Are the NHL Playoffs Too Random & Determined By Luck?

[Guinnes66]

Florida won the President's Cup last year and improved their team. One coudl say they were "unlucky" in the regular season and are now just reverting to the norm.

BUT - perhaps hockey more than ANY other sport, absolutely works with luck. How many goals bounce off of guys on both teams (I never understood why a puck grazing a teammate in front of the net on a shot results in a goal for the guy who it grazed. Yes, he "touched" it, but c'mon - it is a lot of luck).

Pucks being on edge, pucks hitting the boards funny, players falling on the ice. teams getting 'lucky' with penalty calls. There is a LOT of luck, for all teams.

The difference in the playoffs is these teams 'manage'(?) the luck much better - slightly better shooting, better discipline, better defense, more guys involved in the plays (more chances at luck) compared to single-few Star teams.

Yes all teams benefit or are harmed by luck to some degree or another. There are a million events in hockey that have some randomness but you have to remember that the vast majority of plays will have little to no impact on the game. A guy falling or not falling most of the time has no impact. A puck bouncing right or left off a knee will have no impact 99% of the time. Penalty calls will have a greater effect but even then most of the time a goal is not scored anyways. In the end most series between close teams boil down to a small handful of plays. Some of those plays may have been determined by pure talent and determination while some may have been mostly due to luck.

Between close teams, all one needs to do is play well and then get marginally more luck than the other team. Thats why i believe its fair to say that teams absolutely can luck themselves to the finals as all they need is some luck to go there way in some of those crucial decisive moments. The better a team plays the more they are able to minimize the impact of luck deciding the outcome.

 

[rumrokh]

Unpredictability is good, i never said it wasnt. However, if the outcome starts to approach true randomness then it completly and utterly defeats the purpose of the regular season and defeats the purpose of building good teams and defeats the purpose of making trades at the deadline, etc. What would be the point of making any changes to a team if the results were all just random and unpredictable? March madness is an example of a tournament that approaches pure randomness since its one and done. This tournament is great but that because 99% of people are not tuning in to follow the grind of the regular season and paying attention to their team's development.

As mentioned, randomness and predictability are great ingredients but only so long as they do not dictate the results in the vast majority of the matches.

Do you think it currently approaches true randomness? Because if it doesn't, this discussion is kind of moot, right?

And if you think it is truly random (or too close to it), what teams do you think didn't deserved to win the Cup and only won due to randomness rather than on-ice performance?

 

[Guinnes66]

Do you think it currently approaches true randomness? Because if it doesn't, this discussion is kind of moot, right?

Hockey is is not purely random but that does not make the discussion moot. The point is that in the current parity system, luck and randomness play too much of a factor and of course will have the effect of diminishing the significance of the regular season and team building to some degree.

And if you think it is truly random (or too close to it), what teams do you think didn't deserved to win the Cup and only won due to randomness rather than on-ice performance?

Your question is completly flawed. This is not a black and white question like you are trying to suggest. Every team that has ever won the cup has likely benefited from luck to some degree, some had a tiny bit and some had a lot of luck. Nobody has won due to just luck. Thats just silly as all teams, even bad ones have good players that play well during the playoffs. Pure luck would be if you dropped in a peewee hockey team into the NHL playoffs and somehow every shot they fired bounced off legs and into the net and every shot by the NHL team hit the post.

 

[mandiblesofdoom]

Are the NHL Playoffs Too Random & Determined By Luck?​

No - in truth the NHL Playoffs are too groovy & determined by hockey.

 

[rumrokh]

Hockey is is not purely random but that does not make the discussion moot. The point is that in the current parity system, luck and randomness play too much of a factor and of course will have the effect of diminishing the significance of the regular season and team building to some degree.

Your question is completly flawed. This is not a black and white question like you are trying to suggest. Every team that has ever won the cup has likely benefited from luck to some degree, some had a tiny bit and some had a lot of luck. Nobody has won due to just luck. Thats just silly as all teams, even bad ones have good players that play well during the playoffs. Pure luck would be if you dropped in a peewee hockey team into the NHL playoffs and somehow every shot they fired bounced off legs and into the net and every shot by the NHL team hit the post.

I invite you to read this entire thread, including my posts in it, because I'm not suggesting anything black and white. I said early on that luck is absolutely a big factor in hockey. I just don't have a problem with that. It's becoming increasingly obvious your posts are of the "just sayin'" variety instead of having a specific, tangible criticism of the system and events that have occurred in that system.

If, as you say, in the current system, luck and randomness play too much of a factor, then it should be simple to name some teams for which luck and randomness has been, again, as you say, "too much of a factor" in their Cup victory. You can hide behind "to some degree" all you want, but your opinion shrivels in the absence of merit. Nobody is asking you to write a dissertation. Just some evidence that these things are happening "too much."

