NHL: 12 Years Later, Shootouts Are Still Terrible

12 years after the NHL added shootouts, they are still the worst way possible to determine a winner

The NHL adopted the shootout in the 2005 Collective Bargaining Agreement. Fans have despised the shootout since its creation. This change was quite possibly the worst decision, ever, in the history of the NHL. The move was made to ensure that every game had a winner, as the thought was that ties confused potential fans of the game.

These potential fans were coveted because new revenue was required to bring life to the NHL. While I am a Philadelphia Flyers fan, and their record in the shootout is horrendous, my feelings on the shootout go much deeper.

Traditions

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I am old school. To me, the Eastern Conference is the Wales Conference and the Metropolitan Division is the Patrick Division. As strange as they may be, ties belong in the regular season of the NHL.

Anyone who doesn’t understand that has not seen, or does not appreciate, a hard-fought, back and forth test of wills that is a tie game. When two teams spend sixty minutes trading goals, checking, fighting for every inch of ice, and the goals are even when the horn sounds, the game should end in a tie.

For a hard-fought game to end in what amounts to an All-Star Game Skills Competition is blasphemous. I am certain that Lord Stanley rumbles deep in his grave each and every time the sportsmen who live in pursuit of his Cup take the ice for a shootout.

Hockey was not meant to be an elitist, showy sport. It is a game that can be won by sheer will and determination. There have always been the superstars, the finesse players, but the muckers and grinders have always been just as much a part of the game.

More Than an Extra Point

The shootout tends to be for the skill players only. Occasionally, a fourth-line forward like Matt Hendricks is blessed with moves like Mick Jagger. But usually, a player like Flyers forward Juri Lehtera will (hopefully) never see the light of day in a shootout. Does this mean that players who don’t have the skills of a Claude Giroux or Steven Stamkos do not impact the game?

Lehtera scored a goal in Saturday’s Flyers-Lightning game that ended with Tampa getting an extra point in the shootout. His impact on a game that saw the Flyers get six goals past Andrei Vasilevskiy was nullified by the Flyers inability to excel at a carnival game.

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For me, that is more than an extra point to an opposing team, it is just another piece of the proud tradition of the NHL that has been chipped away. As for the overtime, while I enjoy the three-on-three, I feel that the extra sessions should be saved for the playoffs. Oh, and don’t get me started on taking fighting out of the game.