What happened to the super long playoff overtime games?

[koyvoo]

I think this year has only had 2-3 games go as far as early into double overtime. What happened to the occasional triple, quadruple etc overtime games. What gives?

 

[GlitchMarner]

This year's playoffs have been kind of different.

There haven't been many Game 7s or long OT games. Those are things that make the playoffs dramatic.

 

[AquiliniHurtsMySoul]

That one in the bubble that was 5OT was f***ing insane. Brayden Point finally ended it with a random wrist shot from the blue line.

 

[NYRnine94]

They just haven't happened? Maybe they should just play for triple OT to please koyvoo on hfboards

 

[sufferer]

Goalies aren’t good anymore

 

[Summer Rose]

I recall making a similar observation something like 5-10 years ago (and I think I even started a thread about it back then). Felt like there was always at least one 3OT (or even longer) marathon every year for the first 10-15 years I watched hockey. But I suppose they’re actually not as common as one might think. In the history of the NHL, there have been only 55 playoff games to ever require more than 40 minutes of overtime to determine a winner, which would be 3OT in the current format, although there have been a few historical formats such as a game in 1930 where the winning goal was scored at 45:35, which was only the second overtime period (they played a 10-minute overtime period followed by an second period with no time limit if necessary; the winning goal came 35:45 into that period).

For some more interesting data, only 15 games have required 60 minutes (4OT) or more, only 5 games have required 80 minutes (5OT) or more, and only 2 games have required 100 minutes (6OT) or more. Both 6OT games happened in the 1930s.

Another interesting anecdote is that the longest known professional hockey game was a Norwegian league playoff game that required 8OT. The game started at 6 p.m. local time and didn’t end until just after 2:30 in the morning. It got to the point where the local police department had to post on Twitter something like “enough with the missing person reports, the game is actually still going on.”

 

[ACLEVERNAME]

I was working the night shift for years not so long ago so having one of these marathon games on my night off was an event in of itself. Waking up at 5pm and the beers started cracking not long after. Loved it back then but sleeping and functioning normally now is right way to go.

I'll still stay up until the end of a long OT but it's just not the same energy.

 

[Rocket Raccoon]

I think this year has only had 2-3 games go as far as early into double overtime. What happened to the occasional triple, quadruple etc overtime games. What gives?

 

[Summer Rose]

I was working the night shift for years not so long ago so having one of these marathon games on my night off was an event in of itself. Waking up at 5pm and the beers started cracking not long after. Loved it back then but sleeping and functioning normally now is right way to go.

I'll still stay up until the end of a long OT but it's just not the same energy.

Definitely, the 4OT game a few years ago in the ECF was killer, and that game was in the eastern time zone (obviously). I’ve endured two 5OT games, but mercifully and luckily, both of them (2020 and 2003) were afternoon starts, and in 2003 I still lived in Arizona, which is in the same time zone as California by the time the NHL playoffs start (Arizona doesn’t observe DST so it’s in the same time zone as California in the summer but an hour ahead of California in the winter).

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Good those were stupid. When it was pulling teeth to score 2 goals in a game. I like that no one knows how to defend this year lol

 

[McGarnagle]

That one in the bubble that was 5OT was f***ing insane. Brayden Point finally ended it with a random wrist shot from the blue line.

That sucked the most because they pushed back all the other games that were supposed to follow it so the Bruins/Canes game was at like 10 AM the next day.

 

[Summer Rose]

That sucked the most because they pushed back all the other games that were supposed to follow it so the Bruins/Canes game was at like 10 AM the next day.

A silver lining to that one is that the Carolina Hurricanes account on Twitter posted something like “hey NHL, don’t want to tattle but we’re supposed to play in a few minutes but the Tampa Bay Lightning and Columbus Blue Jackets won’t get off the ice” and I at least thought that was really funny for some reason.

 

[frisco]

Ghost runner.

My Best-Carey

 

[MasterofGrond]

scoring went up

 

[Nicko999]

The only game i really felt could have gone a long time was Game 7 Buffalo-Montreal.
But UPL decided to give a softie.

Oddly enough, I just knew Game 6 Tampa-Montreal (0-0 in regulation) would end early.

 

[PistolPete]

I think this year has only had 2-3 games go as far as early into double overtime. What happened to the occasional triple, quadruple etc overtime games. What gives?

What you mean is "Praise the Lawd!"

Second OT....can be good....3rd or more? Now it's just boooooring.....very anticlimactic....at that point you're just wishing someone would score already and put this gsme out of its misiery

 

[tarheelhockey]

Honestly, you really only want to go past 3OT one time. It’s not fun or entertaining after a certain point, just two teams going up and down the ice for hours on end. Once you’ve experienced it, you can safely check that bucket list item and hope not to see another.

