Is the regular season series an indicator of how the post season will go?
- Thread starter Firestorm
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But I wonder how often the team with the better season goal differential was also the better team in the regular season. Perhaps that 65% has more to do with the fact that it's probably usually the better team that has the better H2H record.
He looked at that. H2H goal difference was a better predictor than standings position OR season Corsi%.
Uncle Scrooge
Hockey Bettor
Not really no.
If anything, you know right off the bat it's going to be a very tough series if you've struggled against a particular opponent in the regular season. Coaching staff and the players will have their focus on how they beat that team and what they need to do better starting from game 1.
So in a way, it can actually help you to be ready and catch the other team off-guard a bit with tactical changes you didn't do in the regular season.
However, sometimes there are mental locks against particular teams and that might play a factor, but even that's not guaranteed and those are pretty rare.
For example, if the Bruins and Sens face in the playoffs, i do think the Sens have an advantage. Since losing that infamous 6-1 game last year something's just been off with the Bruins. To me lack of confidence.
If anything, you know right off the bat it's going to be a very tough series if you've struggled against a particular opponent in the regular season. Coaching staff and the players will have their focus on how they beat that team and what they need to do better starting from game 1.
So in a way, it can actually help you to be ready and catch the other team off-guard a bit with tactical changes you didn't do in the regular season.
However, sometimes there are mental locks against particular teams and that might play a factor, but even that's not guaranteed and those are pretty rare.
For example, if the Bruins and Sens face in the playoffs, i do think the Sens have an advantage. Since losing that infamous 6-1 game last year something's just been off with the Bruins. To me lack of confidence.
No Fun Shogun
34-38-61-10-13-15
Not in the least. The postseason is as different of an animal to the regular season as the regular season is to the preseason. Yeah, you like the idea of matching up against teams that you have recent history of handling with ease, but teams in April can and often are completely different from when you faced them weeks or even months prior, and that's not even mentioning that different intensity and pressure on the postseason.
Bank Shot
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Teams winning the head to head matchups during the regular season, winning the playoff series 65% of the time makes me think that "Not in the least" is an incorrect statement.
Uncle Scrooge
Hockey Bettor
That's not really the right way to look at it.
Great teams win more than lose in the regular season, which naturally means they win more season series's than they lose. Better team winning the season series only makes sense, and for the better team to win in the playoffs too makes sense.
Obviously there are some exceptions, where the better team for whatever reasons struggles to win in the regular season, say, Blues vs Jets this year. But if they faced in the playoffs this year? Blues would still more likely win the series.
So to put it simply, that 65% makes sense because more often than not, better team wins both in the regular season and in the playoffs.
Doesn't mean that season series holds much value though. I think this topic is more pointed towards 2 roughly even teams that for some reason, see one team taking most of the regular season matchups. And that can often turn around completely in the playoffs.
Habs vs Rangers i'd say is a good example of this. Habs are 8-2 in their last 10 regular season meetings, and swept them this year, that doesn't mean jack when we go in to the playoffs. There's really no reason why the Rangers should do that bad against them, and there's a good chance they win that series or at the very least, it comes down to the wire. Opposite of what the regular season series might suggest.
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Bank Shot
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According to what another poster said in this thread about the Yost article, head to head was a better predictor than standings.
So it looks like if your team wins the head to head they are more likely to win the series regardless of standings.
Uncle Scrooge
Hockey Bettor
Standings aren't always a very accurate indication of how good teams are and what their max potential is at the start of the playoffs.. For example, Ducks and the Wild have improved their team at the trade deadline, but haven't been with that exact lineup for 82 games. Maybe some teams have young players that have developed further as the season progressed. Maybe a key player was out for half of the season. You get my drift.
For example, Blue Jackets are 4th in the standings, Ducks 6th. If the Ducks are healthy come playoff time, in my opinion they're the better team.
BJ's have gone 21-20-4 since the big mid-season winning streak got snapped. If you ask me, they aren't really a top 5 team in the league.
Anyway, my view of things is that there's a lot that goes into regular season series. Some might have meaning, some have none. So generalizing it saying it does matter is wrong, because that's not the case.
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Wild lost season series to Colorado by a LARGE margin (Wild won 1 game I think in the season series)... won the playoff series in 7.
Wild won the season series vs Chicago by 2 games... Wild got swept by the Hawks.
Wild lost the season series vs the Blues by two games... Wild won the playoff series in 6.
No... there is very little DIRECT correlation.
I'm pretty sure the 65% can easily be explained away due to other factors if someone were to really look deep into it.
linusandvarlamov
GO AVS GO !
Things rarely go as expected. That's why it's just really not that useful anymore to be #1 in the league at the end of the season. A lot of those top seeded teams are out after round 1.
If the Leafs do face the Capitals, I can see them pulling off the upset. The Leaf kids will have absolutely nothing to lose and will have an effort above 100% because : playoffs are new, the atmosphere is going to get that youthful adrenaline going (those kids have always been dreaming about being the hero when it matters; they'll take it to another level). If Leafs goaltending is solid anything is possible.
If the Leafs do face the Capitals, I can see them pulling off the upset. The Leaf kids will have absolutely nothing to lose and will have an effort above 100% because : playoffs are new, the atmosphere is going to get that youthful adrenaline going (those kids have always been dreaming about being the hero when it matters; they'll take it to another level). If Leafs goaltending is solid anything is possible.
thedustman
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Have you ever seen the wake of a boat?
