Mayor Bee
Registered User
- Dec 29, 2008
- 18,085
- 531
A couple weeks ago, I began pondering the question of whether or not continued expansion by the NHL would be a good idea. This is not from a business perspective, but from one of competitive balance; if the NHL is at a good point in terms of balance, it could work and not hurt play across the league. If it's not competitive, then expansion would drop the level of play further than before.
A common argument against the NHL today is "dilution of talent"; if talent is in fact diluted, then it would show up as a competitive balance issue. Simply put, a bad team or cluster of bad teams will skew balance and make the entire league look less competitive.
The manner in which I determined competitive balance over time is this. I figured out the number of points that each team within a given season deviated from average (this is especially important in the era of points for an OT loss and an era in which every game has a winner). I then fed a formula in that looks like this:
1 - (TPD / G)
where
G = games played leaguewide
TPD = total points deviation; this is a measure of the combined points deviated from average leaguewide
In a perfectly competitive world, each team would have exactly a .500 record within a given season (currently, 41-41-0). And in the span of a decade or era, everything would be exactly .500. The amount of deviation from this can be used to determine how competitive the league was, top-to-bottom, in a given year or other span of time.
I decided to break everything down three different ways. These are:
1) Competitive balance, season by season. This is pretty basic: how competitive was the NHL in 1943-44? In 1955-56? In 1980-81?
2) Competitive balance, decade by decade. How competitive was the NHL in the 1970s? In the 1930s? In the current decade?
3) Competitive balance, era by era. How competitive was the NHL during the Original Six era as a whole? During the 21-team league? During the era that pre-dates forward passing in all three zones?
As would be expected with any point-based study, a team that has a particularly stellar or particularly atrocious season skews the overall numbers for a given year. Anyway, here's what I figured out.
The current decade is the most competitive in NHL history by a decent margin. I don't believe this is an indication that the caliber of player is substantially higher than any other point; the fact that the entire decade features an extra point for losing overtime compresses everyone toward a high end of the spectrum. In order to normalize to NHL history, we'd have to go back through and both deduct overtime losses (and convert shootouts to ties).
If I break it down by era, here's what I come up with:
Pre-passing -- This covers the first year of the NHL (1917-18) up through the last year that the forward pass was not allowed in all three zones (1928-29).
To The Original Six -- This covers the beginning of passing (1929-30) to the last year outside of the Original Six era (1941-42)
Original Six -- This covers the Original Six era (1942-43 to 1966-67)
Expansion to the WHA -- This covers the initial expansion up through the last year of 17 teams (1967-68 through 1978-79)
Round of 21 -- This covers the first year post-WHA merger (1979-80) though the last year with 21 teams (1990-91)
New Expansion -- This covers the span of the San Jose expansion through the last year pre-second lockout (1991-92 through 2003-04)
No Ties -- This covers the post-second lockout era where ties no longer exist (2005-06 to the present)
As would be expected, the pre-passing era shows up as the least competitive as a whole, with an overall deviation of 560 points in 1179 games. This registers as a competitive balance for the era of just 52.5%. There are a variety of reasons for this. The NHL as a whole was still fairly loosely organized and could not be considered the unquestioned best pro hockey league around; a great deal of talent remained out west and a great deal more worked in the mines, the mills, and the farms as a more stable way of providing a life. There were largely untapped markets out there, and a decent number of depth players were those who had the financial means to play hockey at the expense of a better-paying career. An additional wild card is the sad story of the 1917-18 Montreal Wanderers, who disbanded when Jubilee Rink burned down. Their shortened schedule and the resulting skew in numbers has a large effect in balance for the era as a whole.
The next least-competitive era is that which saw the NHL expand from six to seventeen teams. Besides the arguments for "dilution of talent", the WHA came into play at the same time. Some NHL teams were decimated by the upstart league while others retained much of their talent and feasted on their weakened brethren. Since the Original Six era began, there have only been five years of less than 50% balance, and two of those came during WWII. Two of them came during this era (1971-72 and 1977-78). The 77-78 season saw six teams finish more than 20 points below average and five finish more than 20 points above average (including Montreal's +49 season). The era as a whole was 54.3% competitive; Montreal and Boston largely dominated the league and Washington, Vancouver, and a smattering of other single-season and three-season washouts bombed.
