Golden Knights have 5th-most wins in Pacific Division but are 1st in points originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
If the object of the game is to win, the Vegas Golden Knights aren’t doing that better than the teams in their own division.
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But the Golden Knights are atop the Pacific Division because there is another way to earn points: the overtime loss.
Through Sunday, the Golden Knights rank fifth in their division in wins:
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But the points look like this:
Clearly, it’s close and a lot of things could still change.
The key, though, is that the Golden Knights have 14 overtime losses. Edmonton has eight, Seattle nine, Anaheim just three.
The NHL awards two points for a regulation win, and one point for an overtime loss. It both keeps the standings quite bunched together, and it also creates this conundrum.
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PuckEmpire initially shared this stat on X, and that post wrote, “Time to abolish the loser point.”
There is certainly a case to be made for that.
On the one hand, a team works hard to get a game to overtime while still tied. Maybe that’s worth something.
On the other hand, the game is set up to be played until one team wins and one team loses, whether it happens in 60 minutes, or overtime, or a shootout. There’s a win and a loss every night, and maybe that’s the only way it should be summed up in the standings.
It likely isn’t something that will change anytime soon, and for now, Vegas is benefiting.
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