Melvin's 2021-22 NHL Team Projections
- Thread starter Melvin
- Start date
Lindgren
Registered User
- Jun 30, 2005
- 5,911
- 4,928
No, no, no. Keep updating. Keep bumping. It'll be really worthwhile.
I'd probably just ignore the 'ignorance' of people making such blanket statements. Probably not worth the time considering all the work you've put into different ranking stuff over the years.
I think this is awesome and I appreciate you doing it. People were calling Vegas horrendous when they first saw the roster. Grubauer and Drieger is a good tandem.. and having a guy that could play 30 games in Drieger could really help with grubs staying healthy.
Also, their defense is solid and people undervalue the importance of good defense helping with offensive transition and overall puck possession. I do think they will have to improve their offense a bit for more goals. However, I think players like Mason Appleton are going to suprise fans across the NHL. Do I think they'll be fourth overall? Probably not, but I'm thinking they'll probably make the playoffs in the Pacific by playing smart defensive hockey. (I also would have made some different choices than Francis did, but time will tell!)
Anyways, thanks Melvin.
drax0s
Registered User
How are you accounting for the upcoming changes in deployment (specifically TOI and quality of competition) for Seattle's top 6 next season? Seattle has a bunch of formerly 3rd line players who are going to be getting top line minutes which I feel will have an impact on their actual effectiveness. Gourde, Donskoi & McCaan were all playing on the 3rd line and Tanev & Appleton were 4th line - only Eberle was playing top line (most of the time). You can probably (?) make the assumption Seattle's 3rd and 4th lines will meet their underlying metrics (barring any significant changes in ice-time - i.e. running 4 lines more equally) and I could see the argument for their defense as well - but I'd expect a bit of a regression from the underlying metrics for their top lines as they're more playing "out of their depth".
Picture Motte and Highmore are suddenly playing top line minutes - I wouldn't expect anywhere near the same metrics just based on the QoC change alone.
Hit the post
I have your gold medal Zippy!
McCann does have experience playing in the top six (as a winger) though. As well as checking center back in his Panther days. Been at around a 2nd liner point pace as a Pen for the past few seasons. He just turned 25 years old a few months ago (and he does have the "pedigree" given that he was a former 1st round pick).
Basically, I'm not, and this is the "problem" that I think most people see. I don't see it as some sort of a given that a young player like Appleton will not be able to maintain the same level of play or excel given more ice time. Is that what we saw with Vegas? A bunch of young players falling flat on their faces once promoted to a top-six role? That's not what I saw. I mean I don't want to use Vegas as a projection of 1-data point, but if I am going to "penalize" young players for playing more minutes than they are used to, I don't see the evidence from Vegas that suggests I should do so, do you know what I mean?
The one data point that we have was a team of guys like Tuch, Karlsson, Marchessault having good numbers on previous teams in limited minutes and then proceeding to have great numbers on Vegas in bigger minutes. So I would need to see more compelling evidence to apply some sort of a penalty to the players Seattle acquired. /shrug
drax0s
Registered User
I'm not even talking about applying a penalty - more some way of adjusting the output of a player who's been moved, accounting for their changed quality of competition and teammates. It's arguable we could see a bit of a breakout like Vegas did with Marchessault for Kraken players due to playing with superior players as well.
As I mentioned before I'll post a "weekly" update on Fridays as long as the thread is reasonably active, and if it's not I might just leave it until the day before the season starts and post one update then. This is as much for my own record-keeping as anything:
* Roster Moves since last ranking:
- Alex Tuch -> Removed from VGK
- Marcus Johansson -> SEA
- Brendan Perlini -> EDM
- Joe Thornton -> FLA
- Zac Rinaldo -> CBJ
* Fixed a bug related to PP/PK effectiveness.
* Corrected a few newer fringe players previously missing in the database.
