Ottawa Senators and the .500 mark

I read an article today about the Sens, and that the team went over the .500 mark, which to me, means they've won more games than they've lost. Others interpret it as the team having taken more than 50% of the points available to them. I don't agree with this interpretation, because in the old NHL, there were only twice as many points available as games played. In a season of 30 teams playing 82 games, this would translate to 2460 points. Today, there is no specific ceiling to the number of points teams can get. But, it is more than 2460. It could be as high as 3690; but that would require EVERY game going to at least overtime, if not shoot-outs.

Anyhow, in the current system, the Senators have 31 wins, 30 losses, and 10 overtime/shoot-out losses. So they've won 31 games, and lost 40 games. While they have 72 points out of 142 points, they have lost nine more games than they've won.

On top of that, they wouldn't have necessarily won 31 games in the old system. Three of those wins are shoot-out wins, and they have five shoot-out losses to date (this data will change as the last 11 games are completed).

Those games, under the old system, would've been ties. Overtime losses would have fit into the loss category - the Sens have lost five overtime games prior to the shout-out, so those would've fit into the old "loss" category.

So, under the old system, they'd have 28 wins, 35 losses and 8 ties - 7 games below .500. They would've had 64 points, 8 points fewer than they have now.