Mike Chen's Hockey Blog
Next entry: Habs Fans Get Out The Vote
Previous entry: Worst of the Best
Ok, Ok, You Can Reward Losing
by Mike Chen on 11/11/08 at 11:00 AM ET
Comments (2)
Just like every morning, I took a quick look at the standings to get a snapshot of where everything was at. Nothing terribly unusual except for some reason this morning, the OTL column just stuck out more than it really should have.
It just bugged me, and there’s no reason for it. Overtime losses have been part of the NHL’s fuzzy math for years now, but I think I’m just getting my annual “Getting a point for losing is stupid!” kick.
See, I don’t really mind the shootout that much. It’s entertaining to watch and the casual fans are into it. What really bugs me is giving the shootout as much emphasis as a game-winning goal in the dying seconds of the third period. What bugs me even more is giving the whole “Honorable Mention” point by being tied at the end of regulation. These are freakin’ professional athletes, not a bunch of t-ballers that get a trophy and a juice box regardless of the outcome.
And yet, upon further examination, while the principle of getting a point for losing in the shootout or OT is indeed bass-ackwards and stupid, the execution of it, I think, makes things much more interesting than they’d be otherwise. For better or worse, anyway.
Let’s take a quick look at the middle of the Western Conference pack. One of my constant suggestions is to go to a 2-1-0 point system: two points for win in regulation or OT, one point for a shootout win, and zero points for any type of loss. With that in mind, things go from this:
5. Minnesota 17
6. Chicago 17
7. Edmonton 17
8. Calgary 17
9. Columbus 16
10. Phoenix 14
11. Nashville 13
12. Los Angeles 12
13. Colorado 12
14. Dallas 12
15. St. Louis 11
To this:
5. Calgary 16
6. Edmonton 16
7. Minnesota 15
8. Phoenix 14
9. Chicago 13
10. Columbus 13
11. Colorado 11
12. Nashville 10
13. Los Angeles 10
14. Dallas 10
15. St. Louis 8
Going by my 2-1-0 system, you can immediately see that the logjam at the middle of the standings bell curve clears up. There’s a slightly more even distribution, something that would inevitably separate out even further as the year goes by. Going by this math, I’m guessing that some teams would have slid out of contention by January instead of the “Wow, everyone’s still in it” standings that we currently get come the new year.
People love crazy and unpredictable races for the playoff spot. By adding in that extra little bonus point, it gives 75% of the teams a chance to make the playoffs when ultimately only 50% of them go. Close races generate local buzz which generate ticket sales which generate revenue.
So, is this solely a business decision? While my inner cynic says yes, part of me actually says no.
As fans, we know when our team’s given up for the season. We know when coaches are letting the prospects eat up ice time and we know when the impending free agents are just going through the motions. It happens when players feel they have no shot, no purpose to a playing a regular season game.
(Of course, one could argue that grown men making an average of more than $1 million to play a game for a living should be motivation enough for them to go balls out all shift, every shift, every game, every season. But that just doesn’t happen.)
By keeping team in it as far as possible, the level of play and passion gets elevated. We see some of the best hockey of the year from that team that’s scratching and clawing to gain ground on that team holding on to the 8th playoff spot. And when the proverbial four-point game turns into a one-point swing, those types of races stay tight longer and longer.
Is the standings system stupid? Yes, definitely, 100% so. Does it produce better hockey down the stretch? I think so. With more teams keeping the playoffs in reach – and holding onto the hope that once they’re in, anything can happen – the haves and have-nots become muddier and the whole thing turns into a battle royale with winner take all.
I guess I’ve reached a sort of piece with the idiotic computations of the NHL standings. I usually hate saying that the ends justify the means, but when we see the intensity of stretch hockey from the 5th to 11th place teams come March, I’m willing to accept it.
Filed in: NHL | Mike Chen's Hockey Blog | Permalink
Tags: Standings,
Comments
1) (The comments below was written on our blog March 2007)
We have had it with this aspect of hockey (reward losing), and society in general. As this is a hockey blog we will keep the discussion pertaining to hockey only.
2) First stop giving teams points for a loss. A loss is just that, a defeat! End of sentence. You lose, you go home empty handed. “No soup for you!” Why they can’t allow this is simple, awarding more points allows teams to stay in the race longer and more teams can claim, (erroneously) that they are playing .500 or better.
3) A look at the current standings shows that an amazing 23 teams are .500 or better! Now, even in an era of mediocrity, or in the parlance of political correctness, parity that’s way too many. If one were to simply call a loss a loss, whether it be in regulation, OT or the silly shoot out, that number dwindles to 15. Which makes more sense. Half the teams should be above .500 and half below.
