For curiosity I checked what the standings would be if every game was worth 3 points. I was actually surprised that there is quite a lot of variation between teams with similar points.
Here's the whole western conference:
- Nashville: 29
- Los Angeles: 27
- Minnesota: 27
- Vancouver: 27
- St. Louis: 27
- San Jose: 26
- Chicago: 25
- Anaheim: 25
- Dallas: 24
- Calgary: 22
- Winnipeg: 21
- Colorado: 17
- Arizona: 13
- Edmonton: 12
The teams in bold are the ones that surprised me the most. In regulation wins Winnipeg is a bottom feeder, which is somewhat surprising. But the huge difference between Colorado and Dallas (who have the same amount of points in same amount of games) was the biggest surprise for me.
Here's how 3 point regulation wins would look for the current wild card race. The blue and red represent the current teams in playoff spots, with wildcards in red. This would not change much.
Most notable changes are the situation of Minnesota and Winnipeg.
Chicago: 104 (3rd in Central)
1.
Minnesota: 101
Vancouver: 100 (2nd in Pacific)
Los Angeles: 97 (3rd in Pacific)
2.
Winnipeg: 95
3. San Jose: 94
4. Calgary: 92
5. Dallas: 87
6. Colorado: 80
What's interesting is that the race would be MORE tight this way, even though the common reasoning seems to be that the current system keeps the race tight. I included Chicago in the list to demonstrate that for example Minnesota would be just 1 three point win behind them (with a game in hand), and the closest team chasing them would be San Jose, 4 wins behind. Currently it would take 3 wins from Winnipeg just to drop them to a wild card spot, and 6 wins for San Jose to catch them.
As another example, Dallas is now 5 wins behind the last wild card spot (8 points and a tiebreaker vs. Minnesota), which is unsurmountable. With 3 point regulation wins they would be only 3 wins (9 points) behind Winnipeg, with two games in hand.
You could also get past two teams that are tied with you, even if those teams played each other.