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Another Way To Look At The Standings
by Mike Chen on 11/25/08 at 12:00 PM ET
Comments (4)
There’s been some debate, between a few of my posts and a few other things floating around the blogosphere, about the best way to assign points for wins, shootouts, overtime losses, etc. Well, regardless of what we’d like to see, we’re stuck with this current system. With that in mind, let’s break down the standings with a few different looks. First, here are the entire league standings using the traditional point system.
And here’s a different way to look at the standings. Since teams play a different amount of games, a snapshot of the league’s point distribution isn’t the most accurate way to judge how well teams are doing in relation to each other. This next table weighs things in points per game—that is, the total number of points earned in the standings divided by the number of games played (PPG).
What’s the difference? The Rangers drop a few places and the Blues are actually doing a little better than the standings would make them out to be. The bulk of the league, however, doesn’t shift more than a spot or two.
This next chart is interesting. I think it probably shows more about trends rather than standings. This table is sorted by goal differential (Diff).
Some surprising teams here have pretty good goal differential: LA, Ottawa, and St. Louis are all significantly better than their record would have you believe. Tampa Bay is much worse (scoring goals would help) while Chicago approaches the upper echelon.
And one thing to note: the Sharks lead in all three variations of the standings. Their +29 goal differential is far and away the leader, with almost four goals-for and a lower-middle -of-the-pack goals against. On the bottom? The Dallas Stars pull it up in every chart. Bet Brett Hull wishes he was still the Ambassador of Fun, huh?
Filed in: NHL | Mike Chen's Hockey Blog | Permalink
Tags: Standings,
Comments
Don’t worry, I’ll leave the number crunching to you. I’m just trying to prove to my cynical self that the Sharks really are this good!
Posted by Mike Chen on 11/25/08 at 12:10 PM ET
Since teams play a different amount of games, a snapshot of the league’s point distribution isn’t the most accurate way to judge how well teams are doing in relation to each other. This next table weighs things in points per game—that is, the total number of points earned in the standings divided by the number of games played (PPG).
You don’t have to go to the new format to get a different outcome (although PPG is, by far, the best way to judge a team’s success). That’s because your original table hierarchy is flawed.
You rank the top four (in order) as San Jose, NY Rangers, Boston & Detroit. Since the latter three all have an equal number of points, any “traditional” ranking system would already place the order as San Jose, Detroit, Boston & NY Rangers based on the number of games played…just as NHL.com has them listed on this page.
Posted by OlderThanChelios from Grand Rapids on 11/25/08 at 02:28 PM ET
You rank the top four (in order) as San Jose, NY Rangers, Boston & Detroit. Since the latter three all have an equal number of points, any “traditional” ranking system would already place the order as San Jose, Detroit, Boston & NY Rangers based on the number of games played…just as NHL.com has them listed on this page.
Just to be devil’s advocate about the 2-3-4 ranking, and this is a really minor point because it doesn’t really matter where they’re placed in this overall point standings b/c they’re not in the same divisions anyway. I think Mike was ranking each team according to the tiebreaker method. So in this case, the first tiebreaker usually used is Wins, where NYR had 15, while Boston and Detroit both have 14. The next tiebreaker I’m guessing is goal differential, and Boston is +20, while Det. is +15. So I think that’s why it’s arranged the way it is.
The original hierarchy isn’t flawed per se, it’s just how you look at it (which is the main point of this post anyway). Different media outlets will use different systems to break this tie, and it’s usually based on either wins or GP first.
Posted by Washington on 11/27/08 at 07:30 PM ET
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Stealing a bit of my thunder! I’m planning on a review of PythagenPuck for tomorrow, which has a couple slightly different wrinkles… it’s always good to take a gander and see which teams are really playing over their heads right now.
Posted by Forechecker from Nolensville, TN on 11/25/08 at 12:06 PM ET