Rumor has it that a lithe snake will slake the yearning of a city in waiting.
I wish I had as much fun writing "Hawks vs. Pens" or "Hawks vs. Caps" as much as others.
The regular season has everything to do with the playoffs, but the series record is not an indicator of how the post season will go.
Lunatik
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Of that 65%, I'd think much of it would be match-ups where the teams weren't all that close in the standings because simply put good teams beat bad teams. I'd gues the large majority of that other 35% come in match-ups where the teams were closer in the standings. Also with teams only playing 4-5 games against each other at most in the regular season now, I'd guess they say a lot less than they did when teams played each other 7-8 times in a season.
In addition to this, numbers from the 1-8 format could be completely different than the current divisional playoff format as you will see more situations like the Habs and Rangers and the Senators and either the Bruins or Leafs where you will see match-ups of 2 stronger teams and 2 weaker teams.
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Agreed. I think folks are needlessly complicating a simple relationship: If your team beat the other guys in the regular season, they're more likely to beat them in the playoffs -- hardly surprising. Actual data supports a tilt in favour of teams that did well against other teams. Not exactly a stunning conclusion. Yes, there's a healthy 35% wiggle room for the other team to turn the tables -- plenty of room for people to cite their favourite exceptions -- but a 65% translation from season to series is big enough to be real.
'Anything can happen' is accurate, but kind of a non-answer to the actual question.
You shouldn't even ask this question, because its clear you don't get any answer... I doubt any serious analyss of this exists, and cherry picked, singled out examples that posters throw out here (i.e. B's-Pens'13, Bolts-Habs'14), means literally NOTHING...
Agree with this point. The H2H series are going to be of a smaller sample size now, so they're probably less helpful.
However, as for whether the H2H is just reflective of the better team in general (standings points), Yost found that H2H goal difference outpredicted what you would expect if you just picked the better team in terms of standings points. He also found H2H goal difference outpredicted just picking based on who was the better shot share team, which was surprising to me.
So yah, probably less so than past years, but I think H2H still is important in assessing playoff matchups.
Well....65% is a pretty decent correlation. Bookies would kill for that hit rate. And that's just going off one number. Obviously there are lurking factors in that as well, but Yost found that H2H outpredicted standings points and corsi% as factors. So I think there's something there.
Destiny =/= probability. So any "loser" of the H2H can still win the series, quite obviously. But you can't just pick some memorable "exceptions" and claim that there isn't a correlation. It's a correlation. Not some iron clad rule.
Bank Shot
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How can you come to that conclusion using anecdotal evidence, and ignore the conclusion Yost came to using a much larger sample size?
Vancouver vs Chicago
2008-09
Chicago 4-2 W
Chicago 3-1 W
Vancouver 7-3 W
Vancouver 4-0 W
Playoffs
Chicago 4 games to 2
2009-10
Vancouver 3-2 W
Chicago 1-0 W
Vancouver 5-1 W
Chicago 6-3 W
Playoffs
Chicago 4 games to 2
2010-11
Chicago 2-1 W SO
Chicago 7-1 W
Vancouver 3-0 W
Vancouver 4-3 W
Playoffs
Vancouver 4 games to 3
Vancouver vs Chicago Regular Season
6W-5L-1 SO L
Playoffs
8-11
Vancouver and Chicago split their season series the 3 years they met in the playoffs and all three series went at least 6 games with one going seven. The regular season was not all that far off.
If I read correctly, RS h2h is BETTER predictor than position in league... So, its MORE that just "better team beat lesser team"...
Unfortunetly, if the study is correct, h2h is better prediction than overall standings... If its true (I don't know if it is), it looks like H2H/matching against certain teams DO means something, and all these "playoffs are a different animal" is just and old cliche...
Not So Mighty
Enjoy your freedom, you wintertimer.
There you go,
and there you go.
Probably plenty more examples but that's enough for me to throw out the regular season series.
In terms of the Yost article, since 07-08 superior goal%, superior corsi% and superior H2H goal differential are all within 2.4% of each other. To me, this does not indicate in the slightest that H2H series advantage is anything more than better teams beating weaker teams in the regular season and playoffs.
In fact goal% beats H2H goal diff since 07-08. Same with the combined models (goal% and CORSI% vs. H2H goal diff and CORSI%). Only place H2H goal diff succeeds is when you drop half that data and just look at the last 5 years. But why are we dropping 5ish years of data? Did something change? But at that point you should be worried about small samples anyways I would imagine.
Last thought, I really hope he didn't include Stanley Cup Finals in this, because that is a H2H matchup of at most 2 games. You cannot possibly find a trend in that.
http://www.tsn.ca/the-search-for-the-ideal-first-round-playoff-scenario-1.702066
In fact goal% beats H2H goal diff since 07-08. Same with the combined models (goal% and CORSI% vs. H2H goal diff and CORSI%). Only place H2H goal diff succeeds is when you drop half that data and just look at the last 5 years. But why are we dropping 5ish years of data? Did something change? But at that point you should be worried about small samples anyways I would imagine.
Last thought, I really hope he didn't include Stanley Cup Finals in this, because that is a H2H matchup of at most 2 games. You cannot possibly find a trend in that.
http://www.tsn.ca/the-search-for-the-ideal-first-round-playoff-scenario-1.702066
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But, but, but people can remember that time several years ago when the opposite happened in a playoff series.
