Day: March 18, 2009

While shootouts appear to be here to stay – thankfully for the Rangers as evidenced last night – there’s still a few holdouts – aside from Sammye that is. Coach John Tortorella still doesn’t like the format according to Newsday and Bergen Record. Torts told Steve Zipay of Newsday “I’ve never liked it. It’s a team sport for 65 minutes, then turns into an individual contest. But I don’t make the rules. I just abide by them.”

While Tortorella may be one of the last vocal hold outs with respect to the shootout, there are still plenty who would argue that the three point game – an extra point for the OT/Shootout loss – is distorting the tables. According to NHLShootout.com the league has averaged a pretty flat 22-23% of games going to shootouts, that’s almost a quarter of games in the league distributing an extra point.