We're sending you back...to the loser!
Great Scott, Marty! A game tied after sixty minutes sends both teams into an alternate timeline: two points for winning cheaply, one for losing efficiently. Select a season below to see who made the dance, who disappeared from the picture, and how late-game habits got them back...to the playoffs!
There are many different ways to climb the standings. Gimmick GOATs, Loser Point Merchants, Righteous Winners, and True Contenders, all of these ridiculous labels and completely made-up stats help contextualize a team's route to where it eventually winds up. But it can't change the past. That requires 1.21 gigawatts of electricity...
How efficiently did they lose?
How gimmicky were their wins?
The power of loser points is a curious thing.
This data focuses exclusively on team-centric, end-of-game situational outcomes to help us separate the Huey Lewis' from The Pin Heads. Currently showing 2025–26 league totals.
These are context stats, and things can be two things. An OT/SO loss after a late lead is both a Second Point Dump and a Late-Tie Conversion. A regulation loss after a late lead is both a Double Point Dump and a Loser Point Leak. Don't try and look at it through those 3-D glasses, butthead. You need a special kind of screen for that.
Unfortunately, you never know when or where it's ever going to strike...
This is it! This is the answer! It says here that Hail Mary metrics follow the trailing team when they pull their goalie with time running down. If the other team could somehow harness this empty net, channel it into a Fatality Goal — it just might work!
Where we're going, we don't need goalies... Delayed penalties are excluded; netminder must be pulled with 7 minutes or less remaining in the third period with that team trailing by one goal for it to register as an Empty Net Bet.
Enchantment Under the Seeding Dance
Hop in your DeLorean and travel back to 1985, where an OT win was properly earned via 5-on-5 hockey and the loser took home nothing. Both counterfactuals keep the current NHL playoff format — three qualifiers from each division and two wild cards per conference — despite this combination of circumstances never occurring in real life.
This comparison is a standings thought experiment, and a pretty dumb one at that. Equal points in any counterfactual uses regulation wins, then regulation-plus-OT wins, then total wins as hypothetical tiebreakers. Guess you guys aren't ready for this yet, but your kids are going to love it.
When this game hits 60 minutes, you’re gonna see some serious gimmicks...
Time's up, runt — prepare to meet your maker! Gimmick Win Rate (GWR) is the share of games reaching overtime or a shootout that become wins. Sort of like two Hill Valley hockey teams meeting for a duel at high noon: one shoots first and takes full points from their win. The other refuses to draw, but thanks to Clint Eastwood's bullet proof vest trick they still get a point from the loss.
Two teams. Dueling Gimmicks.
GWR is the percentage of a team’s overtime / shootout games that end in a win. One team gets two points. One team gets covered in manure — I hate manure!
OT/SO wins ÷ (OT/SO wins + OT/SO losses) × 100
Don't be a slacker!
Compare the groups’ average GWR for the selected seasons. Higher means more extra-time appearances became wins.