Rankings 2021-08-13:
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* Roster Moves since last ranking:
- Alex Tuch -> Removed from VGK
- Marcus Johansson -> SEA
- Brendan Perlini -> EDM
- Joe Thornton -> FLA
- Zac Rinaldo -> CBJ
* Fixed a bug related to PP/PK effectiveness.
* Corrected a few newer fringe players previously missing in the database.
Rankings 2021-08-13:
| Overall Rank | Team | GF_GA | Last Rank | Change | ES_OFF | OFF | ES_DEF | ES_DEF+GOALIE | DEF | DEF+GOALIE | GF_GA_NoGoalie | PP | PK | GOALIE | PP_TIME | PK_TIME |
| 1 | VGK | 38 | 1 | - | 1 | 2 | 26 | 16 | 10 | 7 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 5 | 17 | 30 |
| 2 | COL | 38 | 2 | - | 12 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 15 | 20 | 1 | 10 |
| 3 | TOR | 38 | 3 | - | 2 | 4 | 22 | 5 | 8 | 2 | 3 | 9 | 2 | 1 | 23 | 28 |
| 4 | SEA | 17 | 4 | - | 23 | 15 | 7 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 6 | 12 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 24 |
| 5 | T.B | 13 | 6 | +1 | 6 | 14 | 4 | 7 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 24 | 5 | 17 | 30 | 25 |
| 6 | CAR | 12 | 5 | -1 | 3 | 1 | 13 | 18 | 26 | 28 | 4 | 2 | 31 | 20 | 4 | 1 |
| 7 | PIT | 7 | 7 | - | 27 | 7 | 5 | 6 | 16 | 12 | 9 | 3 | 28 | 15 | 3 | 3 |
| 8 | NYI | 6 | 8 | - | 5 | 22 | 18 | 9 | 6 | 3 | 14 | 32 | 6 | 8 | 32 | 31 |
| 9 | NSH | 4 | 9 | - | 20 | 19 | 10 | 4 | 8 | 7 | 18 | 15 | 14 | 6 | 20 | 18 |
| 10 | DAL | 2 | 10 | - | 7 | 24 | 15 | 15 | 4 | 6 | 10 | 30 | 3 | 18 | 31 | 32 |
| 11 | BOS | 1 | 11 | - | 28 | 22 | 3 | 1 | 7 | 9 | 16 | 20 | 25 | 10 | 14 | 4 |
| 12 | NYR | -1 | 12 | - | 24 | 8 | 12 | 8 | 23 | 16 | 20 | 6 | 30 | 8 | 15 | 6 |
| 13 | FLA | -2 | 13 | - | 9 | 6 | 8 | 21 | 16 | 21 | 8 | 10 | 27 | 25 | 7 | 9 |
| 14 | CGY | -3 | 14 | - | 11 | 12 | 6 | 13 | 10 | 13 | 11 | 16 | 21 | 23 | 21 | 14 |
| 15 | N.J | -3 | 16 | +1 | 10 | 10 | 11 | 11 | 19 | 19 | 15 | 14 | 26 | 18 | 12 | 8 |
| 16 | EDM | -6 | 15 | -1 | 4 | 5 | 29 | 31 | 26 | 31 | 12 | 5 | 17 | 26 | 13 | 17 |
| 17 | MIN | -8 | 18 | +1 | 18 | 27 | 2 | 19 | 1 | 10 | 7 | 27 | 9 | 30 | 19 | 21 |
| 18 | S.J | -9 | 20 | +2 | 16 | 8 | 19 | 10 | 31 | 24 | 23 | 8 | 32 | 10 | 8 | 2 |
| 19 | WPG | -10 | 17 | -2 | 22 | 19 | 31 | 14 | 32 | 16 | 30 | 18 | 19 | 2 | 25 | 13 |
| 20 | STL | -10 | 21 | +1 | 19 | 26 | 20 | 12 | 16 | 11 | 22 | 23 | 16 | 13 | 28 | 22 |
| 21 | MTL | -11 | 19 | -2 | 8 | 19 | 9 | 17 | 13 | 16 | 19 | 29 | 22 | 22 | 26 | 11 |
| 22 | VAN | -12 | 22 | - | 29 | 12 | 25 | 22 | 29 | 22 | 24 | 4 | 24 | 10 | 2 | 12 |
| 23 | CHI | -12 | 24 | +1 | 17 | 24 | 32 | 25 | 23 | 13 | 28 | 26 | 7 | 6 | 18 | 29 |
| 24 | WSH | -13 | 23 | -1 | 15 | 18 | 23 | 27 | 15 | 20 | 21 | 21 | 8 | 24 | 24 | 16 |
| 25 | OTT | -13 | 25 | - | 14 | 11 | 21 | 29 | 14 | 27 | 13 | 13 | 10 | 29 | 10 | 20 |