 

[mouser]

As mentioned, randomness and predictability are great ingredients but only so long as they do not dictate the results in the vast majority of the matches.

This pretzel logic is so flawed I’m at a loss for words.

 

[FiveTacos]

If there were true randomness, there would be an even distribution of 1-8 seeds winning the Cup. Considering only the Kings have ever won as an 8th seed, clearly that is not the case.

Pulling off 3 upsets to go on a Cinderella run is common. Pulling off 4 to win the Cup is not impossible, but very rare. Sounds like just the right amount of randomness to me ... Everyone has a shot, but one of the strong teams tends to prevail.

Yet there's always tension for fans of a powerhouse team, because even the best teams are a knifes edge away from a 1st round exit. Sounds like a great sport to me, who the hell wants series that are foregone conclusions before they even start?

Like the TV ratings thread, this just smacks of sour grapes from someone whose team didn't perform as expected.

 

[paracord]

I think a lot of these teams that have the playoffs in the bag with great regular seasons start to coast toward the end.

Teams like Florida had to start their playoff mindset way earlier, therefore they were playing hard coming into the playoffs. Sometimes its hard to turn that switch on after not playing a meaningful game for weeks or months. The NFL is like that too. The last seed has won the Super Bowl several times I think, and top seeds can be knocked off.

Yes, basketball is much different from hockey. Hockey is much more a team sport whereas in the NBA one or two great players can dominate much more, therefore it is more predictable.

 

[Guinnes66]

This pretzel logic is so flawed I’m at a loss for words.

Are you serious? What i said is common sense. So you would be ok then with hockey being determined by pure chance then as that is exactly what you are suggesting. I dont even think you believe that as nobody would prefer a sport where the outcome was the same as a coin flip.

There are basically two ends of the spectrum. At one end, the outcome of every match is determined by which team played better and there is no randomness. The winners will be very predictable with the only variance being some things like effort and determination. At the other end of the spectrum, the outcome of every match is determined by pure chance. Clearly hockey is somewhere in the middle. I am simply saying that i prefer hockey to lean a bit more to the the one side of the spectrum where the better team wins a bit more often than it currently does and where luck and randomness play less of a role. This is hardy a "pretzel logic" take i am giving here.

 

[Guinnes66]

If there were true randomness, there would be an even distribution of 1-8 seeds winning the Cup. Considering only the Kings have ever won as an 8th seed, clearly that is not the case.

Pulling off 3 upsets to go on a Cinderella run is common. Pulling off 4 to win the Cup is not impossible, but very rare. Sounds like just the right amount of randomness to me ... Everyone has a shot, but one of the strong teams tends to prevail.

The seedings of the stanley cup winners are a bit more random than you are presenting here. Here are the league standings of all the stanley cup winners since the hard cap was implemented:

4, 4, 1, 3, 3, 7, 13, 1, 9, 7, 4, 2, 7, 12, 3, 8, 2 = 5.3 average (6 average if florida wins this year)

If hockey was purely random you would expect the average winner would be seeded around 8 (out of the 16 teams that qualify for the playoffs). So we can see that on average the better teams do win a bit more often than not but that its not as far off from the purely random outcome as people want to admit.

Of course you can point to lots of other factors that determine a stanley cup winner despite just raw regular season standings. Abolutely sometimes the lesser team just wants it more and makes up for their lack of talent by effort. Or sometimes the lesser team is better constructed for playoff success - goalies seem to have greater impact in the playoffs so having an elite goalie can overcome other team weaknesses. Im sure there are many other factors you can list here as well.

But the counterpoint to all this is that too often when we watch a playoff series what we actually observe is that the team that plays better does not always win, that questionable officating can dictate the outcome of a close series, that injuries (which are mostly random) can decide a series, that a goalie can decide a series almost by themselves, that goelies are able to get hot to an extent that they are not able to replictate ever agian, that teams that go on long playoff runs are not able to replicate their performance again. ALl these things suggest luck plays a large factor here.

Yet there's always tension for fans of a powerhouse team, because even the best teams are a knifes edge away from a 1st round exit. Sounds like a great sport to me, who the hell wants series that are foregone conclusions before they even start?

Nobody is arguing for hockey to become a sport that has foregone conclusions though, only that we want luck and randomness to play less of a factor than it currently does.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Are you serious? What i said is common sense. So you would be ok then with hockey being determined by pure chance then as that is exactly what you are suggesting. I dont even think you believe that as nobody would prefer a sport where the outcome was the same as a coin flip.

The fact that you think that this is "exactly what they are suggesting" tells us that you aren't really following the conversation.

Granted, this has become a popular argument technique - saying "then you must believe <ridiculous non-sequitur>!" Because a fair amount of the population reading isn't following very closely, so they may believe you.

Why is why I'm specifically calling your statement above out as ridiculous.

