Traditionalists in hockey circles are nearly unanimous in their distaste for the so-called charity point a team gets if they simply manage to make it to overtime. Likewise, many people dislike the shootout, deriding it as a sideshow or skills competition. Every team's point total is inflated due to some games being worth three points, but the inflation is never equitable across the board.
I've devised a quick and dirty Charity Point Index (CPI) to determine which teams are the biggest benefactors of the charity point, and then I'll discuss how the standings would have been different if the league suddenly decided to go back to 1998-1999 standards for scoring, when games could end in a tie and overtime losses were treated as actual losses, and there were always 2460 points to be had.
CPI can be expressed as the following:
That is, a ratio of actual points to non-charity points, expressed as a percentage. CPI will always be at least 100%.
As you can see from the picture that led the story, the Colorado Avalanche had a higher percentage of their points come from charitable contributions than any other. After all, they only had 68 points on the season, of which 13 came either from shootout wins or from overtime losses that didn't make it to the shootout. Avs fans should actually be upset with this, though, because the benefit may actually end up hurting them in the draft lottery, given that it's the only reason they didn't finish last in the NHL. Oops.
You want raw data? Here you go:
Team Points OTL SOW SOL Adj. Points CPI COL 68 8 6 1 55 123.64 NYI 73 13 4 6 62 117.74 CGY 94 12 9 7 80 117.50 BUF 96 10 5 1 82 117.07 LAK 98 6 10 2 84 116.67 PIT 106 8 10 3 91 116.48 NSH 99 11 6 4 86 115.12 ATL 80 12 5 7 70 114.29 FLA 72 12 4 7 63 114.29 CBJ 81 13 5 8 71 114.08 PHX 99 13 5 6 87 113.79 CAR 91 11 5 5 80 113.75 NYR 93 5 9 3 82 113.41 TOR 85 11 5 6 75 113.33 TBL 103 11 6 6 92 111.96 STL 87 11 4 6 78 111.54 CHI 97 9 6 5 87 111.49 DET 104 10 4 4 94 110.64 DAL 95 11 5 7 86 110.47 OTT 74 10 2 5 67 110.45 WSH 107 11 5 6 97 110.31 SJS 105 9 5 5 96 109.38 MTL 96 8 3 3 88 109.09 EDM 62 12 2 9 57 108.77 PHI 106 12 3 7 98 108.16 NJD 81 5 3 2 75 108.00 ANA 99 5 4 2 92 107.61 MIN 86 8 3 5 80 107.50 VAN 117 8 3 5 109 107.34 BOS 103 11 2 6 96 107.29
And how would the standings look, you ask?
==EASTERN CONFERENCE== ==WESTERN CONFERENCE== PHI 98 VAN 109 WSH 97 SJS 96 BOS 96 DET 94 TBL 92 ANA 92 PIT 91 PHX 87 MTL 88 CHI 87 BUF 82 DAL 86 NYR 82 NSH 86 ---------- ---------- CAR 80 LAK 84 NJD 75 MIN 80 TOR 75 CGY 80 ATL 70 STL 78 OTT 67 CBJ 71 FLA 63 EDM 57 NYI 62 COL 55
In the old days, Dallas would not have missed the playoffs, the Kings would have, and Tampa Bay beating Pittsburgh wouldn't have been an upset. On the other hand, Nashville beating Anaheim would have been impossible because they wouldn't have faced each other, but if they had, it would have been an even bigger upset than it was. Oh, and the folks over at Broad Street would have had cause for celebration.
If you have any questions about the methods here, please ask in the comments. I'll try to answer.