 

[NVious]

NHL cancelled them, gen z doesn't have the attention span, if they're not getting the hottest offers from the hottest sports books, they don't care. They just flip a coin and tell a team to score.

 

[PistolPete]

Honestly, you really only want to go past 3OT one time. It’s not fun or entertaining after a certain point, just two teams going up and down the ice for hours on end. Once you’ve experienced it, you can safely check that bucket list item and hope not to see another.

Preach, brother, preach!

I like your description. Very concise and captures the feeling entirely. A poet are you?

 

[Finnish Jerk Train]

Honestly, you really only want to go past 3OT one time. It’s not fun or entertaining after a certain point, just two teams going up and down the ice for hours on end. Once you’ve experienced it, you can safely check that bucket list item and hope not to see another.

Yep. Sometimes there’s a point, usually late in the first overtime or sometime during the second, where the better-conditioned team is skating circles around the other team. But they don’t always score, and sometimes both teams wear down around the same time.

After that point, both teams are so exhausted and so wary of making a mistake that they fall into a very tentative, conservative style of play. Nobody wants to be the guy who made a mistake that ended up in the back of the net or put his team on the PK after that long of a game. And when both teams play to not lose, it just isn’t very interesting.

I was in the building for the 3OT game against Detroit. It started feeling like a chore around midnight. But it was the finals, and the series was tied 1-1, so the knowledge that it was an enormously consequential game kept you at least somewhat engaged. But I don’t even remember the crowd reacting when Larionov scored. My recollection is that everybody just silently stood up and went home.

I watched the 4OT game against Florida on TV. It was positively mind-numbing by the third overtime. That was game 1, and I just remember wanting someone to score so I could go to bed. I do remember a guy on TV holding Skittles in one hand and beer in another, and thinking that’s what you need to sit through a marathon game like that.

 

[PistolPete]

Yep. Sometimes there’s a point, usually late in the first overtime or sometime during the second, where the better-conditioned team is skating circles around the other team. But they don’t always score, and sometimes both teams wear down around the same time.

After that point, both teams are so exhausted and so wary of making a mistake that they fall into a very tentative, conservative style of play. Nobody wants to be the guy who made a mistake that ended up in the back of the net or put his team on the PK after that long of a game. And when both teams play to not lose, it just isn’t very interesting.

I was in the building for the 3OT game against Detroit. It started feeling like a chore around midnight. But it was the finals, and the series was tied 1-1, so the knowledge that it was an enormously consequential game kept you at least somewhat engaged. But I don’t even remember the crowd reacting when Larionov scored. My recollection is that everybody just silently stood up and went home.

I watched the 4OT game against Florida on TV. It was positively mind-numbing by the third overtime. That was game 1, and I just remember wanting someone to score so I could go to bed. I do remember a guy on TV holding Skittles in one hand and beer in another, and thinking that’s what you need to sit through a marathon game like that.

OT games in the first two games of a series are the worst. You're investing time for an inconsequential game.

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

Scoring is up , goalies stink , 5'8 shrimps are firing lazerbeams from everywhere. Nobody can defend/crosscheck to the spine/slash somebodies arm off.

Games gone

 

[Matty Sundin]

Teams open up more. Their not defending a lead, it’s next goal wins, you don’t wanna be caught flat footed or being too cautious in situations like this and I’m sure fatigue plays a part as well. I do also believe goalies aren’t that great or depended on as much anymore. The days of a goalie like Hasek carrying teams are gone.

Long overtime games can be fun though it tends to be exhausting to watch when it gets midway in triple overtime. Especially when you have to work the next morning.

 

[Tie Domi Esquire]

Players can no longer play without the puck

 

[Sadekuuro]

Historically we do seem to be in a bit of a lull. Only four triple OT games in the past decade, consisting of three Game 1s and one capping off a sweep.

Tue Aug 11 2020	ECQF	G1	at Tor	Tampa Bay 3, Columbus 2 (5OT)	Brayden Point	90:27
Mon May 25 2021	NDSF	G4	at Wpg	Winnipeg 4, Edmonton 3 (3OT)	Kyle Connor	46:52
Tue May 3 2022	MDSF	G1	at NYR	Pittsburgh 4, NY Rangers 3 (3OT)	Evgeni Malkin	45:58
Thu May 18 2023	ECF	G1	at Car	Florida 3, Carolina 2 (4OT)	Matthew Tkachuk	79:47

The preceding decade had 11.