 

[Guinnes66]

I invite you to read this entire thread, including my posts in it, because I'm not suggesting anything black and white. I said early on that luck is absolutely a big factor in hockey. I just don't have a problem with that. It's becoming increasingly obvious your posts are of the "just sayin'" variety instead of having a specific, tangible criticism of the system and events that have occurred in that system.

If, as you say, in the current system, luck and randomness play too much of a factor, then it should be simple to name some teams for which luck and randomness has been, again, as you say, "too much of a factor" in their Cup victory. You can hide behind "to some degree" all you want, but your opinion shrivels in the absence of merit. Nobody is asking you to write a dissertation. Just some evidence that these things are happening "too much."

What are you going on about? So you agree that luck plays a "big factor" in hockey and yet im not allowed to have an opinion whereby i think that luck and randomness has too much of an impact in hockey and wish it played less of a role? That is absurd. I invite you to read the entire thread yourself as i have already provided examples of teams that i believe benefitted from some luck (including my own team). You can read my post above as some evidence that suggests, to me anyways, that luck plays too large of a factor for my taste.

 

[Guinnes66]

The fact that you think that this is "exactly what they are suggesting" tells us that you aren't really following the conversation.

Please do elaborate then what precisely was meant by his response to my post then?

I stated in my post that some unpredictability in hockey is good but that having too much is not good. He claimed this was absurd logic. You tell me what exactly was absurd about my statement then or what exatcy was the point of saying this is flawed logic when its pretty much common sense. The only possibile interpretation to me is that he thinks unpredictability should be the only factor in playoff outcomes but apparently you know more so please do tell.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Please do elaborate then what precisely was meant by his response to my post then?

I stated in my post that some unpredictability in hockey is good but that having too much is not good. He claimed this was absurd logic. You tell me what exactly was absurd about my statement then or what exatcy was the point of saying this is flawed logic when its pretty much common sense. The only possibile interpretation to me is that he thinks unpredictability should be the only factor in playoff outcomes but apparently you know more so please do tell.

This isn't what you said. Go back and read it again.

 

[Guinnes66]

This isn't what you said. Go back and read it again.

Yes thats precisely what i said. Here it is again in case you cannot read properly:

Unpredictability is good, i never said it wasnt. However, if the outcome starts to approach true randomness then it completly and utterly defeats the purpose of the regular season and defeats the purpose of building good teams and defeats the purpose of making trades at the deadline, etc. What would be the point of making any changes to a team if the results were all just random and unpredictable? March madness is an example of a tournament that approaches pure randomness since its one and done. This tournament is great but that because 99% of people are not tuning in to follow the grind of the regular season and paying attention to their team's development.

As mentioned, randomness and predictability are great ingredients but only so long as they do not dictate the results in the vast majority of the matches.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Yes thats precisely what i said. Here it is again in case you cannot read properly:

Yes, re-read the last part of what you bolded. As many times as you need.

It's not my job to proofread you, and you've shown an unwillingness to do so yourself. Hence, this is my last correspondence with you on the topic. Good day.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

This is the sort of shit you're doing.

 

[Guinnes66]

Yes, re-read the last part of what you bolded. As many times as you need.

It's not my job to proofread you, and you've shown an unwillingness to do so yourself. Hence, this is my last correspondence with you on the topic. Good day.

Ah so the fact that i made a typo is whats the problem here? Thats odd since my post was was clear in even giving examples to show that unpredictability is good and that too much is not good. Guess i shouldnt assume that people actually read the entirety of my post and just latch onto one typo that is quite obvious (in what world are randomness and predictability the same anyways as these are opposites). Typo is fixed now - thank you!

 

[BardownMagic]

This is a result of parity. Any team can win on any night and the separation is small. People don’t want to hear it, but we love excellence - is it a coincidence the NBA has exploded? This is almost impossible in a salary cap world, but teams in low/no income tax areas have an advatnage and if teams mess with LTIR they can go above.

A luxury tax would remove some randomness.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Narrator: it wasn't the typo.

 

[herashak]

Too random to gamble on, which is why I’m sick of the degenerate gambling commercials

 

[Guinnes66]

Narrator: it wasn't the typo.

Then please do tell. Seems you are being mysteriously vague for some reason. Are you suggesting these 2 statements are not equivalent:

As mentioned, randomness and unpredictability are great ingredients but only so long as they do not dictate the results in the vast majority of the matches.

I stated in my post that some unpredictability in hockey is good but that having too much is not good.

 

[Leksand]

The seedings of the stanley cup winners are a bit more random than you are presenting here. Here are the league standings of all the stanley cup winners since the hard cap was implemented:

4, 4, 1, 3, 3, 7, 13, 1, 9, 7, 4, 2, 7, 12, 3, 8, 2 = 5.3 average (6 average if florida wins this year)

If hockey was purely random you would expect the average winner would be seeded around 8 (out of the 16 teams that qualify for the playoffs). So we can see that on average the better teams do win a bit more often than not but that its not as far off from the purely random outcome as people want to admit.

