nhl math

First off, the way ESPN and even the NHL show standings is flawed. Here's ESPN, with teams sorted by total points.

And here's how it should be, via nhltruestandings.com, sorted by points earned divided by points possible.

All season, San Jose has been lower in the ESPN standings that they really should be, and Colorado has been higher. And you can have silly things like this. Now that we've got that straight, I want to look at the true standings to make sense of the playoff race.

Looking at the race in the West for the 8th spot, we see:

Dallas .556
LA .548
Calgary .540
Colorado .540

Which is all fine and dandy. But hard to draw conclusions from. Instead, I'm more interested in the right hand column, the pace.


Dallas 91.11
LA 89.94
Calgary 88.61
Colorado 88.51

For an idea of how these change, here's how these paces looked at the all-star break a month ago:

LA 95.12
Minnesota 92.04
Dallas 88.83
Colorado 86.82

Calgary 85.28

Colorado and Calgary have upped their pace over the last month, while LA, Minnesota, and Dallas have all gone down. So even with 63 games played, these numbers are flexible.

Heck, Phoenix went from 52 points at 50 games, to 73 points at 62 games. That upped their pace to 96.55 from 85.28 in 12 games.

- - -

But I want to focus on the 8th spot. So here are the pressing numbers.


Dallas 91.11
LA 89.94
Calgary 88.61
Colorado 88.51

The real question is what will it take to get Colorado's pace up to a 91 or 92.

The Avs have played 63, 19 to go.

They have 68 points right now.

Since their pace right now is 88.51, and you can't earn half a point, I'll figure both 88 and 89 as Current.
And I'll figure 92 as what it takes to make the playoffs.

Current Pace A: 88 = 20 new points in 19 games
You could expect the Avs to go 10-9-0 or 9-8-2 at this rate.

Current Pace B: 89 = 21 new points in 19 games
You could also expect the Avs to go 10-8-1 or 9-7-3 at this rate.

Playoff Pace: 92 = 24 new points in 19 games
To make the playoffs, they would need to go 12-7-0 or 11-6-2.

In other words, to make the playoffs, Colorado would need to win two games that they would normally lose.

Which is a tricky concept. Let's say they win tonight against Anaheim. It's hard to say that win is one of those two. They already have a winning record, so it's not enough to win games. They need to win two extra.

Or, another way of looking at is, to get 24 new points in 19 games, would be 63.2% of the remaining points possible. Over 63 games, they've earned 54% of the points possible. Which makes it seem like quite a challenge, to suddenly play like a much better team down the stretch. Certainly it's more daunting than the ESPN standings seem, just two points behind Dallas, just one game.