Playoff performance: does peaking at the right time really matter?

[jalapenoWithAnH]

So according to a stat made by username chabooty21 on reddit this how the last 10 Stanley Cup champions played in their last 10 regular season games in relation to earlier season.

The stat is based on change in points% from the first 72 games to the last 10 games. As you can see the most likely Stanley Cup winners come from the "cold" -tier. I'm not sure why this is but I thought it might be interesting to check out which teams fall in which categories this season. Here's the result:

Hot

• Toronto: 62% --> 90%
• Montreal: 52% --> 80%
• LA Kings: 61% --> 80%
• St. Louis: 56% --> 75%
• Ottawa: 57% --> 70%

Even

• Winnipeg : 70% --> 70%
• Vegas: 66% --> 70%
• Edmonton: 65 --> 70%
• Tampa: 61% --> 65%
• Minnesota: 59% --> 60%
• New Jersey Devils: 56 --> 50%

Cold

• Florida: 63% --> 35%
• Carolina: 63% --> 35%
• Dallas: 68% --> 40%
• Washington: 64% --> 40%
• Colorado: 63% --> 55%

So coldest teams are Floridsa, Carolina and Dallas each having -28 percentile change in their performance.

The second most likely group to have a SC winner comes from the hot-tier. The hottest teams are Montreal and Toronto both having +28 percentile change in their performance.

 

[Video Nasty]

Hot. Even. Cold. The Leafs unravel all the same.

 

[BB79]

So clearly, making the playoffs is the only thing holding us back from a San Jose-Buffalo SCF

 

[hamzarocks]

I think you have to contextualize the cold teams

For example flordia had injuries and in playoffs will have Ekblad, Tkachuk, Marchand, Jones etc all playing together which could be big factor for them

For the stars if Heiskinen comes back R1 + Seguin plays good early playoffs thats 2 huge adds they didnt really have for the cold period

 

[tabness]

chabooty21 on reddit???

 

[Master P]

Thank god we got shutout in our last game.

 

[Grifter3511]

Im sure a good part of it is that the top teams have been resting players and coasting down the stretch and are therefore 'cold' going into the playoffs but are still the top seeds and most likely to win it all.

Conversely, hot teams are probably lower seeds who have been fighting for their playoff lives the last 10 games of the season. They may be on a bit of a roll going into the playoffs, but they're still lesser teams and more likely to lose.

 

[Stealth1616]

I would think this is not relevant at all. Between resting players and the increased level of play in the playoffs, this means nothing.

 

[RussianBum86]

I think it all depends on the players on the team. I mean look at the leafs they can have the best team in league on paper, they can be underdogs as the 8th seed, or they can be a middle of the pack playoff team and they will always fall short of winning the cup. Then look at the lightning #1 seed loses to Columbus. Won the first lord stanley as the top seed for the east in 04 season. The years they won back to back cups they were near the top. Personally I think it is more about player and team matchups and the mentality of the players if they are willing to sacrifice anything to win or not.

 

[Coffee]

delete

 

[Miro4Norris]

I think teams coming in hot are likely to win but i wouldnt have used just last 10 games as a sample. Maybe last 25 games or so, last games are meaningless to many teams and they rest players

 

[Spurgeon]

Too many confounding variables for this analysis to be useful.

 

[NVious]

What about teams going in kawaii xD?

 

[ItWasJustified]

does peaking at the right time really matter?

Yes. Peaking at the right time (during the playoffs) matters greatly. Peaking at the wrong time (before the playoffs) doesn't matter at all.

 

[Kojo]

Too many confounding variables for this analysis to be useful.

It's a useless stat. Not sure why someone would make a thread about it.

 

[ozzie]

Useless stat, but I think teams who have been pushing and fighting too long are more prone to dropping off. Chasing a playoff sport or top seed or president trophy. Can take it's toll.

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

Ya man, I get all my insight from Chabooty21. I rate his analysis a Z+ on my armadillo scale.

The f*** are we doing here?

 

[acor]

Peaking at right time matters.
But you have to peak during playoffs, not just before them.

 

[jalapenoWithAnH]

Useless stat, but I think teams who have been pushing and fighting too long are more prone to dropping off. Chasing a playoff sport or top seed or president trophy. Can take it's toll.

It's a useless stat. Not sure why someone would make a thread about it.

I would think this is not relevant at all. Between resting players and the increased level of play in the playoffs, this means nothing.

Clearly the stat tells us something that is against intuition: teams that suck before playoffs actually fair pretty good during the playoffs. Now whether or not that is because the teams rested their best players and went cold because of that is something that this stat does not reveal but it's interesting nonetheless.

At the very least it tells us this: it's actually possible to just flip a switch on at the start of playoffs and start playing a different game than you played at the end of regular season.

I don't know why this is so hard to grasp. Maybe you havent been following the discussion surrounding the end of regular season all that much. Lot of doomer Dallas fans out there right now saying you just can't flip the playoff hockey switch on for one game. Even their coach Peter De Boer said that. So maybe those people have gotten something wrong.

 

[Perfect_Drug]

Some teams just seem to matchup 'better'.

Hellebyuck is the best goalie in the world. But last year MacK/Makar solved him and the Jets system, so the Avs were able to absolutely slaughter him.

That said, the Jets might have beaten Vegas or Dallas, or the Canucks. The Avalanche were a nightmare for their system.

I think the Kings might have been able to beat any team in the west last year who didn't have McD/MacK. Their 1-3-1 is an absolute slog for any team that doesn't have that high end speed to beat that trap. Literally the only 2 teams that carried their kryptonite.

 

[KaraLupin]

No. Teams either have enough guys to drag the whole locker room into the next gear when the post season starts, or they don't.

 

[Power Surge]

It's a useless stat. Not sure why someone would make a thread about it.

Put the thread on ignore then, you don't have to comment on everything you dont like.

 

[landy]

Speaking for my series, Dallas went in cold af chasing the Jets and losing. The Avalanche went in cold because they rested their players and punted on individual accolades to be as healthy as possible. Big difference there.