After this comes the era of passing; this saw the likes of the Philadelphia Quakers and Pittsburgh Pirates, as well as the Montreal Maroons' Stanley Cup run and the New York Americans fight to stay afloat. To demonstrate an incredible point, this era was 61.6% competitive, which is over 10% better than the first expansion era.
Sitting right in the middle of the NHL's seven eras is the Original Six one. This undoubtedly comes as a shock to those who would have us believe that every year was a bloodbath and a fight to the finish; an era where there were no winners, only survivors. The last two years of the 1950s were very competitive, as were the last two years of the 1940s and the two years sandwiching the heyday of WWII (1942-43 and 1945-46). The two prime years of WWII were an abomination, however. 1944-45 (34.67%) was the third-least competitive season in NHL history. A problem in a six-team league is that one dominant or one poor team hurts the league as a whole; a bigger problem is one dominant team combined with one poor team. 1944-45 was even worse than that. Toronto was a +2 on the season (52 points in 50 games); Detroit and Boston were +17 and +30, respectively, while Boston, Chicago, and New York were -14, -17, and -18. If we throw out those two WWII years, the Original Six would score higher than their 62.5%.
Coming in at the third-most competitive era is the 21-team NHL. It's worth noting that the first five years of the 21-team league were horribly uncompetitive; they could fit in quite nicely with the WHA-era NHL and not look out of place. But in 1984-85, there was a sudden shift toward a middle ground. This was followed by a second shift in 1986-87. In the five years from 1982-83 to 1986-87, the percentages of competitive balance were: 57.38%, 55.71%, 60.24%, 62.38%, 74.52%. The league would remain at over 70% until the last year of the era. As a whole, the era was 65.1% competitive.
The second-most competitive is the new expansion era, spanning from San Jose's introduction to the 2003-04 season. In spite of what I and many others may remember about the 94-95 lockout season, it actually scored lower than any other season in the era except for two (1992-93 and 2000-01, both of which featured the introduction of two new teams). The obvious question is whether the league itself was truly more competitive or simply showing the expected result of an extra point being awarded for five of the thirteen years encompassing the era. I believe the answer is somewhere in between. The 1996-97 season (75.61%) was the most competitive since 1967-68 and the fifth-most competitive in NHL history to that point (and is still 6th all-time). The two most competitive seasons of the era were outside of the extra point seasons. Whereas the 21-team league featured two extremes (~55% competitiveness and !70% competitiveness), the expanded league stayed fairly close to 67% competitiveness with those two major deviations. As a whole, the era was 67.6% competitive.
The most competitive era in NHL history has a nice big * next to it, mostly because there's only been four completed seasons. The era of no ties, believe it or not, has not seen a sizable jump in competitive balance. It would be expected that with an additional 150-170 points being awarded every season, the league would see either a reduction in balance (from the better teams gobbling up most of those points) or a huge jump in balance (from the mediocre teams winning shootouts and bagging the points). The first two years saw nothing more than a continuation from the prior era. But that brings us to 2007-08, which is the most competitive year in NHL history (80.53%). Whereas most years feature anywhere from 50% to 67% of the teams with a 10-point deviation from normal, 07-08 saw just 11. Whereas most years have anywhere from 20-40% of the league falling to the side of a 20-point deviation, 07-08 had just two (a 20-point and a 23-point deviation). The previous two years had seen a 384-point and 401-point deviation leaguewide, but 07-08 saw just a 239-point deviation. Expressed as a deviation-per-team, this is the lowerst number since the 1945-46 season, which featured six teams playing a 50-game schedule with a LOT of rust from the returning war veterans being scraped off. On a per-team basis, 07-08 even scored lower than the 94-95 lockout season of 48 games per team.
