When the National Hockey League missed the entire 2004-05 season due to a labor war, it emerged the following season with a very new look. Among numerous changes, the league instituted a salary cap and introduced us to the shootout, saying goodbye to tie hockey games. With this change came a new standings point system, one marked by wins, losses, and overtime/shootout losses.
It’s been 20 years now, and each of the 30 clubs that have been around for the entirety of that time has seen at least 150 of their games go to the extra session before being decided. And, as with any measurable statistic, someone has to be at the top of the list. That’s where the Flyers come in, as they can officially call themselves the kings of the NHL loser point.
The Flyers lead the NHL in one stat during the salary cap era, although it's not much to brag about
To provide some historical context, the idea of a team earning a point despite losing the game was first introduced to the NHL for the 1999-2000 season. The league did this to encourage teams to take more chances in overtime without risking the point they had earned in regulation. There wasn’t a shootout yet, however, meaning that games could still end in ties. As a result, NHL standings had four columns (wins, losses, ties, overtime losses) for five seasons until the 2004 lockout. At that point, the advent of shootouts brought us the “modern” NHL points system and an official demarcation for studying the impact of the loser point.
As pointed out by Sean McIndoe of The Athletic in a recent post-Thanksgiving column where he finds a way to say “no thanks” to each NHL team (subscription required), the Flyers are tops in the NHL since 2005-06 with a staggering 212 overtime/shootout losses. Only the Red Wings and the Islanders have also hit the 200 mark in that time.
There are a couple of different ways to view this. First off, the harshness of the term “loser point” isn’t meant to be a direct indictment of the Flyers or any other team in the league. Instead, it’s more about deriding the NHL points system, which is very much broken. Many have advocated for a 3-2-1-0 format, with each game being worth three points rather than an overtime/shootout game magically going from two points to three.
This isn’t going to change anytime soon, though, and not until after stubborn NHL overlord Gary Bettman rides off into the sunset. So, for the time being, teams will continue to benefit from playing an even 60 minutes to secure at least one point without worrying about leaving anything extra on the table by failing to win in regulation.
On the plus side for the Flyers, they’ve been rewarded more than any other team for ultimately losing a game. A lot of this is due to the Flyers’ historically putrid shootout record, which is mercifully turning around over the past couple of seasons. As much as skill plays a factor, though, it essentially is a 50/50 proposition once you reach the extra session. And the Flyers have had some bad luck in these coin flip scenarios the past 20 years.
Despite easily leading the pack in loser points acquired, the Flyers have gone to overtime on fewer occasions (385) than the Red Wings, Islanders, Canadiens, and Blackhawks. The Isles are tops with 396 trips past regulation in that time. But they’ve managed to pull out a win about 49 percent of the time while the Flyers only nab the second point at about a 45.5 percent clip. Those percentage points make up the difference to boost the Flyers to the top of the loser point list.
So, what can we even make of this? If the Flyers simply had better luck in overtime and shootouts, would those extra standings points have translated to a playoff spot or two that they just missed out on? That was possibly the case in 2023-24, but outside of that, the near-misses in OT and shootouts haven’t made much of a dent in the team's place in the standings over the years.
You can also look at the flip side of things and how the 212 points have artificially inflated the team’s point totals and papered over flaws to some extent. Obviously, it hasn’t been a great stretch of Flyers hockey to begin with, but if you take away 30 or 40 of those loser points and make them regulation losses, then the situation seems even worse. Have these extra points collected over the years only served to hurt the team’s draft positions and prevent them from acquiring more talented players? Some might argue that they have.
Being the kings of the loser point isn’t exactly where the Flyers want to be, but it’s also not an inherently bad thing since they’ve just played within the confines of the system that we’re all forced to endure. Someone has to top the list, however, and the Flyers are the team to beat. Of course, they only made it to the top by being beaten so frequently. Cosmic.
Chalk it up to a statistical quirk, I suppose, but the Flyers are aiming to win enough games in regulation for the foreseeable future so they can relinquish this dubious crown.