NHL analysis

After plenty of tweaking (and some wholesale changes), my weekly Power Rankings are good to go.

I started looking at Power Rankings a few years ago as a way to measure the relative “strength” of teams. Points is a very poor standard because at any given time some teams have played more games than others. Winning percentage is better but doesn’t take into account the difficulty of each teams’ schedule. And so, last year I developed a formula that took into account winning percentage and the average winning percentage of each team’s opponents (weighted for games played). But I still wasn’t happy.

This year I have made two major changes to my Power Rankings. First, I’ve incorporated recent success and schedule difficulty, hoping to show how hot or cold streaks can dramatically influence how strong a team is. So now the most recent games a team plays count for more than the teams played at the beginning of the year.

The second change was unplanned until a few days ago. I realized that giving teams extra credit merely for playing strong teams - regardless of how many points they managed to pick up in those games - was just as bad as ignoring schedule difficulty. The answer? I now include in my calculations an adjusted winning percentage which is calculated based on how well a team does against each team. So beating strong team counts for more than beating a weak team. Toronto receives more than one “point” for their overtime loss against Ottawa opening night. However, they receive no credit for losing to Ottawa the next day.

Anyways, I hope these changes result in a more accurate ranking of just how good the NHL teams are. I have some final tweaking to finish off, but will begin posting power rankings and game predictions sometime in the next week.

The first round is officially over with tonight’s game.  Let’s see how my predictions did:

Buffalo vs. NY Islanders

My prediction: Buffalo in 5

Result: Buffalo in 5

Exactly as expected.  Rick DiPietro came back earlier than I expected and helped draw out the series, but not much.  Tim Conolly makes Buffalo even deeper, something I would have sworn was not possible.

New Jersey vs. Tampa Bay

My prediction: New Jersey in 4

Result: New Jersey in 6

Tampa gave the Devils more trouble than they should have, probably because New Jersey failed to put pressure and expose the weak Tampa blueline.  Oh, and Holmqvist played great, which came out of nowhere.  Still, the end result shouldn’t surprise anyone.

Atlanta vs. NY Rangers

My prediction: Rangers in 6

Result: Rangers in 4

Who could have predicted Hartley would play musical chairs with his goatenders, or that Hossa and Kovalchuk would disappear so completely?  With the way Lundqvist played in the second half of the season, I was expecting the Rangers to have little trouble here, but the sweep certainly surprised me.

Ottawa vs. Pittsburgh

My prediction: Ottawa in 7

Result: Ottawa in 5

The youngsters had more trouble than expected getting their play up to another level, and the Senators are better than I thought they were.  If Mike Comrie keeps up his play, he adds another level of depth to this team that so far seems determined to end their tradition of playoff failure.

Detroit vs. Calgary

My prediction: Calgary in 7

Result: Detroit in 6

I suppose I should have realized just how bad Calgary was on the road.  I’m still not convinced about Detroit riding Hasek all the way but I do think I’ll have to take a closer look at Detroit heading into round 2.

Anaheim vs. Minesota

My Prediction: Anaheim in 6

Result: Anaheim in 5

Minnesota just isn’t deep enough to take on the Ducks.  I figured they would have stolen a second game, but Anaheim just rolled over them.  I didn’t get to see as much of this series as I would have liked.

Vancouver vs. Dallas

My prediction: Vancouver in 5

Result: Vancouver in 7

Marty Turco proved me wrong and matched Roberto Luongo save for save, but it still wasn’t enough.  In some ways that’s almost worse than knowing Turco just doesn’t have it in the second season.  However, I think Dallas fans can breathe a sigh of relief over their starting netminder.  Unfortunately, he won’t get a second chance for another year.

Nashville vs. San Jose

My Prediction: Nashville in 7

Result: San Jose in 5

The series that surprised me the most, both in terms of result and length.  Nashville never came together as a group, and San Jose’s big, strong forwards punished their opponents relentlessly.  Nabokov was absolutely stunning.