| 26 | L.A | -16 | 26 | - | 21 | 15 | 28 | 24 | 26 | 23 | 27 | 11 | 23 | 15 | 11 | 15 |
| 27 | PHI | -23 | 27 | - | 13 | 15 | 16 | 30 | 12 | 30 | 17 | 22 | 11 | 32 | 22 | 23 |
| 28 | DET | -25 | 29 | +1 | 26 | 32 | 30 | 20 | 25 | 13 | 32 | 31 | 13 | 4 | 29 | 27 |
| 29 | ANA | -27 | 30 | +1 | 30 | 28 | 27 | 23 | 30 | 24 | 31 | 28 | 29 | 13 | 27 | 5 |
| 30 | CBJ | -28 | 28 | -2 | 31 | 28 | 14 | 26 | 19 | 24 | 26 | 19 | 18 | 27 | 9 | 7 |
| 31 | BUF | -33 | 32 | +1 | 32 | 31 | 17 | 28 | 19 | 28 | 29 | 17 | 20 | 28 | 5 | 19 |
| 32 | ARI | -36 | 31 | -1 | 25 | 28 | 24 | 32 | 19 | 31 | 25 | 25 | 12 | 31 | 16 | 26 |
David Bruce Banner
Acid Raven Bed Burn
Tables of Stats
Registered User
Hey Melvin, based on your current model how much would the Canucks defense need to score to offset their predicted failings at actually defending our net?
M2Beezy
Objective and Neutral Hockey Commentator
Canucks return to one of the weakest divisions in the entire NHL. If, at the end of the day, all they can do it claw their way up to 22nd place overall from 24th last season, then heads will roll in the off-season.22nd place for the Canucks, thats a big rise from last seasons 24th place finish. Progress. Excellent GMing
I mean barring a rash of injuries or another COVID outbreak, I can't see how this team finishes 22nd overall.
fwiw I have them about 18th now. There haven’t been any real roster changes but I’ve been doing more research and back testing on previous seasons and have made some minor tweaks which resulted in a few teams rising and a few falling. Nothing major, but the Canucks were one of the beneficiaries and rose a few spots.
Main thing that was fixed was that the sun of all goal differentials is much closer to 0 now, with the team in 15th being even so it looks more reasonable with half the teams having a positive differential and half the teams negative. So that makes me feel like it’s an improvement but that could be false, who knows.
people think 22 is really bad but if you look at it most of the teams 15-23 are virtually tied and I feel like people wouldn’t object as much to 17th even though it’s basically the same.
also I am planning to run my simulator this weekend which will actually take the schedule into account and provide divisional rankings. That should be interesting.
Is that a thing though? Looking at past standings it seems that more often than not it's something like 18 teams positive, 12 teams negative, 16-14, 17-14 and so on.
The predictions should be close to the 16 either side but you shouldn't force it to be exact.
I'm not forcing it to be exact, and it isn't exact. It is simply closer now than it was as a result of other tweaks that I've made, which I take as a good sign (but I'm fully aware might not mean anything!)
