This would have been the year to lose the loser point.
All sorts of change is acceptable in the name of COVID-19. Stick ads on the helmets and on giant tarps covering the empty seats. Play two and three game series. Create taxi squads.
Use the atmosphere for change that goes with it to find places for women and people of colour to be able to prove themselves throughout the hockey world. And put an exclamation mark on it by making way for a clearly talented individual who has been doing play-by-play in Punjabi to wear his turban in the broadcast booth, like Brooks, Alberta, native Harnarayan Singh and do a game in English exceptionally well on Hockey Night in Canada , as he did Saturday.
But in the name of Gary Bettman, do not touch the loser point!
NHL commissioner Bettman loves his loser points.
They keep the standings looking close.
Bettman puts his fingers in his ears and hums loudly whenever it is suggested the league gets with the rest of the ‘world’ of sport and adopt a set of standings where every game is worth the same number of points — whether it be two or three points — as every other game.
In Edmonton, we’re just coming off the world junior championships and preparing to host the next one where each game is worth three points.
• Three points for a regulation win.
• Two points for an overtime or shootout win.
• One point for an overtime or shootout loss.
• None from a regulation-time loss.
Every major soccer league in the world uses that system. Indeed, most leagues in most sports have been using it forever.
But not Gary Bettman’s NHL.
You’d think this year, with so many adjustments coming into play in a condensed 56-game schedule, the league might try a one-year test run of going to a far more fair format.
You wouldn’t have to go to the 3-2-1-0 so-called soccer format for dishing out points three to a game. You could keep hockey’s original two-points per game before the NHL brought the loser point in for teams that are defeated in overtime or in the shootout.
You could simply give the winner two points for the win and move on. A loss is a loss. A win is a win. They don’t give an extra point in baseball because a team lost a game in extra innings. They don’t dish out an extra point in football or basketball for failure in overtime.
Thrill of victory. Agony of defeat.
Yes, you are allowed to feel sorry for the Los Angeles Kings, who gave up a goal with 0:01.4 remaining on the clock in regulation time and went on to lose a second straight game to the Minnesota Wild in overtime Saturday.
But why reward the Kings for gassing the game? And more to the point, why punish the other teams in their division because Los Angeles couldn’t close?
What did Anaheim, San Jose, Las Vegas, Arizona, St. Louis and Colorado do to deserve to be punished because they settled their games in regulation or didn’t even play that day?
In a normal season, a game involving a loser point between, say, Vancouver and Florida or Boston and San Jose isn’t maybe such a big deal.
Not this year. This year, the loser point is in play in a big way.
Calgary doesn’t play Tampa Bay. Montreal doesn’t visit Las Vegas. This year, every game is huge. Every game is against a division opponent. And in the Canadian division, the competitive balance is already showing itself with the significant series split between the Toronto Maple Leafs outfit that the oddsmakers have made favourites to finish on top and the Ottawa Senators that are supposed to end up as cellar dwellers.
Edmonton’s Ryan Nugent-Hopkins referenced it the other night.
“We understand the way this season is going to go. Most of the time, we play mini series against teams so these mini series are huge. Every night is a four-point game. You don’t want to give them any points, let alone let alone just getting yourself two. It’s important to beat them in regulation, too,” Nugent-Hopkins said of not giving up a loser point by going to overtime or a shootout.
There’s already early evidence from all over the league of how difficult it is going to be for a team to win both games of a two-game series.
What we’re dealing with here are Canadian hockey- starved fans from coast to coast, excited and delighted to have their great game back. They’re dialing in to watch a Toronto-Ottawa game in Salmon Arm, B.C., that they wouldn’t normally watch.
What we’re seeing is fans in Punkeydoodles Corners, Ont., staying up late to watch a Calgary-Vancouver game they would normally have minimal interest in.
And are they hoping to see a great game ending up in overtime and maybe a shootout?
No. Absolutely not.
They’re cheering for it not to get to overtime so that there’s no damn loser point involved.
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On Twitter: @byterryjones
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