4) The next area to which the NHL rewards losing is in the annual entry draft where teams are rewarded for having miserable regular seasons by getting prime draft positions for the best young talent. The idea being that the worse teams need the help so should be given more assistance by a better draft order. Bullshit! They had to institute the lottery to try to reduce teams ‘tanking it’ to get a better draft pick. This way you’re not certain to be ‘worst’ even if you are worst in the standings. This still does NOT stop this from occurring anyway
5) We say they should use the system that was employed after the Bettman lockout; Simply put each of the 30 teams into a lotto ball machine and choose the draft order accordingly. This will end once and for all any possibility of a team not giving full effort(see the Penguins of 1984), or even the possibility of folks believing they may be tanking the season(see the Caps this year).
6) To add insult to injury the NHL just adopted yet another ‘reward for losing rule’ to the draft. Starting this year draft order of the playoff teams will also, or instead be determined by how well they do in the post season and NOT the regular season. This is the Red Wing rule, as they are, despite their Cups, the team that has suffered more early playoff defeats than any other recently. So if for instance the RedWings finish with the most points, but lost in the first round(again) they would NOT draft last but somewhere in the early 20’s. So losing in the playoffs will now be rewarded
7) We have no illusions that any of our ideas will ever be implemented. In fact it appears if anything the Bettman led NHL is going in the opposite direction and sadly further rewarding of losers is likely to continue into the foreseeable future
Posted by Faux Rumors from Globally- Here, there, Everywhere on 11/12/08 at 11:46 AM ET
Add a Comment
Please limit embedded image or media size to 575 pixels wide.
Add your own avatar by joining Kukla's Korner, or logging in and uploading one in your member control panel.
Captchas bug you? Join KK or log in and you won't have to bother.
Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.
Most Recent Blog Posts
Intent To Blow vs. In The Crease
What Do You Expect From A Rookie Season?
About Kukla’s Korner
Kukla’s Korner is updated around the clock with the work of our own talented bloggers, plus links to the best hockey writing around the internet. We strive to bring you all the breaking hockey news as it happens.
The home page allows you to see the latest postings from every blog on the site. Subscribe here. For general inquiries and more, please contact us anytime.
Get the top online sports betting bonuses available to sports betters!
When learning from experts it’s best to learn personally from them, or from their blog. We can provide that with poker lessons blog, your home to learn poker personally.
Do you get shocked from the luck in the game of poker? Stop getting shocked and start being a Poker Shoker.
As well as reading about hockey games, you can also find info about poker like which poker sites accept American Express or which are the best Canadian poker sites and also find the top rakeback sites at rakeback.net.
Kukla’s Korner is always a free service for readers, but it costs some money to maintain. If you’re ever in a position to donate a few dollars to help out, we’d be very appreciative.
Few points:
The problem with the current points system is not that it rewards losing (losing in 4-on-4 OT or a shootout is fundamentally different from losing in regulation and demonstrates a greater proficiency at the 5-on-5-with-penalties hockey that’s played in the playoffs). The problem is that some games are worth 3 points for no adequately explained reason. Your proposed system is an improvement in one way (OT games would at least be 2 points), but makes matters worse in another (there’s a bigger difference between 1 and 2 than between 2 and 3).
You should be looking at points percentage, not raw points. Anaheim has played 17 games, or 30% more than the six teams with only 13 games played. How many points a team has is partly a function of how many games that team has played, and how many games a team has played so far is essentially random. So using raw points instead of points percentage adds randomness.
You should be using adjusted points percentage, not points percentage. By adjusted, I mean adjusting for the strength of the conference and 1 or 3 point games. P% (Adj) = 7.5 * P% / S, where S is the sum of the P% for every team in the conference. This will more accurately reflect a team’s position within its conference, and thus more accurately represent how far one team is ahead of or behind another.
Even making those adjustments, you’re right that the your proposed system (and a more reasonable 3-point system) have a more even distribution around the last playoff spot, but I don’t think “that would inevitably separate out even further as the year goes by”. At the end of last season, I remember seeing numbers that showed almost every other proposed points system would have resulted in closer playoff races than the current one.
In general, I think the question of what points system will result in the closest playoff races is very subtle and difficult in ways I’ve never seen discussed. It depends a wide variety of exogenous variables, like goals per game, shootouts per regulation tie, level and distribution of parity in each conference, scheduling, the correlations between regulation, overtime, and shootout wins (ie. randomness in the shootout), whether a game between a good and average team is more or less likely to result in a tie than a game between an average and poor team, and so on.
I can’t support this claim, but my instinct is that over a large number of seasons, most reasonable points systems will result in a similar number of close playoff races, but often in different years. So I worry that trying to choose a points system specifically to get close playoff races may be altogether misguided.
Posted by Ryan from Toronto on 11/11/08 at 06:37 PM ET