That’s right, the NHL regular season has ended, and our loyal readers know what that means: it’s time for me (and probably Kevin) to bitch about the OTL point again. For prior OTL hatred, see here; here; and especially here and here and here.

As I’ve mentioned in those above posts, the NHL should act like a real sports league and have winning percentage be the primary determinant of a team’s record.

Let’s have a look at the before and after, shall we? (Below the fold)

This year, we’re only looking at the Eastern Conference, because as luck would have it, doing away with the OTL point wouldn’t change the Western Conference standings (although it came close in a couple of cases).

Current Standings, Eastern Conference:

Rk Team GP Pts
1 z-Montreal 82 104
2 y-Pittsburgh 82 102
3 y-Washington 82 94
4 x-New Jersey 82 99
5 x-NY Rangers 82 97
6 x-Philadelphia 82 95
7 x-Ottawa 82 94
8 x-Boston 82 94
9 Carolina 82 92
10 Buffalo 82 90
11 Florida 82 85
12 Toronto 82 83
13 NY Islanders 82 79
14 Atlanta 82 76
15 Tampa Bay 82 71

x = playoff berth; y = division champ; z = conference champ.

But what happens when we ditch points, and instead use winning percentage, with fewest regulation losses only factoring in as a tiebreaker?

Rk Team GP W RegL Pct
1 z-Montreal 82 47 25 0.573
2 y-Pittsburgh 82 47 27 0.573
3 y-Washington 82 43 31 0.524
4 x-New Jersey 82 46 29 0.561
5 x-Ottawa 82 43 31 0.524
6 x-Carolina 82 43 33 0.524
7 x-NY Rangers 82 42 27 0.512
8 x-Philadelphia 82 42 29 0.512
9 Boston 82 41 29 0.500
10 Buffalo 82 39 31 0.476
11 Florida 82 38 35 0.463
12 Toronto 82 36 35 0.439
13 NY Islanders 82 35 38 0.427
14 Atlanta 82 34 40 0.415
15 Tampa Bay 82 31 42 0.378

As you can see, if wins are what matters, then Carolina moves from being out of the playoffs to being a number six seed. They jump three places in the standings! Similarly, Ottawa goes from the seven seed to the five seed, moving up two places.

Now, I’d take it a step further: Instead of regulation losses, make the first tie-breaker the record in head-to-head competition, like most sports do. This would potentially impact seven of the eight playoff teams, since Montreal and Pittsburgh finished with 47 wins; Ottawa, Carolina, and Washington all finished the season with 43 wins; and New York (Rangers) and Philadelphia each finished with 42. But in this case, it turns out not to matter, because Montreal and Pittsburgh split their season series, as did Carolina and Washington, and Carolina and Ottawa; and the Rangers won their season series against Philadelphia — all the seedings would be the same.

This last change would also potentially impact two playoff teams in the West, since Colorado and Minnesota each finished with 44 wins, but again, Minnesota won the season series, so the seedings would be unchanged.

Note that my actual preference is this order: Winning percentage, head-to-head, division record (to resolve ties between two teams in the same division), conference record, fewest regulation losses. But since nobody seems to keep track of division/conference records that I can find, there’s no easy way to calculate that for the races where it matters.

The biggest takeaway from all of this is that Carolina ought to be a playoff team, and instead has an early tee time. Meanwhile, Boston, a .500 team, gets in.

Can’t we just kill the OTL point and be done with it?