Coaches ready for new reality of three-on-three overtime

Three-on-three overtime was the best part of a desultory NHL exhibition season and Colorado Avalanche coach Patrick Roy knows why.

"The care factor was zero," Roy said. "Compared to five on five, where everyone's back checking, in three-on-three, the players go, 'to heck with it, I'm not playing defence, I'm going offence' – and guys have a hard time getting back."

But that is all about to change.

The NHL amended its overtime format for the coming season in June at the board of governors' meetings, switching to a five-minute three-on-three overtime period, after playing four-on-four ever since OT was first introduced in 1999-2000.

After years of pitching the idea, Detroit Red Wings' general manager Ken Holland convinced his colleagues that anything was better than ending a game with a shootout – a skills test that every year dooms some unlucky NHL team to miss the playoffs.

Last year, for example, the Stanley Cup defending champion Los Angeles Kings were 2-8 in shootouts and missed the playoffs by finishing two points behind a Calgary Flames team that had a 4-3 shootout record.

Three-on-three overtime was new in the preseason; and it proved to be a resounding success. Every team was assigned a minimum of three games in which they would test three-on-three overtime, regardless of how regulation play went – and 42 of the 59 games played (71.2 per cent) ended up with a goal. That's almost a 30-per-cent increase from the number of games decided last year by four-on-four overtime (44.4 per cent, according to the Elias Sports Bureau).

Since they were so busy evaluating players during the exhibition season, most coaches didn't do a lot of strategizing in OT. They watched it, they digested it and now they're about to take it more seriously.

The care factor is about to ramp up.

Remember, coaches gave similar short shrift to the early days of the shootout, too. In the beginning, the shootout was also treated as a lark – until the sober realization soon set in that valuable points were being lost in the standings by taking too cavalier an approach.

In time, every team began to work on shootout techniques in practice; determine which players had the best moves (often, young players coming into the league). Teams also developed video scouting reports on goaltenders, analyzing their shootout tendencies, just in case a game went past regulation and the five-minute extra period.

The same thing is likely to happen to three-on-three. In the exhibition season, it was all about pushing to the attack and not worrying about defensive responsibilities, knowing the ice was so open that you couldn't help but create odd-man chances. But coaches study patterns and over the course of the season, teams will develop tactics to thwart the offence that flowed so freely in the exhibition season.

"Because coaches are so smart, they will adapt," Dallas Stars GM Jim Nill predicted. "It will be interesting to see how many coaches will be going for it and how many will lay back."

Not too many, you hope.

Of all the players weighing in on three-on-three, the Blues' Vladimir Tarasenko might have had the best take.

"I really like the decision because it's dangerous both ways," Tarasenko said. "If you don't score one way, you have a breakaway the other.

"It's more opportunities and there are more opportunities to make a mistake. You need to think really hard before you make a play."

Most teams did what the Washington Capitals' Barry Trotz did before the start of training camp. Trotz met with the team's minor-league coaching staff to get a briefing on how three-on-three looked in the American Hockey League last year.

"What our coaches in Hershey[, Penn.] said was, 'If you want to go for a chance, you have to capitalize on that chance,'" Trotz said, "because if don't, you're probably giving up a 3-on-1 the other way or a 2-on-oh.

"So, it really puts a lot of pressure on your goalie. But I like that. That's a good change."