Nine teams at .500 or better?

Thanks to all who took part in Wednesday’s mostly civil discussion on overtime, shootouts, loser points and .500 records.
Obviously, there is no black-and-white answer to what constitutes a .500 record these days. I just know that when a team loses in overtime, it’s a loss, and when a team loses in a shootout, it’s a loss. And when you lose more games than you win, you don’t have a record better than .500.
I also dislike the overtime and shootout mostly because it turns a game that, at one point, involved all the players on a team’s bench – with the possible exception of the backup goaltender – into one that involves seven or eight skaters and a goaltender in overtime and maybe three skaters (sometimes two) and a goaltender in the shootout.
To boil it down, what is widely advertised as being a team sport ends up being turned into a game for individuals.
Golf anyone?
By the way, the more I think about it, the more I’m in favour of the three-point game that was written about here on Nov. 13. That one was provided by hockey fan Bill Motiuk. In brief, it provides three points to a team that wins in regulation time, two for an overtime victory and one for a shootout victory. If you lose, well, you lose, which means you don’t get rewarded.
That definitely would put a little extra urgency into the game.
---
Bruce Luebke, over at Luebke’s Lounge, came up with this:
“Basically, I put my math brain to work and come up with a new formula for determining .500 -- here it is:
"Take the number of games played, multiply by 2, add the number of overtime/shootout points and then divide by the number of games played. This should give you an average number of points available per game. Multiply this number by 36, and that should give you the 'new' .500 mark.
"This year, so far, there have been 766 games played. That means 1,532 points available (2 points per win) plus they have been 116 points awarded for overtime and shootout losses. That equals 1,648 points or 2.15 points per game. 2.15 X 36 = 77.4, which would then be the 'new' .500."
A look at the standings going into the final weekend shows that, in this case, there are nine of the WHL’s 22 teams playing .500 hockey.