There’s not a lot of people who have a problem with overtime, and that goes all across sports. The athletes might, but it’s not like their opinions matter much, am I right or am I very right? Sports writers might also care some, and they also have a valid reason to not like overtime that much.
But when talking about fans, how many of you out there dislike overtime? You get more of what you love and it’s even better thanks to the edge of your seat action you tend to get thanks to the sudden death nature, at least when you’re talking about hockey. As a fan what’s not to love.
Washington Capitals fans might not love overtime these days however. To put it in the simplest way possible here, the Caps lead the National Hockey league in overtime losses. Thirty-four games into the season they have lost in OT or a shootout 8 times. In fact, the team has only lost a total of 14 times, so more than half of their losses have come past sixty minutes.
So if Washington Capitals fans were to come and tell me they didn’t like overtime, right now, I’d believe them.
Does this team have an overtime issue though? This question can actually be broken down into a couple of different arguments.
The first argument I think would be this. Does this team lose too often in extra time? This argument to me is a non issue. Honestly, if you’re going to lose, you might as well do it in overtime since you obviously get a point out of that loss. Secondly, if you lose you’re losing in a way that likely won’t bite you in the rear when the most important time of the year comes, that being the playoffs.
I know it’s frustrating to struggle in overtime, and you are obviously dropping some points you could need. That being a fact, you won’t see 3v3 in the playoffs. So does this Caps team have an OT or 3v3 issue? No! This is more than likely a playoff team, and in the long run, struggling while 3v3 is a very unimportant issue for a team with the aspirations of a team like Washington.
The other argument I think you could make here is this. Does this team, in our case the Capitals, go to overtime too often. Here’s why that could be an issue. While it’s true that if you lose after sixty minutes teams aren’t beating you while 5v5. But there is the flip side to that. If you don’t win games in regulation you’re also not beating teams at 5v5. The playoffs are played mostly at 5v5 and there is the potential issue.
Luckily for the Capitals, I’m not sure there is a big issue there either.
The Capitals don’t struggle at 5v5. As of writing this, Washington has scored 84 goals at 5v5 and have given up just 58 goals at full and even strength. As far as my math told me that was tied for best 5v5 goal differential in the NHL with the Florida Panthers. Florida has scored 7 more goals but has also allowed 7 more goals.
The other thing to think about here is that with the Caps struggles in OT pretty much all of their wins have come in regulation. Right now the Capitals have 20 wins, 18 of those wins have come in sixty minutes. The only wins that did not come in regulation were against the Anaheim Ducks on December 6th and the Sabres that came five days later, both of those wins came via the shootout.
It’s not like the Capitals struggle to beat teams and then need to win in OT. To me, that would be a pretty big issue. You want to know a team that has a lot of wins with a lot of those wins coming in overtime? Tampa Bay. Right now the Lightning have 23 wins and 15 are in regulation. They’ve won six games in 3v3 OT and then do the math yourself, okay never mind, I’ll do it for you, two more via the shootout.
Now I’m not going to call out the Bolts. They’ve won back to back Stanley Cups. Clearly they can get the job done at 5v5, at least in previous years. This is just to prove a point. The Lightning have needed eight games that were not 5v5 to win. To me, that could be a problem.
Do the Washington Capitals have an overtime issue? It’d definitely be nice if they could figure out 3v3 a little more, sure. But, overall, 3v3 troubles are far down on my list of concerns. The fact that the Capitals are one of the best 5v5 teams in the league eases my mind even more.
Is there an issue for the Capitals? I really don’t think so. This is a playoff team, the playoffs are played at 5v5 and the Capitals don’t have much to worry about there. For now anyways.