Question Time: Should Multiple Overtimes Be Scrapped?

This weeks question deals with a long standing hockey playoff tradition that slowly beginning to become a burden on teams- the multiple overtime periods.

"Is the overtime system used in the playoffs flawed? Playing repeated 20 minute periods until someone finds twine is tough on the skaters, not to mention the fans and TV schedulers. Should the NHL adopt the same system used during the regular season? Or is it time for something completely different?"

Last night during the St Louis Blues 4-3 win over the reigning champions the Chicago Blackhawks- Alexander Steen scored the winner 26 seconds into a third overtime period! Incredible result for this fixture, but there's no denying that fans were kept waiting for too long for a winner this tie, regardless of this being playoff time.

I've never fully understood the need for continuing periods, because this can affect a team in the long run because your skaters are overworked and more likely make errors or even worse- get severely hurt! Cast your mind back to the evening of April 18 1987, where the New York Islanders took over 4 overtime periods to beat the Philadelphia Flyers in the game one of the first round! Now that kind of time is beyond excessive and can often lead to team morale being affected for the following game due to them being physically and mentally drained.

The fans as well grow restless waiting the inevitable goal to follow suit whilst they continuously glance at their watches and grumble they have work the next day- this also extends to fans watching on the big screen at home. Plus hockey commentators are forced to hold in their frustrations of not having any goals to report- which often leads to a release of emotion when the winner finally arrives.

So what would be a good solution to this problem? Personally rather than implementing anything radical, I feel the NHL would be best served by adopting the same principles that apply to regular season play where we only see one 5 minute period of overtime, then shootout follows. If this is good enough for play during majority of the season, why not just making for the whole one? Though it would lead to less dramatic games.

Other suggestions for this are as follows:

• If scores level after OT- then both teams will have a last man standing brawl involving all fourth line skaters, player who remains still standing will claim the game for this team! 
• Head Coach of each team have one on one challenge against each other- whoever scores into the empty net wins the game. 
• How about implementing similar challenges to the NHL All Star Game- such as the Accuracy Shooting Competition, Fastest Skater or the Breakaway Challenge (each one to be determined game to game). Would certainly make events more fun.

So in conclusion to this debate- yes multiple overtime should indeed be scraped because it has become very outdated for the modern game and frankly, no person, player or fan should be made to wait that long for their team to win or lose, time to start thinking again NHL!