I was just having a debate on the Rangers board with a poster that said the Rangers won 3 in a row and teams in the "recent NHL" don't usually win 4 in a row, so they'll likely lose. I told him that "in a vacuum", if every game had the same probability of winning, you're as likely to win the 4th game as any other game that season. However, this is not a coin flip and it's not roulette. The NHL has many different factors. So is there any stat that shows that there is a point in a winning streak that a team tends to be less likely to win the next game than it won on average that season? For example, a .500 team after winning 4 in a row would win the 5th game only 40% of the time. The factors that can factor into this in my head are as follows:
1) Quality of opponent, home game/road game, schedule density (i.e. back to backs). Hopefully with a large enough sample size this factor gets diminished as the quality of opponents and type of game will average out.
2) Psychology: A team on a slight winning streak might get a little more full of themselves and not pay as much to detail. This can also help as maybe they can have momentum or a positive amount of confidence (kind of like a team on a losing streak is missing confidence).
3) Exhaustion: A team on a winning streak may be exerting themselves more than usual to play as well as they have, and be emotionally or physically more spent.
I'm sure there are other factors that might skew the results. Anyone know if there is a point in a winning streak where likelihood of winning the next game diminishes? Thanks!
1) Quality of opponent, home game/road game, schedule density (i.e. back to backs). Hopefully with a large enough sample size this factor gets diminished as the quality of opponents and type of game will average out.
2) Psychology: A team on a slight winning streak might get a little more full of themselves and not pay as much to detail. This can also help as maybe they can have momentum or a positive amount of confidence (kind of like a team on a losing streak is missing confidence).
3) Exhaustion: A team on a winning streak may be exerting themselves more than usual to play as well as they have, and be emotionally or physically more spent.
I'm sure there are other factors that might skew the results. Anyone know if there is a point in a winning streak where likelihood of winning the next game diminishes? Thanks!