The benefits of overtime in a season full of them

The New York Rangers won a stirring come-from-behind game  over the Minnesota Wild Monday night.  With the win, they joined in a trend that is going to make the 2019-20 season distinctive and that is the number of games that have gone to overtime or shootout.

Through Monday night 373 games have been played this season.  Of those 102 or 28% have gone to overtime.  The New York Rangers are one of the teams that has had the fewest number of OT games with Monday’s win only their fourth.

Monday night was typical in the NHL.  Nine games were played.  Four went to overtime.

Six teams are like the Rangers, having gone to OT four times.  The Ottawa Senators have the fewest OT games with three.  But the Rangers and Senators are the exception, not the rule.

The Washington Capitals and St. Louis Blues have gone to OT 11 times already this season in 25 games.  That’s 44% of their games. The Florida Panthers are the other team in double figures with 10 OT games in 24 games, 42%.

2019-20 stands to be the most overtime-friendly season since the three on three format was introduced in 2015-16.  Here’s the percentage of overtime games the last five years:

2019-20   28%
2018-19   21%
2017-18   23%
2016-17   24%
2015-16   21%

The NHL is trying to reduce the number of overtime games and even introduced a new rule that makes the first tiebreaker regulation wins instead of regulation and overtime wins.  It hasn’t worked.

In fact, diminishing the value of an overtime win has actually increased the number of shootouts this season.  38 games have gone to the shootout so far, that’s 38% of the games that have gone to overtime.  That will be the most since 2015-16.  Here’s the percentage of overtime games that went to the shootout over the last five years.

2019-20   37%
2018-19   32%
2017-18   35%
2016-17   34%
2015-16   42%

So what?

Does it really matter?  Is the increase in overtime games a bad thing for the league or the fans?    It shouldn’t be, but the nature of the overtime has changed.  Three on three overtime has evolved to a possession game and is nowhere near as exciting as it used to be.  Now,  the single most important factor in OT is winning the initial faceoff and controlling the puck.

Against Minnesota, Artemi Panarin won the faceoff after Ryan Strome was tossed.  Minnesota never touched the puck as the Rangers kept possession until they scored.  In the Rangers overtime loss earlier this season to Arizona, the same thing happened.  The Blueshirts never touched the puck.

So, overtime has become predictable and believe it or not, dull. One team will maintain possession, looking for the perfect scoring opportunity while the seconds tick off the clock.  The defending team is reluctant to try to take the puck for fear of an odd man rush.  There are fewer shots in overtime than ever and with less offense action, there are more shootouts.

Don’t lose in regulation

What this has done is made it imperative that if  a team is going to lose, they should lose in overtime.  Washington has won 16 games and lost nine this season. However, five of those nine losses came in extra time and those five points are keeping them in first place.

Same for the St.Louis Blues. They’ve won 14 games and lost 11, but those six overtime losses are keeping them in first place in front of Dallas who have lost eight games in regulation.

So far this season, the Rangers have lost nine games in regulation and two in overtime.  If they had been able to get to overtime in four of those regulation losses, they would have 28 points and be two points out of the wild card with two games in hand.

This young Blueshirt team has playoff aspirations and they are within striking distance.  They need to learn to stay close in games and reap the benefit of extra time.  They did it on Monday against the Wild.