Olympic Points

I like to rant about the NHL point system. Hopefully the Olympics point system can get some NHL minds thinking about altering this. What's the point of playing 82 games if you know you are going to have these tight races down to the end because you keep giving loser points. There's no difference between the 3 seed and the 8 seed according to their points, when in fact there really is a gap. Regulation victories have to be rewarded.

While last season the Rangers were benefiting from this with all their shootout wins, this season they are losing out. Check out the standings if the NHL was using Olympic points, courtesy of Die By The Blade. The Rangers would be in playoff position, and it would take two wins to overtake them at this point.

Everyone talks about three points for a win and then say while they would like it, they would be concerned about altering the standings from a historical perspective (good teams would have about 150 points in the season). I have a solution for that as well.

Prior to the loser point, you used to award two points in any given game. If there was a tie, it was one point each, and for a win (regulation or OT) it was two points for the winner and none for the loser. Why don't you simply keep it at awarding two points a game- if you win in regulation, you get 2, your opponent 0- if you win in the OT/SO you get 1.5, the opponent 0.5. 100 points would be a magical number again. Since the shootout, you are seeing 4-5 seeds easily obtain 100 points, which should not be the case.