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I think there are two ways to look at it. by ugoirish

One is the sort of 'hockey purist' approach which says in essence, why should we adopt a different approach to settling a tie (4 on 4, 3 on 3, shootout) than was used for the previous 60 minutes. Being a sports traditionalist in most ways I'm not unsympathetic to this view. But the other side of me sees that even in NHL games where the final outcome will be settled, teams get very conservative in the third period of tie games wanting to insure they get at least one point. It's frustrating as hell to watch teams just about stop skating and I can imagine how much worse it would be if the NHL went back to having ties.

To my mind the 3 on 3 OT is the best rule change the NHL has made in decades, including the red line change. It's remarkable how much more fun it is to watch than the old 4 on 4 OT's. I subscribe to NHL.tv and the first thing I do later in the evening when I get control of the TV is to find the games that went to OT and skip ahead to watch the OT period. And I love 5 on 5 hockey and have no problem watching a 1-0 or 2-1 game. Maybe some of my acclimation to it is from watching my daughter play summer 3 on 3.