As it pertains to history, these are the best and worst of individual seasons:
Most competitive (top 5)
1) 2007-08 - 80.53%
2) 1931-32 - 79.17%
3) 1958-59 - 77.14%
4) 1952-53 - 76.19%
5) 1967-68 - 75.68%
Least competitive (bottom 5)
88) 1918-19 - 40.74%
89) 1924-25 - 37.78%
90) 1944-45 - 34.67%
91) 1919-20 - 33.33%
92) 1917-18 - 11.11%
A common argument against the NHL today is "dilution of talent"; if talent is in fact diluted, then it would show up as a competitive balance issue. Simply put, a bad team or cluster of bad teams will skew balance and make the entire league look less competitive.
The manner in which I determined competitive balance over time is this. I figured out the number of points that each team within a given season deviated from average (this is especially important in the era of points for an OT loss and an era in which every game has a winner). I then fed a formula in that looks like this:
1 - (TPD / G)
where
G = games played leaguewide
TPD = total points deviation; this is a measure of the combined points deviated from average leaguewide
In a perfectly competitive world, each team would have exactly a .500 record within a given season (currently, 41-41-0). And in the span of a decade or era, everything would be exactly .500. The amount of deviation from this can be used to determine how competitive the league was, top-to-bottom, in a given year or other span of time.
I decided to break everything down three different ways. These are:
1) Competitive balance, season by season. This is pretty basic: how competitive was the NHL in 1943-44? In 1955-56? In 1980-81?
2) Competitive balance, decade by decade. How competitive was the NHL in the 1970s? In the 1930s? In the current decade?
3) Competitive balance, era by era. How competitive was the NHL during the Original Six era as a whole? During the 21-team league? During the era that pre-dates forward passing in all three zones?
As would be expected with any point-based study, a team that has a particularly stellar or particularly atrocious season skews the overall numbers for a given year. Anyway, here's what I figured out.
The current decade is the most competitive in NHL history by a decent margin. I don't believe this is an indication that the caliber of player is substantially higher than any other point; the fact that the entire decade features an extra point for losing overtime compresses everyone toward a high end of the spectrum. In order to normalize to NHL history, we'd have to go back through and both deduct overtime losses (and convert shootouts to ties).
If I break it down by era, here's what I come up with:
Pre-passing -- This covers the first year of the NHL (1917-18) up through the last year that the forward pass was not allowed in all three zones (1928-29).
To The Original Six -- This covers the beginning of passing (1929-30) to the last year outside of the Original Six era (1941-42)
Original Six -- This covers the Original Six era (1942-43 to 1966-67)
Expansion to the WHA -- This covers the initial expansion up through the last year of 17 teams (1967-68 through 1978-79)
Round of 21 -- This covers the first year post-WHA merger (1979-80) though the last year with 21 teams (1990-91)
New Expansion -- This covers the span of the San Jose expansion through the last year pre-second lockout (1991-92 through 2003-04)
No Ties -- This covers the post-second lockout era where ties no longer exist (2005-06 to the present)
As would be expected, the pre-passing era shows up as the least competitive as a whole, with an overall deviation of 560 points in 1179 games. This registers as a competitive balance for the era of just 52.5%. There are a variety of reasons for this. The NHL as a whole was still fairly loosely organized and could not be considered the unquestioned best pro hockey league around; a great deal of talent remained out west and a great deal more worked in the mines, the mills, and the farms as a more stable way of providing a life. There were largely untapped markets out there, and a decent number of depth players were those who had the financial means to play hockey at the expense of a better-paying career. An additional wild card is the sad story of the 1917-18 Montreal Wanderers, who disbanded when Jubilee Rink burned down. Their shortened schedule and the resulting skew in numbers has a large effect in balance for the era as a whole.
The next least-competitive era is that which saw the NHL expand from six to seventeen teams. Besides the arguments for "dilution of talent", the WHA came into play at the same time. Some NHL teams were decimated by the upstart league while others retained much of their talent and feasted on their weakened brethren. Since the Original Six era began, there have only been five years of less than 50% balance, and two of those came during WWII. Two of them came during this era (1971-72 and 1977-78). The 77-78 season saw six teams finish more than 20 points below average and five finish more than 20 points above average (including Montreal's +49 season). The era as a whole was 54.3% competitive; Montreal and Boston largely dominated the league and Washington, Vancouver, and a smattering of other single-season and three-season washouts bombed.
