Separating Playoff Contenders from Pretenders

The NHL playoffs are upon us and it is time for many of us to make our picks to win the Stanley Cup or draft a playoff pool team. The playoff games are much tougher since only the top half of the NHL qualifies and scoring usually drops significantly as these higher quality teams face off against one another.

Who should you favor when making your picks? Most people will take a look at the final regular season numbers. Some will put lean towards teams with a good power play, others favor those with strong goaltending. One thing that I find to be very revealing is to look at games where two playoff teams were matched up against one another. In other words, how did each club fare when facing a quality opponent.

With that question in mind I uploaded the complete regular season results for every singly NHL team and then recalculated some key statistics into playoff and non-playoff categories. One notable exception is that I deleted the extra point for a OT loss or a SO win because those things don't exist in the playoffs. I also didn't count the "goal" credited to the SO winner in the regular season. So what we have is the old school "winning percentage" based on OT Wins and Losses and if the game wasn't settled at the end of OT it counts as a tie. So .500 is the break even point like in the old NHL.

The table below lists the results for all 16 playoff teams. What does the data tell us? Don't underestimate Washington. They played extremely well against other playoff clubs--in fact the Caps had a higher winning percentage (.561) against playoff teams than non-playoff teams. There were only four teams that put up a better percentage versus non-playoff teams: Detroit, Anaheim, Washington and the Rangers.

Beware of teams that racked up big regular season point totals against weak teams because there are no basement dwellers in the post-season. Who were the worst offenders? The Sharks absolutely destroyed non-playoff teams to the tune of .705 win % in the regular season, hmmm. The bottom half of that table show you a bunch of teams larded up on weak opposition but struggled against the other playoff clubs. Three of the teams that have home ice advantage have warning flags: Minnesota, San Jose and Pittsburgh. The Penguins have the advantage of facing off against Ottawa which also struggled against quality teams but the Pens might not be a post-season juggernaut. Likewise, Minnesota had a less than sterling record against quality teams but Colorado also struggled greatly versus good teams.

Team	Playoff Team Win %	Non-Playoff Win %	Playoff Team Goal Differential	Non-Playoff Team Goal Differential
DET	.694	.630	+41	+31
WAS	.561	.500	+13	-2
ANA	.558	.528	+4	-1
NYR	.543	.486	+12	+3
MON	.537	.622	+13	+28
DAL	.535	.538	+16	+17
NJD	.500	.583	-11	+16
SJS	.500	.705	-6	+35
PIT	.478	.653	+4	+24
CGY	.476	.549	-9	+11
OTT	.476	.598	-8	+24
BOS	.463	.549	-16	+7
PHI	.446	.639	-11	+29
MIN	.439	.695	-12	+22
COL	.427	.598	-20	+28
NAS	.389	.609	-10	+13

How about those special teams? Which PP and PK units excelled in games versus other playoff teams and which struggled? Again, Washington really stands out here their PP% against playoff teams was an outstanding 24% and their PP unit struggled against the weaker teams at just 16%. Other teams where the PP unit was better against tougher opposition include Pittsburgh, Ottawa and Minnesota. Teams where the PP tended to vanish against better clubs include Boston, Calgary, Dallas, and Philadelphia. Don't count on the a ton of PP goals from the Bruins and the Flyers in the post-season as both clubs saw a huge drop off.

How about penalty killing? In general the gap appears to be smaller than on PP side of things. It would appear that good PK units are good almost all the time. This is one area where the Nashville Predators excel. Most of the stats presented here offer cold comfort to Predators fans but Nashville along with Dallas, Detroit and Minnesota all had the top PK% versus other playoff teams (all in the West I might point out, the 3 top PP units were all in the East).

