The Integrity of the NHL Points Standings

I have never been one to understand rewarding a point to a team that loses. I have also never agreed with using a skills competition to determine the winner of a team sport. However, the evil ruler of the NHL empire, with agreement from his minions throughout the league, implemented a shootout system coming out of the lockout in 2005-2006.

As a hockey purist, a tie never bothered me. The shootout bothers me on two levels:

1. You won a game because your skaters could score more penalty shot goals than the other team.

2. Hey, your team couldn't score as many penalty shot goals as the other team, but you managed to stay tied with them through 60 minutes of real hockey and 5 minutes of 4-on-4 hockey, so we'll just be nice and give you a point in the standings.

These factors above soured me on the whole shootout idea from the get go, but when it was implemented I had no idea of the actual impact it would have on the standings. And it is a big impact.

I used http://www.nhlshootouts.com/ShootoutStats.htm to come up with the following numbers.

In 2005-2006, 281 games went into overtime, that is 281 extra points pumped into the NHL standings. (145 of those games were decided by a skill competition.) In 2006-2007, miraculously the same exact number of games (281) went into overtime. (164 of those games were decided by a skills competition.) So through the first two years of the shootout era, 11.8% and 13.3% of the games on the NHL schedule were decided by a skills competition, a gimmick.

In 2007-2008 the percentage is down from last season through January 17th with only 12.3% of games reaching the gimmick. However, I'd like to take a look at one specific team and show how INSANE these fake points they are pumping into the schedule really are.

Let's take a look at the 2007-2008 Edmonton Oilers. A storied franchise, a franchise that should be successful in the NHL. A franchise that has owned some of the greatest teams in the history of the sport.

As of the January 17th games, the Edmonton Oilers are 21-22-5. They have 47 points and are a mere 6 points out of a playoff spot, even though they have lost 6 more games than they have won. However, when you take a deeper look at the win loss record, 17 of their games (35.4%) have gone into overtime. 14 of those 17 games were decided by a gimmick (the Oilers are 11-3 in those games, 1-2 in games decided in the 4-on-4 overtime).

What this means, is that a team that has a total of 9, yes N-I-N-E, wins in regulation (18.75%). Yet they are still only 6 points out of a playoff spot. They are being rewarded for being able to get games into the shootout. 17 extra points have been pumped into the NHL standings thanks to the Edmonton Oilers...

Ralph Mellanby Pimp Slaps Bettman

Ralph Mellanby is an established, award-winning, former executive producer of Hockey Night In Canada.

The gentleman may be 73 years of age and look like Marty Feldman from Young Frankenstein, but if I ever meet him, I'll treat him to a surf-&-turf supper and Guinness on tap.

And I promise, it has nothing to do with the fact that his son, and former NHLer, Scott Mellanby, was one of my favorite players as a Flyers fan growing up.

Yesterday, the elder Mellanby, who is promoting his new book Walking With Legends: The Real Stories of Hockey Night In Canada had no problem giving NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman a fresh one across the chops.

In an article in The Windsor Star, my new man-crush had the following to say about Gary Butthead and the fraudulent NHL board of governors...

"Bettman to me is the real problem for hockey."

"He's done so much damage to hockey it may never recover. We don't have time to go through the litany of errors."

"Hockey has never been in worse straits."

"I'm an elder statesman now and I feel at times like a lone voice in the wilderness, but I'm not completely alone. The great minds of the game I talk to agree on these things, but no one is listening at the top."

"We need change at the top I don't see a lot of courage around the board of governors."

"He's taken us too far down this path (into non-hockey markets). I always asked Gary why we were in these places and he'd say for network television. But hockey is a regional game (in the U.S.). That's where its strength is in the U.S."

Well Raphael, like Al Pacino said to Sean Penn in Carlito's Way: "If you was a broad, I'd marry you!" At 73, you may consider yourself an elder statesman, but rest assured hockey fans of all ages across North America who have ever cared about this great game, AGREE WITH YOU and feel your pain.

And I am glad Mellanby clumped the NHL board of governors into the Knucklehead category as well, because when the Coca Cola strips the paint off the boat, it's the greedy owners who are calling the shots.

While we all want to drop Bettman off in downtown Fallujah with a "bin Laden smells worse than the NY Rangers" sign around his neck, our boy Gary is simply a puppet, and a despised one at that.

I could go on and on rehashing the ways Bettman & co. have hurt the great game of hockey but I already took one Nexium today.

However, I look forward to reading Ralph's interpretation in Walking With Legends. Besides, it's always good to see someone else in the hockey community blast Commissioner Clueless like Chris Chelios has in the past.

Tonight couldn't have been better... I got to watch the Flyers spank the Pens like Ike did Tina, and blog about Ralph Mellanby's public right hook to Gary Bettman's chin, reminiscent of his son's KO of Quebec's Jeff Jackson when hockey was at its best...

[WATCH MELLANBY PUT JACKSON TO SLEEP]

-- TGOJ