NHL Standings under a 3-point system

First, a recap.

Back in March 2012, I solved the problem with the NHL standings point system.

In August 2013, Grantland touches on it but even when talking about a 3-point system neglects the key difference that OT wins should be worth 3 points and OT losses should be worth nothing.

In January 2014, the same guy at Grantland writes an entire article about it, repeating the same stuff.

- - -

Now then. I thought it would be interesting to compare the current 2-1-0 system to my 3-2-1-0 system.

Here's the current standings for above .500 teams, as always sorted by points percentage.

Here are the standings with 3 points for a ROW, 2 points for a SOwin, 1 point for a SOloss, 0 points for a ROL.

Ducks: 113 points / 153 possible = .739
Penguins: 98 points / 144 possible = .681
Blues: 94 points / 141 possible = .667
Avs: 93 points / 144 possible = .646
Bruins: 92 points / 144 possible = .639
Blackhawks: 97 points / 153 possible = .634
Sharks: 90 points / 147 possible = .612
Kings: 85 points / 147 possible = .578
Lightning: 85 points / 150 possible = .567
Canadiens: 81 points / 147 possible = .551
Canucks: 78 points / 150 possible = .520
Wild: 79 points / 153 possible = .516
Coyotes: 69 points / 144 possible = .479

In terms of league standings, the Penguins move up from 4 to 2, the Blackhawks fall from 2 to 6.

- - -

This system increases the value of a regulation or overtime win. It decreases the value of a shootout win, shootout loss, and overtime loss.

To repeat, it will reward teams that are winning outright in regulation and overtime play.
It will punish teams that are scraping by with shootout wins, shootout losses or overtime losses.

I think these are good, fair things.

I didn't expect to actually make much of a difference in the standings order. I think the real benefit comes with the standardization that every game is worth the same amount of points. And that there is little incentive to play for overtime or play for a shootout, resulting in better hockey. 

#1 vs #2 (and true nhl standings)

(preamble)

I've rallied against how the NHL standings are organized for a while. Well, I finally found a good resource that calculates by percentage of points possible.

LINKS:   league standings  -  conference standings  -  division standings

There's another site that doesn't do it as cleanly or well, and takes 30 seconds to update, but does have archived standings. current standings  -  archive

- - -

Two weeks ago, the Avalanche visited the Blues. At the time of the game, here were the overall NHL standings:

The Avs lost 7-3 on the road, and then lost again, part of a three-game losing streak. Those losses dropped them as low as #5 in the league:

Since then, the Avs have won 3 in a row. At home vs Chicago, on the road vs Phoenix and LA. Those teams currently are 4th, 9th and 6th in the league standings, respectively.

Which brings us to tonight. The Avs' 3 game winning streak is only bested by the Blues' 4 game hot streak. And we've got another #1 vs #2 matchup.

If you compare the above standings with the typical standings, you see why I'm so irked by the traditional method.

To make it clear, here is how virtually every media source puts the teams in order:

4, 7, 1, 3, 6, 5, 2, 8, 9, 11, 10.

Not very helpful when you're trying to find the actual order. Especially irksome when you see shit like this:

A couple more notes about the current true standings. Here's what that site has to say about the division abbreviations following the team names:

So there you go. We can see that 3 of the top 4 teams in the league are in the Central. And 8 of the top 9 teams are in the West.

One last note. 

Here are the best records for the last five 82 game seasons:

2011-12: Vancouver - 111 points
2010-11: Vancouver - 117 points
2009-10: Washington - 121 points
2008-09: San Jose - 117 points
2007-08: Detroit - 115 points

Now let's go back to the current standings. If you look at the last column, you see there are four teams that are on pace to have more than 121 points this year.

Clearly, I don't think that pace is sustainable/realistic. But I am impressed that there are that many teams winning so many games more than a quarter of the season in.