’s groin injury. On Nov. 12 at Vancouver, Luongo, arguably the NHL’s best goalie, was in the net when the Avalanche and Budaj prevailed in the shootout to win 2-1. Budaj has looked self-assured in the shootouts this season, and he said he “definitely” learned from watching Jose Theodore — who had his ups and downs during his Avalanche tenure, but was one of the better shootout goalies in the league.
“Jose’s a great guy and a great goalie, but especially in the shootouts,” Budaj said. “He reads the stick really well. He’s always square to the puck. He’s got a good depth, and that’s the key to the shootout. Don’t be too far out or too far back.”
In the NHL’s previous shot in Denver, the Colorado Rockies once tied more games than they won — and made the playoffs. That should be in Ripley’s: The Rockies went 19-40-21 in 1977-78, making the 12-team field.
The NHL went to five- minute sudden death for regular-season games in 1983-84, but there still were too many ties.
For once, the NHL told the dinosaurs or those who thought like dinosaurs to shut up and did what needed to be done to eliminate one of the major roadblocks to its credibility. It stopped expecting fans paying huge amounts of money to accept walking out of the building unfulfilled, without getting a decision.
Absolutely, the shootout is a contrivance and a gimmick, but — as shown by the nifty moves used by Wojtek Wol ski, Marek Svatos and Milan Hejduk to beat Schneider — it involves skills that can be part of the full-speed game when the clock is moving, either on a breakaway or if the opposing skaters decided it had better things to do than support the goalie. That shoots down the lame argument that would equate it to deciding a basketball game with a free-throw contest.
The NHL czars did something, so take this as a quibble, not a denunciation: I’d go to five shooters, not three, and eliminate the guaranteed point for the loser. Make coaches strategize with the looming shootout in mind and add to the stakes. That gets rid of the three-point game, which distorts the standings because a 10-10-5 team is NOT, despite what coaches want us to believe, playing “.500 hockey.”
The other alternative would be to make all games worth three points, with three going to the winner in regulation.
But anyone who understands the intransigence of the traditionalists in this sport knows that even this concession was groundbreaking, so I’m just thankful I don’t have to write or read any more variations of those “fit-to-be-tied” first paragraphs. And, to emphasize, we’re talking about the regular season here, one of 82 games, and not the higher-stakes postseason, where sudden-death, play-until- someone-scores overtime still is the only way to go.
If the NFL were as responsive, it would change its sudden-death overtime provisions to a format that included each team getting at least one possession and not allowing one field goal to end it. (First team to six in OT wins, as long as both have had the ball.)
For once, it could learn from the NHL.
Terry Frei: 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com
