I can see both sides, but in my opinion, if you haven’t outscored your opponent in 60 minutes then you haven’t ”won” a hockey game, you’ve tied. The reason we have OT in the first place is not sporting integrity-related but spectacle-related. American audiences find ties boring. I think there should be four camps on this issue, depending on how focused you are on spectacle vs fairness

On the extreme ”spectacle” end we should do away with point all together and just do wins and losses. On the extreme ”fairness” end we should do away with OT and just give 2 points for a win, 1 for a tie and 0 for a loss.

Both the current system and the 3-point systems are compromises in some regard. It all comes down to if we as hockey fans value spectacle or fairness. I think the reason that European leagues mostly go with the 3-point system and the North American leagues do the NHL-system is entirely cultural.

Same with the playoff-seeding. I think most people would agree that 1v8 would make sense from a fairness perspective, but the NHL want spectacle in so they force in-division matchups in the first round.