Teams play for the tie in regulation - get the point, then worry about OT.
But in OT, you already have a point - nothing to lose, only an extra point to be gained. So teams don't play for the tie in OT, and wouldn't if SOs were eliminated.
140 games have been decided in OT so far this year, and 51 went to a SO. So 73% decided in OT.
I think if you increase the time to 10 minutes, you raise that 73% to over 90%. If less than 10% of the OT games resulted in ties, that would mean less than 20 so far this year. Or 1 or 2 per team for the season, on average.
And if you did something like what Strange Brew suggested, you probably get very close to 100% being decided. Something like: if you take the puck back over center, it results in a FO in your end, like icing. And also like icing, the defending team can't change.
|