Playoff Watch 2021

[Ted Hoffman]

Current record: 14-8-4, 32 points, .615 PT%
Current position: 2nd by points, 3rd by PT%
Last 10 games: 5-3-2 [WLLLWWWWOO]
# of games remaining: 30
Estimated # of points needed to clinch playoff spot: 30
Points to division lead: we're 1 back of Vegas, who has 4 games in hand.
Points ahead of 5th: we're 6 points up on Los Angeles (who technically leads Phoenix on PT%), and the Kings have 2 games in hand.

Next 6 games
3/12 - vs. Vegas
3/13 - vs. Vegas
3/15 - at Los Angeles
3/17 - at Los Angeles
3/19 - at San Jose
3/20 - at San Jose

Click to read more...

 

[Ted Hoffman]

We're getting close, someone will ask, ... let's start it up.

Initial thoughts: I have spent little time thinking about this, so the first pass at this is mostly ad-hoc. Assumptions will change. Don't get excited about a lot yet, this is like the framing for a house and not some nearly finished product.

This season is easy: we have to be top-4 in the West. That makes game tracking easy. It's a 56-game season, we've never had a "division-only" season so past assumptions mostly go out the window. Throw in the possibility that point percentage and not actual points ends up dictating who's in and who's not, and we have an additional wrinkle. I'll roll with points since it's easier for everyone to follow, we'll go to PT% later if needed.

My guess at the moment is that we'll need 62 points to make the postseason. That's a .554 PT%. This assumes whoever finishes 5th lands at 61 and we clear them by 1 to avoid having to worry about RWs or ROWs. Again, let's keep it simple and adjust later.

BTW, has anyone else noticed the difference between us at home vs. us on the road? 4-6-2 this season inside the not-so-friendly confines of Enterprise Center, 10-2-2 outside of it. Maybe we should angle for that 3rd/4th spot and see if we can be road warriors in the postseason. Hey, it worked the last time we tried making a serious postseason run.

 

[AjaxManifesto]

I suspect we will barely miss out...like in the 17-18 season.

 

[The Note]

Thanks for doing this. I always enjoy keeping an eye on these types of threads!

 

[MissouriMook]

I think we did a decent job on this road trip addressing the issue of playing down to an opponent, but obviously the last couple of squandered points shows that we still lack the ability (or maybe its just the stamina/firepower) to put teams away for good when we have the lead.

Ultimately, I think the next big obstacle is playing better at home. If we can get that figured out and manage to get 22 out of a possible 32 points from our remaining 16 home games, I think we will be sitting pretty good. If we continue to struggle at home, then I would have to agree that there is a decent chance that we miss the playoff altogether finishing fifth to either Arizona or LA.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

The disadvantage we have right now is that we've played more games than anyone else in the division save Anaheim, who's even with us on GP and nowhere near making the playoffs. Any other year, you'd look at things and say yeah, everyone else has games in hand but they're going to have to play those in a more compressed schedule; we've also got a ton of home games, we can make hay there. Except, we're lousy at home and our SOS remaining is difficult. If we can resolve both in our favor, fine - we're in good shape. If we can't, 30 in 30 could be an issue. We have to bank points where we should, which means not pissing away a 3-0 lead against the Kings and not pissing away a pair of 1-goal leads against the Sharks.

I don't like that for everything so far, our net goal differential is +1. Other teams with PT%s above .550 and goal differentials in the single digits: Edmonton (.593, +4), Chicago (.596, +2), Washington (.667, +3), Pittsburgh (.604, +2) and Philadelphia (.614, +2). None of those teams stand out as "teams that have a good shot at winning the Cup this season." Yes, we have an 8-0 blowout early in there. Of our 14 wins, 9 have been by a single goal. We haven't won a game this season scoring fewer than 3 goals. We've been shut out 3x, we don't have a shutout to our credit. We've allowed 2 or fewer goals 11 times; we've allowed 4 or more 10. We've survived on offense and eeking out wins. At some point, 2.93 GAA doesn't cut it and we're not going to always average 3.90 goals per 60 minutes that Husso is in net (throwing out the Colorado game). The defense has to get better, or we're going to have to adopt the Edmonton model and try to run-and-gun everyone which this team isn't built for.

