New Tie-Breaking Procedure This Season

Earlier today, he NHL has announced a new rule tweak for the 2019-20 season that will aim to solve tie-breakers leading into the playoffs.

In the past, you may recall looking at the NHL.com standings and seeing the column “ROW.” That stands for Regulation and Overtime Wins, which was used as the second tie-breaker if two or more teams were tied at the end of the year. For the upcoming season and going forward from here, the number of wins a team has in regulation will be the first tie-breaker and then including the overtime wins if the teams are still tied.

For years now, there has been clamouring for the NHL to shift to a new points system more along the lines of what European football leagues do with three points for an outright win, one point for an overtime or shootout win (in soccer that would be a draw) and then no points for a loss as always. This is a move to something closer to that without the full shift in the way things are done.

For the Oilers, who played in 14 games last year that ended in overtime (8-6 record), they will need to not rely so heavily on getting to the OT period where Connor and Leon are absolute magic and instead just win baby, in regulation.