The Athletic has ranked their top 30 NHL teams... Leafs and Flames at the top

[Mobiandi]

I admire how the entire twitterlytics community has united to vaunt the Leafs to #1 all the time. Truly an impressive collective effort

 

[Mikeshane]

One of the reasons I have a hard time putting anyone above Colorado is I don't think their goaltending was that great last year. Usually when a team wins the cup they had very good goaltending and you think they probably won't get that again but with Colorado all they seem like they need is average goaltending.

 

[AcerComputer]

List looks good, not sure why everyone is complaining, other than BOS and MIN being too high.

 

[Rengorlex]

I admire how the entire twitterlytics community has united to vaunt the Leafs to #1 all the time. Truly an impressive collective effort

Jfresh has Leafs with 97 points. As always, these predictions are kinda all over the place. Dom's model seems to consistently be the best of them though. I think reading those articles would help, as Dom always makes clear that his model is far from perfect and he identifies where he thinks it may be over- or underrating a team or a player.

 

[jonlin]

How accurate are these rankings? I think it is hard to argue with the top 2.

Florida and Boston are absolutely too high. No way they should be higher than Tampa. I have Washington outta playoffs. I also would put Winnipeg and Columbus as borderline playoff-teams

 

[bossram]

I didn't word that part right. I didn't mean his model was primarily based on xGF%. It was meant as part of an example of a general statement about if a model was heavily influenced by one particular stat like xGF% and someone has doubts about how accurate it is due to the limitations of that stat, some analytics folks will just hand wave the criticism away as "no stat is perfect. It's better than the eye test".

I mean, yeah, sure. In that hypothetical scenario, I think the hand-waiving wouldn't suffice as a counter-argument.

That is not what we're talking about though. We're discussing Dom's model specifically.

Jfresh has Leafs with 97 points. As always, these predictions are kinda all over the place. Dom's model seems to consistently be the best of them though. I think reading those articles would help, as Dom always makes clear that his model is far from perfect and he identifies where he thinks it may be over- or underrating a team or a player.

Yep. In many of the areas/teams where Dom's model may seem "off", Dom typically addresses it in the actual article and has reasons why he personally doesn't agree with the model on occasion. People think it's some kind of "gotcha" though.

And again, as you said, his game prediction model is the best one publicly available.

 

[KCC]

If laughter is the best medicine then The Athletic is helping a lot of people with this drivel of an article.

 

[BlueBaron]

That seems like a big leap for the Leafs when they still have goalie and especially blue line deficiencies.

Seems like they've bought too much into the Flames offseason hype by my standards.

Panthers seem inexplicably high, but I guess not by a huge amount.

Aren't the Wild starting to feel dead cap crunch?

Especially blueline deficiencies? Been away from hockey a couple years? That cliches been dead awhile now. Look at our stats despite 26ish games with Ahl goalies and get back to me...

Certainly hard to swallow the Leafs as top two but if you are looking at President trophy candidates it's not a stretch.

Funny to watch though. How can a 115 point team be ranked so high?

 

[PAZ]

One of the reasons I have a hard time putting anyone above Colorado is I don't think their goaltending was that great last year. Usually when a team wins the cup they had very good goaltending and you think they probably won't get that again but with Colorado all they seem like they need is average goaltending.

Kuemper was below average in the playoffs. The Avs will most likely be a bit worse, but even if Georgiev can provide a .910 SV% that would be a huge upgrade.

I have no issue with these rankings as it's simply predicting the regular season, although I do think the Flames are overrated. Most likely a top 5-10 team, but a lot of uncertainty heading into the season.

 

[Turin]

I compiled a bunch of context-challenged stats into a math equation, wrote down what came out and am therefor a journalism

Glad I don’t pay for that shit

 

[muddywaters]

Flames core has been altered too much to know within reason where to be ranked yet...and even if everything does work out best case will be top 10 to 5 IMO ... GFG

 

[Chet Manley]

Kuemper was below average in the playoffs. The Avs will most likely be a bit worse, but even if Georgiev can provide a .910 SV% that would be a huge upgrade.

I have no issue with these rankings as it's simply predicting the regular season, although I do think the Flames are overrated. Most likely a top 5-10 team, but a lot of uncertainty heading into the season.

They lost some talent but a lot of that can be covered by their younger stars improving. Even Mackinnon is young enough for some growth. There is no logic in picking the Leafs and Flames ahead of them.

 

[GreenLine]

I guess these are regular season rankings? Otherwise I have a hard time believing anyone seriously thinks Tampa is 7th most likely to win the cup after they've been to the finals 3 years in a row.

 

[ToDavid]

I admire how the entire twitterlytics community has united to vaunt the Leafs to #1 all the time. Truly an impressive collective effort

Two major contributors have them barely scraping into the playoffs this year (ineffective math and jfresh).