We've got time. No reason to panic. But 26 games in, we've got a feel for what this team is and it has a "work to do" sign attached, and they've got to get to it and not hope to linger while waiting for guys to come back and save them.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

I think we are going to make it in as the 3rd or 4th seed. One saving grace is while we have played more games, everyone else's schedule the the remainder of the season is more condensed than ours. Other teams games in hand only matter if they actually win them. Vegas is looking strong so I can definitely see them winning theirs, The Avs are having injury problems as well, but, they have weaker depth than us, but, I still see them surpassing us for the #2 spot. The Wild cards are the Wild, Yotes, and the Kings. Wild look strong, but, they have holes in their team, The Yotes are the Yotes, they can soar up the standings or crash and burn. And the Kings are decent.

For all the injuries outside of the 4 game losing streak the Blues have done pretty will racking in points. Blues need players back tho. Hopefully Sunny and Bozak are ready this weekend against Vegas like Berube hinted at.

My prediction
VGK
Avs
Blues
Wild

 

[Meatball]

I think we are going to make it in as the 3rd or 4th seed. One saving grace is while we have played more games, everyone else's schedule the the remainder of the season is more condensed than ours. Other teams games in hand only matter if they actually win them. Vegas is looking strong so I can definitely see them winning theirs, The Avs are having injury problems as well, but, they have weaker depth than us, but, I still see them surpassing us for the #2 spot. The Wild cards are the Wild, Yotes, and the Kings. Wild look strong, but, they have holes in their team, The Yotes are the Yotes, they can soar up the standings or crash and burn. And the Kings are decent.

For all the injuries outside of the 4 game losing streak the Blues have done pretty will racking in points. Blues need players back tho. Hopefully Sunny and Bozak are ready this weekend against Vegas like Berube hinted at.

My prediction
VGK
Avs
Blues
Wild

Having those two back would be huge.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

I’m appreciative of this thread. I’m interested in watching the 62 point threshold to see if that number moves. Playing the teams we are competing with head to head more often will make the playoff race more compelling.

I would much prefer we rank by points percentage, since there is so much schedule imbalance. I like to view the rankings this way:
How many points ahead/behind of the number of games played. It’s a quick and dirty way to approximate points percentage and rank teams that have different numbers of games in hand.

So if a team is 10-6-3 they are (+4)
If a team is 8-4-2 they are essentially tied at +4.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

I’m appreciative of this thread. I’m interested in watching the 62 point threshold to see if that number moves. Playing the teams we are competing with head to head more often will make the playoff race more compelling.

I would much prefer we rank by points percentage, since there is so much schedule imbalance. I like to view the rankings this way:
How many points ahead/behind of the number of games played. It’s a quick and dirty way to approximate points percentage and rank teams that have different numbers of games in hand.

So if a team is 10-6-3 they are (+4)
If a team is 8-4-2 they are essentially tied at +4.

I'm not opposed to that approach, where I'll refer to the stat you're talking about as PT+. I think you might have advocated for this in the past, and I think I might have had the same thoughts.

Right now Minnesota is +6, we're also +6 but the Wild have 23 GP to our 26. They could move up/down depending on what they do with their games in hand. PT+ doesn't capture that difference in games played, so how do we put their +6 in context to ours? Colorado is +5, 3 games in hand but tied on RWs and up on ROWs and that impacts tiebreakers which means if GP are even and they're +6, they're not even with us. They're ahead, and they might yet go ahead on RWs to really pin down their tiebreak advantae. How do we really reflect that we're ahead on PT+ but trailing on PT% and we're down when we go to tiebreaks? It's not so much of an obstacle that I'd reject going by PT+ completely, but it's things that need to be considered so that we all understand what's being presented and what it means for us, and everyone's not always asking but what does it mean?

 

[Brian39]

Current record: 14-8-4, 32 points, .615 PT%
Current position: 2nd by points, 3rd by PT%
Last 10 games: 5-3-2 [WLLLWWWWOO]
# of games remaining: 30
# of points needed to clinch playoff spot: 30
Points to division lead: we're 1 back of Vegas, who has 4 games in hand.
Points ahead of 5th: we're 6 points up on Los Angeles (who technically leads Phoenix on PT%), and the Kings have 2 games in hand.

Next 6 games
3/12 - vs. Vegas
3/13 - vs. Vegas
3/15 - at Los Angeles
3/17 - at Los Angeles
3/19 - at San Jose
3/20 - at San Jose

I like these threads, but man it feels early this year. 56 game seasons certainly have a different flow. Thanks for putting it together!

