The NHL has seen a jump in games that have gone past regulation. Why?
This NHL may not have had an All-Star Weekend this year, but it's seen no shortage of the skills competition.
Not only has there been an increase in games that have gone past regulation, but there's been an uptick in shootouts.
This season is on track to see the most games go past regulation in the Salary Cap Era. With many teams still needing to play around eight to 10 games to finish off the regular season, 303 outings in the NHL this year have gone past regulation.
Over the past two decades, the 2013-14 season had the most games that required an extra frame, with 307.
In addition to this season being overtime-heavy, a chunk of these contests don't get solved in sudden death.
After games on March 29, 64 percent of games that went past regulation ended in overtime before the shootout, a drastic drop from last season's 71.6 percent, the highest rate since tracking began in 2005-06.
In fact, this season has had the most games decided in a shootout since the final year the NHL had 4-on-4 overtime in 2014-15.
So far, 108 contests have been decided in shootouts in 2025-26.
Since 3-on-3 overtime was introduced in the NHL in 2015-16, this season has seen the highest shootout rate.
In that 2014-15 campaign, there were 170 shootouts, proving that the purpose of switching to 3-on-3 was to provide a more exciting and thrilling finish has worked for the most part.
But the obvious increase in overtime periods finishing in a stalemate has got individuals considering more changes to overtime and searching for the answers as to why there have been more shootouts than in the past.
"I love the 3-on-3," Former NHLer Drew Shore said in The Hockey News Big Show last Wednesday. "I do think it was so exciting when it was first introduced, and now, as a result of teams realizing how important puck possession is… teams basically just pull the puck back," he said.
Until next season's results, there's no way of telling if this year is a one-off in terms of how many games go beyond regulation and aren't decided in overtime, or if this will be a regular instance for the near future.
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