 

[Hockey4Life18]

Leafs are #1 in the team rankings and Flames are #2.

2022-23 NHL team previews: Projections and ranking of every NHL team

Between Sept. 19 and Oct. 4, we’re previewing all 32 NHL teams in order of predicted regular-season finish, according to Dom’s model.

theathletic.com

Other noteworthy teams:
3. Colorado
4. Florida
5. Minnesota

10. Edmonton
18. Vancouver
21. Winnipeg
22. Ottawa
31. Montreal

How accurate are these rankings? I think it is hard to argue with the top 2.

Full list:

32. Arizona Coyotes
31. Montreal Canadiens
30. Chicago Blackhawks
29. Buffalo Sabres
28. Philadelphia Flyers
27. Columbus Blue Jackets
26. San Jose Sharks
25. Anaheim Ducks
24. Detroit Red Wings
23. Seattle Kraken
22. Ottawa Senators
21. Winnipeg Jets
20. New York Islanders
19. New Jersey Devils
18. Vancouver Canucks
17. St. Louis Blues
16. Los Angeles Kings
15. Vegas Golden Knights
14. New York Rangers
13. Dallas Stars
12. Washington Capitals
11. Nashville Predators
10. Edmonton Oilers
9. Pittsburgh Penguins
8. Carolina Hurricanes
7. Tampa Bay Lightning
6. Boston Bruins
5. Minnesota Wild
4. Florida Panthers
3. Colorado Avalanche
2. Calgary Flames
1. Toronto Maple Leafs

Plan the parade!!!!!

 

[123offtheglass]

Take it with a grain of salt; you'd expect a team built by Dubas to be at least a bit higher than they should be for a list based on this GSVA model.

Carolina & Tampa Bay are obviously too low, but it's decent for the most part & no team is that far from where they should be.

 

[loosemoose]

Pundits and eye test folks have been systematically wrong about the Bruins almost every season for the last 6-7 years (surely this is the year they miss the playoffs!) while analytics nerds have always been vindicated rating them highly. As long as Bergeron is there and McAvoy only misses ~20 games, they should be among the contenders.

 

[Captain97]

Yeah stuff like this is why I canceled my athletic subscription.

All the stuff I'd want to read are new takes I can't get elsewhere like stats based models and Dom's are always garbage.

Edit: checked Dom's LinkedIn his education is in Journalism from Ryerson, I now understand why all his stats work makes almost 0 sense.

 

[BB88]

It's not that I don't see Boston making a run for the Playoffs it's just that I don't see how they finish that high with those injuries. If anything it's going to be a late season push from them to squeak in and then maybe cause some damage

I believe they still have too many quality vets to survive the start.
But they can’t deal with anymore of injuries that’s for sure

 

[Golden_Jet]

...And?

Every model struggled because of the unusually bifurcated distribution last season. Despite that, Dom's model was still the best and still beat the sportsbooks.

Nothing I said was incorrect. I gave evidence that Dom's model was the best-performing one last season. It was.

LMAO, That not what it says at all, go back and read what I quoted, Doms in the middle of the list, he says it right in the part you quoted, Doms is not first, go look at article, his name is in the middle.
He says in quote sports book beet him, because he was in the middle.

Every model struggled and only one was able to beat the market, but it was still a bit disappointing to be closer to the middle than the top.

 

[bert]

Of course hahaha. Dom is an absolute joke. Damaging to that publication.

 

[Tufted Titmouse]

I admire how the entire twitterlytics community has united to vaunt the Leafs to #1 all the time. Truly an impressive collective effort

lol ok honey

let's just ignore the other popular models that have us trending down

 

[bert]

How the hell is Boston that high?

They beat the leafs that's the barometer. Not the teams that play Colorado and Tampa well. The leafs won the corsi/hype cup that trumps the Stanley Cup.

 

[Bank Shot]

This is categorically false. Dom’s model is clearly outperforming the general public - it’s outperforming the sportsbooks! And they have a very strong financial incentive to have accurate odds. In sports betting, a 3% edge on the house is massive and adds up to a lot of profit. If he’s 3% ahead, he’s doing very well.

If the average fan could predict games better than Dom’s model, every sportsbook would be broke.

Outperforming the sports books once does not make it the gospel.

And betting sites aren't set up to be accurate. They are setup to increase profit which is a different thing entirely.

 

[Golden_Jet]

...And?

Every model struggled because of the unusually bifurcated distribution last season. Despite that, Dom's model was still the best and still beat the sportsbooks.

Nothing I said was incorrect. I gave evidence that Dom's model was the best-performing one last season. It was.

Lol, didn’t read quote eh. He says right in article, wasn’t first, in the middle. See picture below. Says didn’t beat sports book was in middle.

This year it was only slightly above average according to tracking done by @HockeySkytte.
Every model struggled and only one was able to beat the market, but it was still a bit disappointing to be closer to the middle than the top.