THE LOSER POINT
THE LOSER POINT AND INCREASED OVERTIMES
With the new system, it would be in every team’s interest to play a lot of overtime games. Currently, a team which loses as many OT games as it wins would capture 1.5 points for each such game. To match that in non-overtime games, the team would have to win 75% of its non-overtime games and hardly any teams are that good.
So almost all teams, even the best ones, have a strong incentive to play as many overtime games as possible.
There is clear evidence that the introduction of the extra point in OT resulted in more overtime games, just as the economics would predict.
Overtime is much more likely in a tie game with ten minutes to play than a game with fifty minutes to play. If the change in team play is proportional to the probability of achieving the incentive, we should see a stronger effect later in the game.
PLAYING FOR OVERTIME
So teams have an incentive to allow more games to go into overtime. The incentive is there, and you should expect that teams will respond to it in whatever ways they can get away with.
All this means that the winners are more random, which means the standings are more random, which means that more teams are in the hunt for a playoff spot.
the effect is to award the “extra” third points to worse teams more often than better teams, which also has the effect of compressing the standings.
The bottom line is that with the extra point available for the tie, teams aren’t playing every instant of every game with the same strategy and desire to win that they would otherwise. And that can’t be good for the game
WHEN DO NHL TEAMS PLAY FOR THE TIE
Teams are more likely to play for the regulation tie and overtime point later in the season - as the playoff hunt really heats up and an extra point has a higher apparent value. This seems to be true since the lockout
Bubble teams play to maximize their points in the standings, which results in more regulation ties, and thus more points in the standings.
This strategy peaks with 15 games to go and drops off as fewer and fewer playoff spots are under contention.
EFFECT OF LOSER POINT ON REGULATION PLAY
(Nov 28 2011)
A corollary of the score effect is that each team's scoring attempts should go down when the game is tied.
The awarding of a point for an overtime loss should reduce scoring attempts by each team, at all points in regulation time.
Early in the game when each team has a pretty good chance of scoring at some point, teams are just about indifferent between scoring and preventing scores.
But as the game goes on and it becomes more and more likely that there will be no more scoring, the value of defense goes up greatly, approaching three times that of offense. Essentially, teams have lots to lose if they allow the opposing team to score, and little to gain to gain by scoring, when the likely result is otherwise a tie.
When a team is ahead, it cares much more about preventing its opponents from scoring than about recording additional goals — about three times as much early in the game, and infinitely more as the end of the game approaches.
On the other hand, the team that's behind obviously gets much more from scoring a goal (giving it at least a tie) than about avoiding giving one up (which just turns a one-goal loss into a two-goal loss).
Unsurprisingly, a team that's up two goals really doesn't care much about scoring any more as long as it can keep its opponents from scoring, while a team that's down by two goals should be willing to risk letting the game become a blowout if it means getting more offensive chances.
Once a team is taking a two goal lead into the third or so (~50–75% chance of another score) it's pretty much irrelevant whether they score again so long as they stop the other guys.
WHY THE NHL SHOULD CHANGE IT’S POINT SYSTEM
The benefit to scoring and preventing goals is the same when the score is tied,
Late in tied games both teams have little incentive to score and very strong incentive to keep the other team from scoring.
No matter how much time is left, the current rules favor defense over scoring and this gets stronger as you get closer to the end of the game.
keeping the other team from equalizing is more important
With the current system, winning outright isn’t much better than going to OT/SO so scoring isn’t as valuable.
When a team is up a goal the current points system encourages more defensive play than the obvious alternative.
I think it’s safe to say that for every situation the current points system rewards cautious, defensive play compared to the alternative
LEAGUE PARITY AND THE LOSER POINT
In the current NHL point system, there are increased incentives for teams to play overtime games against non-conference opponents.
Our results suggest a conference variable may be an important predictor of overtime.
The current NHL point system appears to yield an on-ice product that responds to incentives.
The extra overtime point creates more parity in the league. This is something Bettman wants. So the league encourages playing for the “loser” point.
WHY THE LOSER POINT SUCKS
By rewarding the same 2 points to a winner in overtime as the 2 points in regulation, you are holding the value of a win the same. However, by giving a point for a loss after regulation time (overtime or a shootout), you are increasing the total point returns by 50% and therefore teams have the incentive to force the game into overtime.
By weighing an overtime win the same as a regulation win, the incentive is to go into overtime rather than end the game in regulation.
Basically, losing shouldn’t be rewarded in any sport.
TEAMS STRATEGIZE WHEN TO PLAY FOR THE TIE
1. Games are more likely to go to overtime later in the season than earlier; and
2. Games are more likely to go into overtime when teams are not in the same conference.
The late-season effect tends to increase overtimes, but those games tend to be within-conference, which decreases them.
· 23.5% within conference, early in season
· 26.2% different conference, early in season
· 31.8% within conference, April
· 35.0% different conference, April
LOSER POINT HELPS WEAKER TEAMS
the loser point does affect how compressed the standings get in terms of actual points, but it doesn’t have much effect on the *order* of teams. The bottom teams wind up still at the bottom, but (for instance) instead of having only half as many points as the top teams, they have two-thirds as many points.
It’s still true that the “loser point” goes disproportionately to the worse teams
But that doesn’t matter, because those points are never enough to catch up to any other team.
The OTL point doesn’t increase competitive balance, or make the standings less predictable. It just makes the NHL *look* more competitive, by making the point differences smaller.
THE LOSER POINT & SKEWED INCENTIVES IN THE NHL
(Feb 3, 2021)
, the NHL point system is structured such that our inherent risk aversion – manifested in the fear of losing available points – drives uninteresting, defensive, boring hockey to the top of the heap.
What becomes obvious is that defense is three times as important as offense during the NHL regular season.
Decreasing a team’s probability of winning in regulation matters significantly less than decreasing their probability of losing in regulation.
Any decline in the probability of losing in regulation requires a commensurate three fold decline in the probability of winning to get to the point of hurting a team’s point expectations.
This highlights why NHL coaches place such a massive emphasis on defensive performance.
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