Detroit Red Wings: The NHL needs to retire the Shootout

When the shootout became a regular thing in the NHL, I was beyond excited. After watching the Detroit Red Wings struggle, and then become more successful I think it is time to move on from the skills competition.

I thought it was a unique and exciting way to end hockey games when the shootout was implemented as a way to break a regular season tie. I mean I use to think a simple penalty shot was incredible to witness. It was one of the most exciting things to see that wasn’t a “regular” occurrence in a Detroit Red Wings game. Growing up I considered it as the second best thing to see during a game, second of course to a good ole fashioned scrap.

You have to be on the edge of your seat, couch, chair, stool, etc., depending on where you are watching the game as the player circles the puck at center ice waiting to break in all alone on the goaltender.

Yet a penalty shot and a shootout opportunity are very much different. To be rewarded a penalty shot, a player is generally about to be on a breakaway prior to being hauled down, losing out on a clear scoring chance. A shootout is an individual effort to decide the outcome of a regular season game.

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I use to look forward to a shootout during the World Junior tournament, or the Olympic games, and for the first few seasons in the NHL. It was different; it was new, it was exciting.

It feels like just yesterday the collective bargaining committee entered this into regular season NHL games although it has been twelve years already. It seems almost fictional that the shootout has been around since the 2005/06 season, but for me, its run its course.

Watching the Detroit Red Wings struggle the other night in Long Island. Often getting outplayed, outshot, merely dominated in all aspects of the game. Only to battle back to force an exciting three on three contest that would end in a stalemate only to see an ultimate team game end with an individual effort left a sour taste in my mouth. Not that they lost, just that it ends that way. The Detroit Red Wings in recent memory were terrible during shootouts so that probably didn’t help sway my opinion. Even with their more recent success, I am still over it.

How is it fair that a hard-fought 65-minute (after OT) game played by 18 skaters and a goalie or two depending on the night, is decided by an individual effort? Teams are battling for that extra point, so each team entering overtime automatically achieves a point, the winner of OT or the SO is awarded the second point.

I understand that the shootout is a way to eliminate ties. There has to be a better way. I’ve fallen in love with the wide-open three on three overtime play. The NHL should consider moving that from a five-minute period to a ten-minute frame.

Adding the extra five minutes will create double the scoring opportunities and force teams to use more players during the period, in turn lengthening the bench and quite possibly forcing a player out of their comfort zone by playing them in a wide-open, freewheeling style of hockey.

The youth in this league seem as skilled as they’ve ever been, I can’t imagine teams, players, coaches and fans opposed to lengthening three on three OT. If they were not interested in that idea, maybe they should play the regular five-minute, three on three period and then play in an additional two on two five minute period.

Can you imagine having the opportunity to watch Detroit Red Wings speedsters Dylan Larkin and Andreas Athanasiou on the ice together during a two on two play? It lengthens games, something the league is not interested in doing, yet on the same hand has the opportunity to bring so much excitement. If the game is still tied then proceed to a shootout. I’m confident there wouldn’t be many situations where the game would need a SO after these options.

It would be bringing back some of those excellent pond hockey memories a lot of us have. There was nothing better than playing pond hockey in this area during the winters. Sometimes we would have full teams, other times a goalie and four to six skaters. The wide-open hockey was fun to take part in, and provided an extremely thrilling style of hockey.

I can’t count high enough to mention the number of times I skated well into the dark on the local pond, with the floodlights shining overhead to provide some light. I skated alone, imagining myself as Detroit Red Wings great; Steve Yzerman in on a breakaway, doing my best to roof a snapshot. Or skating in on the right-wing trying to blast a shot past a friend who I imagined being Jon Casey. Yet, I struggled to find similar velocity on the shot, or jump on my skates as graciously as Stevie did. For the record, it was always more fun with others.

The kids in the league now likely have played much more organized year around hockey, but for some who had outdoor rinks in their yard the extended three on three or two on two for that moment would bring them back to the dimly lit yard, asking their parents for just five more minutes.

The NHL needed to shorten their games, back in the day teams would skate five on five for a twenty minute overtime to decide regular season games, it was merely “overkill.” The eternal sudden death OT in the playoffs is unique, but we don’t need that in the regular season.

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As much as I use to look forward to seeing the shootout once a year at the all-star weekend skills competition, I cringe now during league play. It is once again time for the NHL to adjust how games are decided.

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