My single gripe is the word "clinch" in the bolded language. I feel like this line should be something along the lines of "points needed to reach target cutoff line" or something similar. I think 62 points is a fair estimate given the data we have at the moment, but I think "100% certainty when I hear the word clinch.

Our break until the weekend allows some of the other teams to play one of their games in hand. Everyone in the division besides us and the Sharks play tonight, so we have a night to obsess over those teams. Definitely root for the Ducks to beat the Kings. Root for Vegas over Minnesota and Colorado over Arizona if you are concerned about us being a bubble team or root for Minnesota and Arizona if you think we are competing to win the division.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

My single gripe is the word "clinch" in the bolded language. I feel like this line should be something along the lines of "points needed to reach target cutoff line" or something similar. I think 62 points is a fair estimate given the data we have at the moment, but I think "100% certainty when I hear the word clinch.

Yes, that's right. Thanks, I'll tweak that. I didn't look at past threads where we did this - hence, my "the first pass at this is mostly ad-hoc" remark.

And yes, I did wonder if this was a bit early, but we're 2 months out and nearly at the halfway mark. Things are going to change fast. Between those, the remaining schedule and the guys that are out hurt, I thought we probably should start getting perspective on where we stand - especially when we do doom-and-gloom after a couple losses.

On estimated # of points needed: I set it at 62 because that's slightly over where the Kings are. Granted, they started 3-6-3 and they're 7-2-3 in their last 12; that's a 62-point pace over 44 games + the 9 they had gets you to 71. That feels really high, I don't think they keep that pace up. Arizona is 9-5-2 in its last 16, add that pace to their 3-5-1 start and you're at 66. Again, feels high, not sure they keep that up. So, I'll start at 62 for what's needed and tweak as needed. If we do our part, we don't have to worry about it because we sail over that mark and comfortably button down a playoff spot.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

I'm not opposed to that approach, where I'll refer to the stat you're talking about as PT+. I think you might have advocated for this in the past, and I think I might have had the same thoughts.

Right now Minnesota is +6, we're also +6 but the Wild have 23 GP to our 26. They could move up/down depending on what they do with their games in hand. PT+ doesn't capture that difference in games played, so how do we put their +6 in context to ours? Colorado is +5, 3 games in hand but tied on RWs and up on ROWs and that impacts tiebreakers which means if GP are even and they're +6, they're not even with us. They're ahead, and they might yet go ahead on RWs to really pin down their tiebreak advantae. How do we really reflect that we're ahead on PT+ but trailing on PT% and we're down when we go to tiebreaks? It's not so much of an obstacle that I'd reject going by PT+ completely, but it's things that need to be considered so that we all understand what's being presented and what it means for us, and everyone's not always asking but what does it mean?

You could have a stat for total possible points, if the team won out. That will show the games in hand when the PT+ is tied, and you could use that as a the tiebreaker for ranking for now. The ROWs aren’t very interesting to me until we get close to the end of the season. Personally, I’m not bothered if we don’t have that expressed very eloquently, but what if you did a rank like:
1 - Vegas +11, RW/ROW 12/16, max 101
2 - Minnesota +6, RW/ROW 10/14, max 95
3 - St Louis +6, 10/13, max 92
4 - Colorado +5, 11/13, max 94
5 - LAK +2, 8/9, max 90
6 - Arizona +2, 10/10, max 89
7 - San Jose -2, 4/5, max 87
8 - Anaheim -4, 5/7, max 82

I think this gives teams enough credit for both games they’ve won above average/expected and acknowledges games in hand. The ‘max’ number gels nicely with your target number for points (62). When a team’s total possible slips below 62, they’re essentially eliminated.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

What the shit, Yappi, we half-ass GDTs and you want me to go all-out for this? You think I'm some kind of math genius or something?

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

What the shit, Yappi, we half-ass GDTs and you want me to go all-out for this? You think I'm some kind of math genius or something?

Still chuckling about this post.

In seriousness, I can update a ranking like this every few days pretty easily. Your job is to keep track of 62 and adjust if needed. The tricky part will be when we get close to the end and teams of interest play each other, so total points become mutually exclusive. But maybe things won’t be so close that we care about that.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Still chuckling about this post.

I hear that for an actuary, I'm really funny. :shrug: I don't get it.

