from Mark Lazerus of the Chicago Sun-Times,

There’s a moment in nearly every third period of every close game, usually about halfway through but sometimes even earlier, when frantic suddenly becomes tedious, when aggression yields to passivity, when high-octane becomes low-key.

Breakouts are slower. Defense is tighter. Point-men stop pinching. High-skill forwards make only low-risk passes. Both teams are playing for overtime, and it’s a strategy that renders too many third periods dull when they should be dramatic.
“Maybe not early in the third, but definitely as the game wears on and you get in the last 10 minutes of the third, it’s impossible not to think that, ‘Hey, we’ll take the point and take our chances in overtime,’” said San Jose Sharks coach Peter DeBoer. “I think everybody does that.”

The so-called “loser point” — the standings point given to teams that lose in overtime or shootouts, has created unprecedented parity in the league. Barely two weeks before the March 1 trade deadline, all 16 Eastern Conference teams are either in a playoff spot or within seven points of one. And 12 of the 14 Western Conference teams were in, or within six points.

It’s created such a logjam in the standings that general managers can’t even make trades, because of the 30 teams in the NHL, only the Arizona Coyotes and Colorado Avalanche are truly sellers at this point.

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