Team	Playoff PP%	Non-Playoff PP%	Playoff PK%	Non-Playoff PK%
ANA	17.5	18.1	83.9	82.5
BOS	13.5	22.3	77.6	79.6
CGY	14.1	19.4	80.0	83.0
COL	12.7	16.6	79.3	83.4
DAL	15.8	20.6	88.0	82.2
DET	20.1	21.3	86.2	82.3
MIN	20.9	17.2	84.2	86.0
MON	24.1	24.3	80.9	84.1
NAS	14.8	14.8	86.3	84.4
NJD	15.3	16.1	81.3	85.1
NYR	16.3	16.7	83.5	85.9
OTT	19.8	16.9	81.9	80.2
PHI	17.9	27.6	81.7	85.4
PIT	21.3	19.2	78.1	85.2
SJS	18.3	19.3	83.5	88.4
WAS	24.2	15.8	77.3	82.9

Now let's take a look at defensive and offensive efficiency. First we have team save percentage broken down into playoff and non-playoff opposition. Some clubs almost always play their #2 goalie against weaker clubs so we might see some big differences on this one as the #1 netminder will start almost every game in the playoffs. Here are the teams that actually had a better SV% when matched up against other playoff teams: Anaheim, Calgary, Colorado, Dallas, Detroit, and NY Rangers. Teams that saw a sharp decline in SV% against better opposition: Boston, Minnesota, Montreal, NJ Devils, Philadelphia, and San Jose.

Finally, how about offensive efficiency? Which teams finished off their scoring chances when they had the opportunity? I'm using team shooting percentage--which is I'll admit is an imperfect measure but it is all that I have available for the moment. Most teams are going to convert fewer scoring chances when matched up against better teams, a few beat this trend: Anaheim, Dallas, Detroit, Montreal, Pittsburgh and Washington. Teams that suffered a big drop off: Boston, Colorado, Nashville, Ottawa, and Philadelphia.

Team	Playoff SV%	Non-Playoff SV%	Playoff ST%	Non-Playoff ST%
ANA	91.9	91.7	9.0	8.9
BOS	90.9	91.8	8.0	9.6
CGY	90.7	90.1	9.4	10.1
COL	91.2	89.3	7.6	11.2
DAL	90.6	90.3	11.0	10.6
DET	91.7	90.0	9.2	8.7
MIN	90.4	92.6	9.9	9.9
MON	90.5	92.8	11.5	10.1
NAS	90.6	91.0	8.6	10.0
NJD	90.8	92.2	8.2	8.6
NYR	91.5	90.5	7.9	7.9
OTT	89.9	90.4	9.4	11.5
PHI	90.6	92.2	9.6	11.4
PIT	90.4	93.0	11.3	9.8
SJS	89.1	92.2	8.6	9.3
WAS	89.8	90.1	10.7	8.5

Conclusion: Which teams are pretenders hiding behind regular season records puffed up from munching on bottom dwelling clubs. Based on the data above I'd say don't count on Boston, Philadelphia, Minnesota, Ottawa and Colorado and Nashville going deep into the playoffs. But there are some cautionary flags even for favorites like San Jose and Pittsburgh. Which are the playoff contenders? Well Anaheim looks rock solid especially when you consider that Selanne and S. Nidermayer were not even in the lineup for many of these games. Detroit, Dallas, Montreal and the Rangers also appear to be very solid against other quality clubs. But more than anything the data suggests that Washington could be a big time competitor in the post-season despite not qualifying until the last weekend. They have played some great hockey against top teams.

One last question, which non-playoff team might have made things interesting if they had qualified for the post-season? The table below shows the same winning percentage breakdown for the 14 non-playoff clubs. Vancouver, Buffalo and Carolina just missed the post-season so it is not terribly surprising to see them them at the top. Chicago was a surprise to me. The fact they played well against other playoff clubs bodes well for the Blackhawks future, if they can improve versus non-playoff clubs they could take the next step forward. On the other hand, Edmonton and Columbus both did very well against weak clubs and they will need to win more "hard" points against tough teams to climb up the standings next year.

Team	Playoff Win %	Non-Playoff Win %	Playoff Goal Differential	Non-Playoff Goal Differential
VAN	.490	.500	+1	-5
CHI	.489	.474	+5	-2
CAR	.463	.598	-15	+19
BUF	.459	.576	-2	+20
TOR	.439	.455	-23	-5
PHX	.412	.565	-20	+4
FLA	.390	.549	-24	+15
NYI	.389	.464	-12	+22
ATL	.378	.415	-29	-20
STL	.375	.461	-31	+1
EDM	.357	.545	-30	+3
LAK	.343	.435	-44	+7
CJB	.341	.566	-20	0
TBL	.341	.402	-24	-21