Of course you can point to lots of other factors that determine a stanley cup winner despite just raw regular season standings. Abolutely sometimes the lesser team just wants it more and makes up for their lack of talent by effort. Or sometimes the lesser team is better constructed for playoff success - goalies seem to have greater impact in the playoffs so having an elite goalie can overcome other team weaknesses. Im sure there are many other factors you can list here as well.

But the counterpoint to all this is that too often when we watch a playoff series what we actually observe is that the team that plays better does not always win, that questionable officating can dictate the outcome of a close series, that injuries (which are mostly random) can decide a series, that a goalie can decide a series almost by themselves, that goelies are able to get hot to an extent that they are not able to replictate ever agian, that teams that go on long playoff runs are not able to replicate their performance again. ALl these things suggest luck plays a large factor here.



Nobody is arguing for hockey to become a sport that has foregone conclusions though, only that we want luck and randomness to play less of a factor than it currently does.

This is a good analysis and the numbers are helpful. I think it can be cast a bit differently though to feel better about it or have the glass half full. (I'm a Caps fan so it's not that I try to spin things here - I know the frustration).

First: The teams that have won the Stanley Cup in the last 15 years or so (maybe further back as well) have all been very good teams during the seasons around the Stanley Cup win(s) - haven’t they?

E.g., most recently, Vegas led Conference / Panthers won Presidents trophy lest year; Colorado led Conference; St Louise was a good team for years; Capitals won President trophies just before winning the SC. And so on.

It’s random and unpredictable, but it’s not like goods teams don’t ever win. Only good teams win in fact it seems (but not all good teams eventually win) Fundamentally weaker teams never win although they may win a few series.

Second: An average of a 5th seed looks a bit better if you see it as top 5 out of 32 (median is 4). And yes, the lower 16 gone come from the round robin, but still if one wants to see it half full it certainly helps. (The play-in idea would of course make this worse potentially).

The fundamental problem here is of course that there is no acceptable solution. You have to have the playoffs and you cannot reduce the number of teams in the playoffs. The league and most fans I'd say would not want it very different. I am not even sure a round robin system like in most national soccer leagues would do it. Yes it would be less random, but I am not sure it would truly single out the best of the best - one could argue too much weight to games against lesser teams to do so.

 

[GrumpyKoala]

To remove the volatility you have to create more separation between good bad and great team.

No one (few) want that so this how it gonna go

 

[Guinnes66]

This is a good analysis and the numbers are helpful. I think it can be cast a bit differently though to feel better about it or have the glass half full. (I'm a Caps fan so it's not that I try to spin things here - I know the frustration).

First: The teams that have won the Stanley Cup in the last 15 years or so (maybe further back as well) have all been very good teams during the seasons around the Stanley Cup win(s) - haven’t they?

E.g., most recently, Vegas led Conference / Panthers won Presidents trophy lest year; Colorado led Conference; St Louise was a good team for years; Capitals won President trophies just before winning the SC. And so on.

It’s random and unpredictable, but it’s not like goods teams don’t ever win. Only good teams win in fact it seems (but not all good teams eventually win) Fundamentally weaker teams never win although they may win a few series.

Second: An average of a 5th seed looks a bit better if you see it as top 5 out of 32 (median is 4). And yes, the lower 16 gone come from the round robin, but still if one wants to see it half full it certainly helps. (The play-in idea would of course make this worse potentially).

The fundamental problem here is of course that there is no acceptable solution. You have to have the playoffs and you cannot reduce the number of teams in the playoffs. The league and most fans I'd say would not want it very different. I am not even sure a round robin system like in most national soccer leagues would do it. Yes it would be less random, but I am not sure it would truly single out the best of the best - one could argue too much weight to games against lesser teams to do so.

Yes i agree that all stanley cup winners are good teams but the thing is that the majority of the league are good teams. Thats what parity is. There are only a small handful of truly bad teams in the league each year but these bad teams are already weeded out once the playoffs start. Any team that qualifies for the playoffs is a good team and the separation between them and the top teams are pretty slim. So i think by default you could never have a truly bad team win the cup.

Not sure if i feel any better about trying to position it as top 5 out of 32 given that the playoffs can only consist of the top 16. In a hypothetical situation whereby all teams qualified for the playoffs i would not be surpirsed in the least that the stanley cup winners would now average somewhere closer to a 12 seeding - ie it would still be slightly better than chance which would be an average of 16.5 but it would not be high enough to suggest that luck was not a large factor in deciding games.

The only solution to me is to impose a soft cap + luxury tax to help provide a bit more separation between good and bad teams.