Cold dose of reality or failure of statistical modeling? You be the judge. Interesting
article at the athletic that uses a statistical model to predict points for all teams for the coming NHL season. We end up a bubble team at 18th in the league, which even surprised the guy who created the model. He goes on to analyze why the model made that prediction. It is 100% in-line with my thoughts. First, our schedule is brutal....just brutal. Not just playing in the central, which is tough enough. I didn't know this but we are the less rested team 10 times more often than we are the more rested team. We have 4 stretches with 6 games in 9 days. Add the quality of the central and that might be the worst schedule in the league.
But that's not the real reason we are predicted to finish 18th in the league according to this model. We have the 10th best forward group (9th best top 9), 7th best D (5th best top 4). But our goaltending is bottom 3 in the league according to this model. That is exactly the reason I am less optimistic than anyone here about our chances (I'd also add poor coaching of the PP).
The article does admit there are flaws some flaws in the model that might be good for the Blues, including the inconsistency at predicting goaltending and the under-valuing of defensive forwards like RoR. He mentions other models which have us much higher. So overall, its a very fair assessment of the team and model. Good read.