What do you think about the random factor in hockey?

[GeeoffBrown]

To an extent, but an individual NFL game is MUCH less luck oriented than the NHL.

You (generally) in the NFL, march down the field. It requires sustained successful plays to put up points, rather than the binary outcome of goal/no goal in hockey where luck much more heavily plays in.

Mathematically, the results of an NFL season seem extremely random, since they play 1/4 of the games in the regular season and just 1 game per round in the playoffs.

For example, if your starting quarterback is injured for a month in the NFL, you're f***ed but you can live through a month-long injury to a star player in the NHL

 

[tyhee]

I don't think there is any question that the randomness of a hockey game is both under-rated by most fans and aids in the popularity of the game.

Just as a gambler playing poker knows he always has a chance and when he has a winning hand (a 5% draw on the river, for instance) he gets a jump allowing him to think he's actually a pretty good player, so a team beating a contender 3-1 (one empty net goal) after scoring an early 2 goals and being outshot and outchanced with the opponents hitting the post 4 times can have fans who actually say their team had a dominant performance and should get more respect. It seems incredible, but we see it often on these boards and in fan forums.

Not many people, especially fans of poorer teams, are going to watch a game between two uneven teams if they know the better team is going to win.

 

[castle]

I disagree. Every team has to put up with the "randomness" of the sport, and the best of 7 series each round basically ensures that you need to be the best team to win the series. Would anyone say that any cup champ was not the best team that year? There may have been better teams in the regular season, but they weren't better when it counted the most.

Yes. I would. Key injuries can doom a better team. Or just having a bad stretch, or poor coaching, or a goalie turning into shite. Boston was still the best team their presidents trophy year. They didn't have it going when it counted in that series, but if someone asked me which team was the best that year I'm not sure i could say Vegas. They were very good though.

 

[castle]

You're asking people who can't spell Bayesian analysis to tell you what they think about it?

Not sure I see the connection here.

 

[Fataldogg]

Randomness is entirely overblown in this sport. Theres more of it than in the other sports but to imply it plays a major factor in outcomes is absurd.

I mean, it can play a major role. You have teams eliminated from the playoffs because someone randomly throws a puck into the crowd and it's bounces off three asses and into the net. There is no other sport I know of where stuff like that happens.

However. I generally tend to think that the team that wins, is TYPICALLY the best team, not always, and good teams earn those absurd bounces.

Luck is a real thing though and there definitely is a fair amount of luck in hockey.

 

[Golden_Jet]

I mean, it can play a major role. You have teams eliminated from the playoffs because someone randomly throws a puck into the crowd and it's bounces off three asses and into the net. There is no other sport I know of where stuff like that happens.

lol sure ok

 

[Brookbank]

I'm a NBA-guy and I'm interested in your opinion. Does the random factor reduce the enjoyment of watching NHL for you? It often happens that the best team does not win the championship beacuse of the high randomness in this sport.

This is why imo North American pro sports championships are dumb.

You know who wins the title in the English Premier league ? The team with the most points at the end of the season. What a concept.

Playoff formats push the door wide open for randomness , luck and momentum to rule the results.

There's tons of Stanley cup finalists who wouldn't have a hope of winning a Presidents trophy. Which is the trophy for having the most points in the season.

Best of 7 series, and then doing it 4x, removes a lot of randomness on who will win a championship.

Total nonsense. 82 games a year takes out the randomness. Playoffs is built for randomness.

 

[castle]

This is why imo North American pro sports championships are dumb.

You know who wins the title in the English Premier league ? The team with the most points at the end of the season. What a concept.

Playoff formats push the door wide open for randomness , luck and momentum to rule the results.

There's tons of Stanley cup finalists who wouldn't have a hope of winning a Presidents trophy. Which is the trophy for having the most points in the season.


Total nonsense. 82 games a year takes out the randomness. Playoffs is built for randomness.

If there wasn't an element of randomness in the playoffs it wouldn't be as fun. There always a chance that things don't go the way that's expected. Theres always a chance your team could win, assuming they make the playoffs. I mean, Montreal won the cup in 86. They were not close to the best team that year.

 

[FlameChampion]

Wish it was more random.

Game management, business and money has changed it for the worse

 

[HockeyVirus]

Doesn’t reduce my enjoyment, just makes me view outcomes differently than “best team wins.” Not to throw shade, but I think the Blues are a good example of a team that just had the right hot streak, right bounces, etc. Habs weren’t even close to being the best during their recent run to the final. Just two examples, and individual regular season games can be even more random. The lower score (compared to basketball) and variability of a goalie’s night makes those lil bounces much more important.

