On Fri, 20 May 1994, Mike Machnik wrote:
 
> No, it won't, because the underdog that pulls out a tie after 65 mins
> still gets its point no matter what happens in the shootout.  The only
> way it will punish an underdog is if it loses a shootout to a team
> that is close to it in the standings - but then, you couldn't call
> that team an underdog, could you.
>
> Chaz should have written that a shootout punishes a defensive team.
 
Mike has brought out the essential element here. Shootouts are bereft of
one of the major essential elements of the game of hockey: team defense.
However, it could be argued that many "underdog" teams choose to play a
defensive style to cut down on the opportunities offered opponents by
making mistakes on offensive rushes.
 
What the shootous would allow (assuming there were enough overtime ties)
would be for teams that do well in shootouts (whose snipers and
goaltenders are superior to their opponents, who are now without the
potentially equalizing talent of their defensemen) to continue to move up
and away in the standings from less offensively talented teams who opt
for defensive styles. It need not be necessary, as Mike suggested, for
those teams to be "close in the standings". A shootout win that a BU or a
Maine picks up over a team like Merrimack (which, in it's history in
Hockey East, as Mike I'm sure will attest, has both been less talented
than those other two teams and has chosen a defensive style) robs
Merrimack of the only thing they have to gain from a tie: the ability to
keep pace with that team pointswise on that given night. Sure, the loser
gets one point, but if the winner pulls away by getting two, they still
increase their lead.
 
In short, if shootouts have any effect on the league at all, it will be
to widen the numerical gap in the standings between the best and worst
teams in the league. However, for this even to occur it would be
necessary to have a significant number of overtime ties, especially
between teams at the opposite ends of the standings. This strikes me, at
best, as unlikely.
 
Shootouts are a tempest in a teacup, a lot of sound and fury signifying,
at most, very very little.
 
> ************ 1994 NC$$ Division II Softball World Series **************
>      Thur May 19 Game 1 Merrimack 5, Barry, Fla. 1 (Kim Page 19-1)
>   Fri May 20 Game 3 Merrimack (42-4) vs Humboldt State, Calif. (46-9)
>
 
Like the .sig, Mike-
 
Go Lady Warriors! (oops, is that PC? Darn, I never can tell!)
 
_Dave