The 4 Nations Face-Off is underway, and it is providing fans with some exciting best-on-best hockey. What this tournament is also doing is providing the NHL an opportunity to not only showcase the game and some of the best players in the world, but also experiment.
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For the NHL, they are trying some fun new things like cameras on the ice after goals, like we’ve seen at the World Junior Championship, cameras on the referees’ helmets, but also some novel rule changes. They have implemented the 3-2-1 points system, three points for a regulation win, two for an overtime (OT) win and one for an OT loss. But the biggest change, and one that could improve the NHL product is the OT format. Changing to a full 10-minute 3-on-3 period before a shootout could benefit teams like the Montreal Canadiens, who are built for speed.
Enthusiastic Support for Change
There’s an old saying, that there are two things people tend to hate, change and things staying the same. Basically, you’ll never please everyone, but sometimes, it is beneficial to make a change to avoid stagnation. One star player is an enthusiastic supporter of extending the 3-on-3 OT period, Connor McDavid. Fans deserve to be given more high-skilled players having open ice to showcase their skill, like Mitch Marner flying into the zone at top speed and firing a shot on the net.
While a shootout is a gimmick, much like 3-on-3 OT can be labelled one as well, extending the OT format allows for the outcome of a game to be decided by a hockey play, dictated by a team as opposed to a glorified skills competition like the shootout. And it is something players told Marco D’Amico of RG.org.
“I think it’s a great kind of trial run. Something I think the players liked, the fans liked it. It felt a little more like it’s in our hands.”
– Connor McDavid
The shootout was a worthy gimmick for the NHL to implement. It is now tedious and is still not a game situation that deserves to decide winners. If it was, it would be used in the playoffs, wouldn’t it? Also, all the side-to-side/slow-down stuff is better suited to skill competitions. That being said, 3-on-3 also can be classified as a “gimmick”, yet this one provides gameplay that can allow for exciting end-to-end action, players making highlight reel plays, or forcing opponents to make mistakes, all as they would in regulation. Yet, there are some logistical issues to eliminating the shootout in favour of extending the 3-on-3.
Because the ice isn’t resurfaced after the third period, there is likely to be concern for the quality of the surface of play if the OT is extended beyond the current five minutes. However, that concern isn’t heard when it comes to the shootout that provides only a quick dry scrape of a narrow strip of ice down the middle. With the creativity of the shooters in the game today, that is insufficient as many use the entire width of the ice now for their attempts. So, it is possible to leave the ice as is or do a dry scrape for the entire surface.
Another option is to simply return to ties, which would provide teams more of an incentive to win in regulation or the five-minute overtime. It would have an impact on playoff races and could improve parity league-wide. Heck, even switching to the 3-2-1-point format used in the 4 Nations Face-Off could allow for that point parity to be provided.
Impact to the Canadiens
Looking to the Canadiens, a change in OT format would have a major impact. They are still rebuilding, and while they do have some quality young talent on the roster, they aren’t able to put out the star power that a Toronto Maple Leafs or Colorado Avalanche can to start their OT. The question is, how many points could the Canadiens have this season if this were in use now?
This season, Montreal is 7-0-5 in OT, four of those 12 games went to a shootout, where the Canadiens have a 2-2 record. That means they are 5-3 in OT. They lost only two points in the standings in the shootout there. Their shootout skills are improving, but they fare better in 3-on-3 OT. Could they have won one of those two games they lost in a shootout if it was 3-on-3 instead? Maybe. If so, they’d still be five points out of a playoff position with four teams between them and that last wild card berth. No real change in their current situation.
In 2023-24 they went to overtime more than nearly every other team and were able to get an NHL-leading 26 points with a 10-0-16 record, 12 of those 26 games went to a shootout where Montreal was 4-0-8, meaning they left the game with only one point in eight of those 12 games. They had a better record in 3-on-3 than in a shootout, which means it is likely they could have won a few more games, giving them more points in the standings. That could have had a detrimental effect on their draft position, and they would have been far too low in the draft order to select Ivan Demidov if that were the case.
The Rebuild
As with any fundamental change, teams will be looking to take advantage of a situation, and in this case, they will need to add a specialist, or at least, gameplan the structure of their roster to be able to take advantage of the additional space and time 3-on-3 gives players.
As former general manager (GM) Marc Bergevin once said, “Some players get you into the playoffs, others get you through the playoffs.” Well, this approach is essentially paraphrasing that. Players with specific skill sets are needed to thrive within special teams. Those could be the penalty kill (PK), power play (PP), or in OT. None of this is to say that if their skill sets are a fit for this they can’t help in the playoffs, just that there is a need. Currently, Montreal has Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield and Lane Hutson, all three are well-suited for OT and PP. But there is still more needed. It’s about star power. Demidov is on his way, and he fits that need, however, there is still a requirement to add to him. Hughes still has the draft available to him that could fill the need over the long term, but, if he wants to compete immediately, he will need to be aggressive in the trade and free agent markets, and elite skill is still needed to do so.
Any change to the OT format that adds more time for 3-on-3 play will be a welcome change. It would mean shootouts would be less likely, and games would be decided quickly, and in a hockey-play format that showcases the skill and speed of the game in a more viewer-friendly format than a shootout.
