Do you consider someone who lost in time in chess but actually have all the pieces of the other opponent a lost?
L. E. Gant
What matters is the result as recorded. There is a reason for the time limit in chess games -- otherwise, one could just do the sitzfleisch thing and never lose. But it is often the worse player who loses due to time constraints. Nevertheless, it is not necessarily a measure of the playing ability, just the time management aspect,
I Love Pigeons and Hate People
Too much emphasis on the clock. Play the game with enough time. I hate blitz. A big increment is best. If you just play more minutes even 60 minutes you can run out of time.
TStodden
It a bit dependent on the situation... IN A TOURNAMENT MATCH, the player with the piece advantage & less than 2 minutes on the clock can contact the tournament director & request a draw ruling. The reasoning is that the opponent is unable to win the game if ample time is provided. Please be aware that the tournament director could deny the request & impose a 1 minute penalty against the player (time is awarded to the opponent) OR delay judgement (& replacing the clock with a digital delay clock & halving the claiming player's time if an analog clock was initially used) instead of granting the draw. IN NON-TOURNAMENT, ORGANIZED PLAY, There's an argument for declaring it a draw (same as Tournament play). While the player would lose on time, their opponent doesn't have mateable material to secure a win... ultimately concluding in a draw, especially when presented to the other players & experts in the organization. IN CASUAL PLAY, it depends on the skill level of the players & knowledge of the game as well as the state of the board. If the player who loses on time see that their opponent doesn't have mateable material, they can make the argument their opponent us unable to win... make it a lose-lose situation, resulting in a draw. HOWEVER, it's the player losing on time to make the call... so a less experienced player may accept the loss as they're not accessing the game's end-state. IN SHORT, logic will overtake any argument when assessing the Win-Loss judgement of the game... so just declare it as a draw for this case.