To be clear, and I didn't phrase this well in my other post, but the tweaks that I made were not made with the goal of "fixing" this, they were made as a result of looking at data for the past 8 seasons and picking more exact weights after back-testing the prior seasons, but the end result happened to be that the ratio of positive to negative is much more even than it was before, which I take as a good sign. In my OP only 11 teams had a positive goal differential, which is well below the numbers you mentioned. Now I think it's 16 teams that are positive, 1 even and 15 negative. Again this wasn't done intentionally but I think is a positive sign that the tweaks that I made were good ones (but could definitely be a red herring.)
also when looking at past seasons make sure to take out OT goals, Shootout win goals and empty netters, which I am not projecting.
Yeah the plan is to do that Saturday. I'm debating whether or not to add in some kind of back-to-back factor or not based on research of teams performing worse on the 2nd half of back-to-backs on the road.
Peen
Rejoicing in a Benning-free world
- Oct 6, 2013
- 29,704
- 29,590
One of the things I really want to do is some sort of analysis on distance traveled before games. So is there a straight-forward relationship between the number of kilometers traveled the night before the game and the team performance? Common sense would say yes but I am not aware of any substantive research in terms of actually coming up with a number. Like, goals/game drops by 0.1 for ever 100 KM traveled, I don't know, something like this. Would be really interesting but might be too ambitious of a project for me to undertake right now.
First attempt at Sims:
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As I think most expected, Van at about 50/50 to make the playoffs.
Let me know if anything looks wrong or you want more details!
| Conference | Division | Team | PTS | D1% | D2% | D3% | WC1% | WC2% | Playoff% | MissPlayoffPct | LastPlace% |
| East | Atlantic | TOR | 100 | 48% | 25% | 11% | 4% | 4% | 92% | 8% | 0% |
| East | Atlantic | T.B | 93 | 17% | 22% | 17% | 9% | 7% | 72% | 29% | 1% |
| East | Atlantic | BOS | 90 | 13% | 13% | 16% | 9% | 10% | 61% | 39% | 2% |
| East | Atlantic | FLA | 88 | 7% | 12% | 17% | 6% | 9% | 51% | 49% | 4% |
| East | Atlantic | MTL | 86 | 6% | 11% | 12% | 8% | 7% | 45% | 55% | 7% |
| East | Atlantic | DET | 85 | 4% | 7% | 10% | 8% | 8% | 36% | 64% | 8% |
| East | Atlantic | OTT | 85 | 3% | 6% | 12% | 7% | 8% | 36% | 64% | 8% |
| East | Atlantic | BUF | 81 | 2% | 4% | 7% | 4% | 4% | 21% | 79% | 14% |
| East | Metro | CAR | 92 | 26% | 18% | 15% | 6% | 7% | 72% | 28% | 1% |
| East | Metro | NYI | 92 | 23% | 19% | 16% | 6% | 6% | 70% | 30% | 1% |
| East | Metro | NYR | 89 | 15% | 16% | 14% | 7% | 5% | 57% | 44% | 3% |
| East | Metro | PIT | 89 | 14% | 17% | 15% | 7% | 6% | 59% | 42% | 3% |
| East | Metro | N.J | 88 | 11% | 12% | 16% | 6% | 6% | 51% | 49% | 4% |
| East | Metro | WSH | 86 | 8% | 11% | 10% | 6% | 6% | 41% | 59% | 6% |
| East | Metro | PHI | 81 | 3% | 3% | 8% | 4% | 5% | 23% | 77% | 17% |
| East | Metro | CBJ | 80 | 1% | 4% | 5% | 2% | 4% | 16% | 84% | 21% |
| West | Central | COL | 101 | 59% | 19% | 10% | 3% | 2% | 93% | 7% | 0% |
| West | Central | NSH | 90 | 10% | 18% | 17% | 7% | 5% | 57% | 43% | 2% |
| West | Central | DAL | 89 | 11% | 16% | 16% | 6% | 7% | 55% | 45% | 5% |
| West | Central | WPG | 89 | 8% | 15% | 16% | 7% | 6% | 51% | 49% | 5% |
| West | Central | CHI | 86 | 6% | 9% | 12% | 6% | 8% | 39% | 61% | 8% |
| West | Central | STL | 86 | 4% | 14% | 12% | 5% | 6% | 40% | 60% | 6% |
| West | Central | MIN | 83 | 2% | 7% | 10% | 5% | 6% | 31% | 69% | 12% |