I'll try to mock something up shortly, feel free to do up something first. We can play around with formats, see what people like / don't like, come up with a final product, run from there. If we build it, I can maintain it.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

I hear that for an actuary, I'm really funny. :shrug: I don't get it.

I'll try to mock something up shortly, feel free to do up something first. We can play around with formats, see what people like / don't like, come up with a final product, run from there. If we build it, I can maintain it.

Could add a field for points, but what I like about this format is that it DOESNT fall in the trap of focusing on points and obscuring the games in hand.

 

[Celtic Note]

What the shit, Yappi, we half-ass GDTs and you want me to go all-out for this? You think I'm some kind of math genius or something?

I mean looking at my math chops and comparing them to yours? Genius seems fair! We can downplay it to small town genius if you are more comfortable with that.

 

[Celtic Note]

I like these threads, but man it feels early this year. 56 game seasons certainly have a different flow. Thanks for putting it together!

My single gripe is the word "clinch" in the bolded language. I feel like this line should be something along the lines of "points needed to reach target cutoff line" or something similar. I think 62 points is a fair estimate given the data we have at the moment, but I think "100% certainty when I hear the word clinch.

Our break until the weekend allows some of the other teams to play one of their games in hand. Everyone in the division besides us and the Sharks play tonight, so we have a night to obsess over those teams. Definitely root for the Ducks to beat the Kings. Root for Vegas over Minnesota and Colorado over Arizona if you are concerned about us being a bubble team or root for Minnesota and Arizona if you think we are competing to win the division.

Even if it is a bit early, even in a condensed year, it is still a pretty interesting analysis to see. I personally want to see how much the standings swing as we see move into the last month of the season and compare it to now. The Blues have been charting in their own path without much interaction with others in the top 4. That is probably going to change drastically if we put a team in a stranglehold or fail to be competitive with them in the season series that will largely be played in the last month against those other three.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

As of 3/10
1 - Vegas +10, RW/ROW 12/16, max 99
2 - Minnesota +7 11/15 max 95
3 - Colorado +6 11/14, max 94
4 - St Louis +6, 10/13, max 92
5 - LAK +3, 9/10, max 90
6 - Arizona +2, 10/10, max 88
7 - San Jose -2, 4/5, max 87
8 - Anaheim -5, 5/7, max 80

 

[Spear]

			RW/ROW	Max PTS
1	Vegas	+10	12/16​	99​
2	Minnesota	+7	11/15​	95​
3	Colorado	+6	11/14​	94​
4	St Louis	+6	10/13​	92​
5	LAK	+3	9/10​	90​
6	Arizona	+2	10/10​	88​
7	San Jose	-2	4/5​	87​
8	Anaheim	-5	5/7​	80​

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

only because I was bored....

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

This thread and watching the race really underscores the benefit of other games NOT going to OT.

 

[Brian39]

Yes, that's right. Thanks, I'll tweak that. I didn't look at past threads where we did this - hence, my "the first pass at this is mostly ad-hoc" remark.

And yes, I did wonder if this was a bit early, but we're 2 months out and nearly at the halfway mark. Things are going to change fast. Between those, the remaining schedule and the guys that are out hurt, I thought we probably should start getting perspective on where we stand - especially when we do doom-and-gloom after a couple losses.

On estimated # of points needed: I set it at 62 because that's slightly over where the Kings are. Granted, they started 3-6-3 and they're 7-2-3 in their last 12; that's a 62-point pace over 44 games + the 9 they had gets you to 71. That feels really high, I don't think they keep that pace up. Arizona is 9-5-2 in its last 16, add that pace to their 3-5-1 start and you're at 66. Again, feels high, not sure they keep that up. So, I'll start at 62 for what's needed and tweak as needed. If we do our part, we don't have to worry about it because we sail over that mark and comfortably button down a playoff spot.

My comment about it feeling early was definitely not meant as a "you shouldn't have done this yet" kind of post. I think 30 games left is the perfect time to start this. It is just so weird hitting this point less than 2 months into the year. Usually the 25 game mark is where you first start feeling comfortable knowing what your team is and start to settle into the mid-season grind. It just feels strange going into playoff-push mode.

 

[Brian39]

This thread and watching the race really underscores the benefit of other games NOT going to OT.

I watched Colorado/Arizona last night and it was super annoying to see Raanta inexplicably steal a point.

 

[Ranksu]