fwiw, I agree, never liked it from day one.
It's time to bury NHL's gimmicky, stale shootouts
Vancouver, British Columbia -- Forgive me for tromping on a tired old bit here, but if a shootout isn't the dumbest, most anti-climactic way to decide the outcome of a sporting event, I don't know what is.
It's a rip-off. Two teams play their hearts out for 65 minutes and you settle it with a gimmick. Seriously, it leaves me feeling empty and unsatisfied every single time.
I know what you are going to say. "Oh, I bet you wouldn't feel that way if the Red Wings were 9-4 in shootouts instead of 4-9."
Wrong, wrong, wrong. I would feel exactly the same way. Win or lose, it's a dumb way to decide games. The only shootout this year that I didn't completely hate was the one the Wings lost to Chicago at Joe Louis Arena back on Jan. 17. That was the one that Pavel Datsyuk did his stop-and-pop move, Todd Bertuzzi did his spin-a-rama and Marian Hossa got the winner with a quick move and a blistering, perfectly-placed shot.
But it still felt wrong to decide the outcome of that game, which was so exciting, so well played and fiercely contested, with a shootout.
What other sport does this? Can you imagine the NBA deciding games by having a player from each team play HORSE? Or, how about they have a guy from each team play half-court, one-on-one, first one to five wins?
I can't believe the majority of true hockey fans still love shootouts. Maybe at first it was intriguing. But after so many years, it's gotten stale. It's just like a dunk contest in the NBA; once you get past the first couple of dazzling moves, it's all the same. You get an occasional jaw-dropping move in a shootout, but the majority of them are pretty mundane.
Play five minutes of overtime, or 10 minutes of overtime and then if the game is still tied, give each team a point and move on. What's wrong with that?
These three-point games (two points for a win, one point for losing in overtime or shootout) are a farce anyway. Not only does it water down regular-season victories, it messes up the bookkeeping. Team A wins three shootouts and it claimed to be 3-0. Team B loses three shootouts and it is 0-0-3. I guess Team B gets to feel good about itself for not being a complete loser, but who are they kidding?
I wish the NHL would go back to Win-Loss-Tie system -- two points for a win, one point for a tie. But that's not going to happen, certainly not in time to rescue the Red Wings.