from Travis Yost of TSN,

There was little explanation given as to why the 3-on-3 format was capped to five minutes other than what had been done historically. One important note is the league recognized too many games – at least relatively speaking – finished in the shootout format. Which raises a logical question: What minute interval should the NHL use if the goal is to minimize the frequency of shootouts?

The league could only make assumptions years ago. Now we have concrete data – the type of data that can help the league calibrate the length of 3-on-3 play with mathematical substantiation.

For some high-level numbers, the 2018-19 season to date has seen 770 games played. Twenty-one per cent of those games have been deadlocked after regulation. Past the 60-minute mark, the five-minute 3-on-3 window has solved 74 per cent of games. That means the other 26 per cent – 42 games at the all-Star break – required the shootout to allocate the game’s third point.

So how do we find out what the optimal interval is? A lot of it is based on what your appetite is for the shootout ending games. But we do know that in 3-on-3 play, teams score 6.1 goals per-60 minutes. That means we can create rather straightforward simulations to understand how much time would be required to satisfy a certain percentage of games in overtime (above and beyond the 74 per cent mark, or thereabouts, for what we are seeing this year).

Here is what that simulation looks like:

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