| West | Central | ARI | 80 | 1% | 3% | 6% | 4% | 4% | 18% | 82% | 19% |
| West | Pacific | VGK | 100 | 45% | 22% | 15% | 4% | 5% | 90% | 10% | 1% |
| West | Pacific | SEA | 96 | 27% | 24% | 17% | 7% | 6% | 80% | 20% | 1% |
| West | Pacific | EDM | 89 | 7% | 12% | 13% | 9% | 9% | 49% | 51% | 4% |
| West | Pacific | VAN | 88 | 6% | 12% | 13% | 9% | 8% | 48% | 52% | 4% |
| West | Pacific | S.J | 88 | 4% | 11% | 14% | 9% | 9% | 47% | 53% | 6% |
| West | Pacific | L.A | 87 | 5% | 8% | 14% | 7% | 8% | 42% | 58% | 5% |
| West | Pacific | CGY | 87 | 5% | 9% | 11% | 9% | 8% | 41% | 59% | 5% |
| West | Pacific | ANA | 81 | 1% | 3% | 5% | 5% | 5% | 18% | 82% | 19% |
As I think most expected, Van at about 50/50 to make the playoffs.
Let me know if anything looks wrong or you want more details!
Hit the post
I have your gold medal Zippy!
If OEL wilts under the pressure of playing in an actual hockey market (and he only has two 31 year olds backing him up) it could get really ugly unless Demko puts in a Vezina calibre season.
Thanks for running that @Melvin
Curious if you have any thoughts on the relatively strong parity in the results. surely the worst team will do worse than 80 points and more than three teams will crack 100 points?
Like, for example, in 2018-19, 9 teams cracked 100 points and 7 teams were below 80. The range was from Ottawa with 64 points to Tampa in 1st with 128 points - a staggering 64 point difference / 100% variance.
2017-18 had 11 teams crack 100 points and 9 teams below 80. The Sabres finished last with 62 points and Nashville (??) won the President's Trophy with 117 points. 55 point spread.
Even in a simulation over a large sample size, a 21 point spread between the best and worst teams is probably too low, no?
Curious if you have any thoughts on the relatively strong parity in the results. surely the worst team will do worse than 80 points and more than three teams will crack 100 points?
Like, for example, in 2018-19, 9 teams cracked 100 points and 7 teams were below 80. The range was from Ottawa with 64 points to Tampa in 1st with 128 points - a staggering 64 point difference / 100% variance.
2017-18 had 11 teams crack 100 points and 9 teams below 80. The Sabres finished last with 62 points and Nashville (??) won the President's Trophy with 117 points. 55 point spread.
Even in a simulation over a large sample size, a 21 point spread between the best and worst teams is probably too low, no?
I don't think so. I think this is inevitable since I am simulating the season 1000+ times and taking an average. Even if a team finishes with 62 points, that doesn't necessarily mean that they would average 62 points if you ran the season 1,000 time. Most likely that represents a low water mark where if you somehow got to re-do the season they'd do a bit better. In real life we don't get to play the season 1,000 times. We play it once and we get what we get. I had some simulations where Colorado had 126 points, I had some where Buffalo had 56 points. Hell, I had a couple where Vancouver had 115 points. That's the thing. To hit 110+ points or to hit 60- points you need a lot of things to go right/wrong. In real life, that just happens sometimes but if you are replaying the season 1,000 times it's not going to happen every time and all I can really do is take the average and report it as the most likely outcome.
To some extent, there is also an effect where teams that start the season really badly sort of give up, sell players at the deadline, etc, and finish even lower than they might have if they try-harded it all year, and that's not something that I project.
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