After this comes the era of passing; this saw the likes of the Philadelphia Quakers and Pittsburgh Pirates, as well as the Montreal Maroons' Stanley Cup run and the New York Americans fight to stay afloat. To demonstrate an incredible point, this era was 61.6% competitive, which is over 10% better than the first expansion era.
Sitting right in the middle of the NHL's seven eras is the Original Six one. This undoubtedly comes as a shock to those who would have us believe that every year was a bloodbath and a fight to the finish; an era where there were no winners, only survivors. The last two years of the 1950s were very competitive, as were the last two years of the 1940s and the two years sandwiching the heyday of WWII (1942-43 and 1945-46). The two prime years of WWII were an abomination, however. 1944-45 (34.67%) was the third-least competitive season in NHL history. A problem in a six-team league is that one dominant or one poor team hurts the league as a whole; a bigger problem is one dominant team combined with one poor team. 1944-45 was even worse than that. Toronto was a +2 on the season (52 points in 50 games); Detroit and Boston were +17 and +30, respectively, while Boston, Chicago, and New York were -14, -17, and -18. If we throw out those two WWII years, the Original Six would score higher than their 62.5%.
Coming in at the third-most competitive era is the 21-team NHL. It's worth noting that the first five years of the 21-team league were horribly uncompetitive; they could fit in quite nicely with the WHA-era NHL and not look out of place. But in 1984-85, there was a sudden shift toward a middle ground. This was followed by a second shift in 1986-87. In the five years from 1982-83 to 1986-87, the percentages of competitive balance were: 57.38%, 55.71%, 60.24%, 62.38%, 74.52%. The league would remain at over 70% until the last year of the era. As a whole, the era was 65.1% competitive.
The second-most competitive is the new expansion era, spanning from San Jose's introduction to the 2003-04 season. In spite of what I and many others may remember about the 94-95 lockout season, it actually scored lower than any other season in the era except for two (1992-93 and 2000-01, both of which featured the introduction of two new teams). The obvious question is whether the league itself was truly more competitive or simply showing the expected result of an extra point being awarded for five of the thirteen years encompassing the era. I believe the answer is somewhere in between. The 1996-97 season (75.61%) was the most competitive since 1967-68 and the fifth-most competitive in NHL history to that point (and is still 6th all-time). The two most competitive seasons of the era were outside of the extra point seasons. Whereas the 21-team league featured two extremes (~55% competitiveness and !70% competitiveness), the expanded league stayed fairly close to 67% competitiveness with those two major deviations. As a whole, the era was 67.6% competitive.
The most competitive era in NHL history has a nice big * next to it, mostly because there's only been four completed seasons. The era of no ties, believe it or not, has not seen a sizable jump in competitive balance. It would be expected that with an additional 150-170 points being awarded every season, the league would see either a reduction in balance (from the better teams gobbling up most of those points) or a huge jump in balance (from the mediocre teams winning shootouts and bagging the points). The first two years saw nothing more than a continuation from the prior era. But that brings us to 2007-08, which is the most competitive year in NHL history (80.53%). Whereas most years feature anywhere from 50% to 67% of the teams with a 10-point deviation from normal, 07-08 saw just 11. Whereas most years have anywhere from 20-40% of the league falling to the side of a 20-point deviation, 07-08 had just two (a 20-point and a 23-point deviation). The previous two years had seen a 384-point and 401-point deviation leaguewide, but 07-08 saw just a 239-point deviation. Expressed as a deviation-per-team, this is the lowerst number since the 1945-46 season, which featured six teams playing a 50-game schedule with a LOT of rust from the returning war veterans being scraped off. On a per-team basis, 07-08 even scored lower than the 94-95 lockout season of 48 games per team.
As it pertains to history, these are the best and worst of individual seasons:
Most competitive (top 5)
1) 2007-08 - 80.53%
2) 1931-32 - 79.17%
3) 1958-59 - 77.14%
4) 1952-53 - 76.19%
5) 1967-68 - 75.68%
Least competitive (bottom 5)
88) 1918-19 - 40.74%
89) 1924-25 - 37.78%
90) 1944-45 - 34.67%
91) 1919-20 - 33.33%
92) 1917-18 - 11.11%
