NHL standings on point

It's been too long since I've done a sports post, and probably even longer than that since I've done any sort of numerical analysis with it. So, here we go. NHL standings. After having watched the Olympics and seeing the different point system play out, I'm all for switching the NHL to the same thing. The Olympics (in group play) award 3 points for a regulation win, 2 for an overtime/shootout win, 1 for an overtime/shootout loss, and 0 for a regulation loss. I'm not sure of the advanced metrics of teams' performance and effort in those games to secure a regulation victory, but it makes sense that in the NHL, when you're getting 2 points for any kind of win, why risk losing a point when you have nothing to lose by going to overtime? It's a strategy that makes for some fairly unexciting ends of games. So that's one change I would make. Another is to eliminate the shootout and 4-on-4 overtime hockey. The San Jose Sharks are 9-5 in shootouts this season, which means they've picked up 9 extra points because they excel at a particular skill in hockey. Would they still get those 9 points if overtime was continuous, 5-on-5, just like in the NHL playoffs? Well, that's what I want to find out. We obviously can't make any assumptions in terms of which teams would win these 5-on-5 overtimes, but we can work with what we have. Let's take a look just at the Atlantic Division with the Olympic point system.

• Regulation wins are worth 3 points, OT/SO wins worth 2. OT/SO losses worth 1, and regulation losses worth 0 points.

Atlantic Division

Boston Bruins 35-5-5-17, 120 points

Montreal Canadiens 25-10-7-23, 102 points

Toronto Maple Leafs 21-12-8-23, 95 points

Tampa Bay Lightning 25-12-3-24, 102 points

Detroit Red Wings 23-5-13-21, 92 points

Ottawa Senators 21-6-11-25, 86 points

Florida Panthers 16-7-7-32, 69 points

Buffalo Sabres 10-9-8-35, 56 points

Not much would change in terms of positioning, but the Lightning would be helped out by the fact that they have more regulations wins than the maple leafs, pushing them into a second-place tie with the Canadiens. And let's be real, Tampa Bay is probably a better team than Toronto even without Steven Stamkos, who is returning this week. So yes, this is a small sample size, but it gives us an idea of how things would be if regulation wins were rewarded more. Teams would play for regulation wins and it would make for more exciting end-of-game hockey, which is good for everyone.