A Further Look at the Overtime Records
By gary2
Taking another look at the chart from our last post, but concentrating only on the Western Conference, again thanks to Truestandings for the data. The reason for the 2nd look is the simple question, “Can we learn something from the information?” The chart below is the same chart we looked at in the last post. We’ll continue the post after the data. Least you become confused, in our general over look, I am including both true OT wins and shootouts in the overtime. The thinking being the game went past the regulation 3 periods. And yes, I know shootouts are skills competition, not team wins and all that. Nevertheless a win is a win.
| West | RW | RL | OTW | OTL | SOW | SOL | Points | Opponents’ Points | Total 3-Pt Games | |
| 1 | Vancouver | 36 | 22 | 7 | 2 | 8 | 7 | 111 | 77 | 24 |
| 2 | St. Louis | 42 | 22 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 10 | 109 | 73 | 18 |
| 3 | Nashville | 40 | 26 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 104 | 76 | 16 |
| 4 | Detroit | 36 | 28 | 3 | 3 | 9 | 3 | 102 | 80 | 18 |
| 5 | Chicago | 34 | 26 | 4 | 4 | 7 | 7 | 101 | 85 | 22 |
| 6 | Phoenix | 33 | 27 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 10 | 97 | 89 | 22 |
| 7 | San Jose | 31 | 29 | 3 | 5 | 9 | 5 | 96 | 90 | 22 |
| 8 | Los Angeles | 31 | 27 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 9 | 95 | 93 | 24 |
| 9 | Calgary | 32 | 29 | 2 | 7 | 3 | 9 | 90 | 95 | 21 |
| 10 | Dallas | 31 | 35 | 4 | 1 | 7 | 4 | 89 | 91 | 16 |
| 11 | Colorado | 25 | 35 | 7 | 4 | 9 | 2 | 88 | 98 | 22 |
| 12 | Minnesota | 22 | 36 | 2 | 2 | 11 | 9 | 81 | 107 | 24 |
| 13 | Anaheim | 29 | 36 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 7 | 80 | 101 | 17 |
| 14 | Edmonton | 25 | 40 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 74 | 107 | 17 |
| 15 | Columbus | 23 | 46 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 65 | 112 | 13 |
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RW=Regulation Win
RL=Regulation Loss
OTW=Overtime Win
OTL=Overtime Loss
SOW=Shootout Wins
SOL=Shootout Losses
Opponents’ Points=the number of points opponents earned in games against that team (this number is not the same as the number of points the team failed to earn because of three point games). This number shows how difficult the team was to play from the opponents’ perspective.
Three Point Games=the number of games decided in overtime or shootout (resulting in two points to the winner and one to the loser). If you add up the wins, you can see that 10th place Dallas, actually won 42 games, which would place it tied for 6th in the standings. But nuff said about the 3 point games.
1] Colorado won the greatest percentage of their total overtime games, winning 7 of 11 [64%] in OT and 9 of 11 [82%] in SOs for a total of 73% winning in overtime situations.
2] In the West, Minnesota won the most SOs at 11 of 20 or 55% [Although New Jersey won the most shootouts [12 of 16, or 75%].
3] Dallas won 4 of 5 games won in the OT period or 80%. This is a pretty small sample. Vancouver won 7 of 9 or 78%.
For Reference: Columbus won 2 of 4, or 50% in the OT period; and 4 of 9 in SOs, for 44%
Colorado, 22; Minnesota, 24; Dallas[small sample noted above] 16; All did not make the playoffs. And of course Columbus, at 13. Vancouver and LA, both had 24 games[ winning 63% and 37% respectfully] that went to OT and were in the playoffs.
St Louis which went to OT 18 times and was ranked 2nd in the West won only 39 %. [Mostly due to 4 of 14 wins in SOs] Nashville which only had 16 extra inning games, but was successful in winning only 50%, was ranked 3rd in the West and obviously made the playoffs .
If you are confused by all these numbers, don’t let it bother you, I’m putting them together and so am I. But while I had hoped to put together a strong key for success from this analysis, All I can say is that cream seems to rise to the top, so no mater in the special circumstances of OT, these seem to be small victories and evidently do not win the war. But every battle does help. We’ll look at one other aspect of these statistics in the next post, but enough numbers for now.