This is how I feel about the Panthers. A lot of luck and reffing on their side. But that's the NHL for you, not much you can do. All counts the same

 

[Dr Jan Itor]

It's why all I really want from my team is to be a fun-to-watch playoff team. Get in and see what happens, but don't make me watch 82 games of dog shit beforehand.

 

[333359]

This is supposedly why soccer is the world's favorite sport. Any team can beat any other team based on luck. I like the luck factor in hockey in that it is enough that it mirrors my life, but not over-the-top like in soccer. I plan shit out in my life and then throw it at the net. Some deep planning ends up in the glove and some random shit I do ends up in the back of the goal, but overall over the course of a season my decisions shape the outcome.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Doesn’t reduce my enjoyment, just makes me view outcomes differently than “best team wins.”

Exactly. If you’ve watched a significant amount of hockey you know what you’re getting yourself into when you emotionally invest in a team. There’s a really good chance you watch them implode at the worst possible moment, or pull off the most unbelievable achievement you’ve ever seen.

Just the past few years I’ve been in the building at 2am when my team lost in the 4th overtime, and also glued to the TV when my team won with a Zamboni driver in net. Those experiences don’t have an equivalent in other sports… hell, it’s hard to even explain that stuff to fans of other sports.

 

[Minnesota Knudsens]

It’s what makes the game interesting. Hockey is a fast and continuous sport, and unlike a lot of other sports, it’s fairly tough to go “out of bounds”. Considering the speed, it’s actually played on a relatively small surface.

I wonder way more about the opposite. Why would anyone watch a sport in which everything is predictable? Why bother watching a 1 vs 8 playoff round in the NBA? Why watch some super team with an unlimited payroll destroy everyone on the way to another World Series?

I don’t think randomness is a huge problem in hockey. We mainly focus on it because the salary cap has created parity. Back in the 80s, the Oilers for example, didn’t seem that random. There was just no financial mechanism to break up a team like that.

 

[Ducati Boy]

Goals can be lucky, random, or accidental but if you look at the standings- the Atlantic for example- does it seem random that Tor, Fla, TB are at the top (and until this year, Boston)?

Randomness is many facets of life affects the micro-scale but not the bigger picture.

 

[ijuka]

I'm a NBA-guy and I'm interested in your opinion. Does the random factor reduce the enjoyment of watching NHL for you? It often happens that the best team does not win the championship beacuse of the high randomness in this sport.

It's not necessarily random, it's possible there are some hidden variables that aren't being tracked properly so it merely appears to be random. The statistics available like expected goals are pretty much trash. Bad data -> bad predictions.

 

[Bounces R Way]

"Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man."

 

[Caps8112]

Random factor is perspective

 

[bov]

Not a big believer in true randomness, if at all, but the NHL is fairly unique in that the champion always has to earn it the hard way. It's fair to say that the best team doesn't always win the Cup, but virtually all of the Cup winners are deserving champions because of the gauntlet they had to go through to achieve victory. If the best team does not win the championship in the NHL, I would not say it is "due to the high randomness in this sport."

 

[rumrokh]

The more factors we're able to grasp and account for, the less random it will seem. Our having a superior grasp of those factors in another sport doesn't mean the outcome is factually less random.

Also, I take issue with the idea that the Stanley Cup doesn't accurately determine the best team. Rather, since the goal is to win the Cup in the format described, the best team is the one that is best at winning the Cup. There is no other type of best because the Stanley Cup playoffs are not intended to produce a result we can confidently predict. I don't know why that's a desirable feature.

 

[MoneyManny]

If randomness has such a big effect on outcomes in Hockey then why didn't Buffalo ever just randomly made the playoffs?

 

[Lshap]

This is why imo North American pro sports championships are dumb.

You know who wins the title in the English Premier league ? The team with the most points at the end of the season. What a concept.

Playoff formats push the door wide open for randomness , luck and momentum to rule the results.

There's tons of Stanley cup finalists who wouldn't have a hope of winning a Presidents trophy. Which is the trophy for having the most points in the season.


Total nonsense. 82 games a year takes out the randomness. Playoffs is built for randomness.

Four playoff series is about 20-25 games. More than enough to eliminate the type of randomness people would describe as luck or fluke.

In fact, in some ways, the playoffs are LESS random than the regular season: Each playoff series has precisely equal schedules for both teams, plus there's no OT/SO randomness to muck up the results. Two teams battling it out in a best of 7, with no gimmicks, is hockey at its least random, where the best team really does win.

So why doesn't the President Trophy winner win the Cup? How does an underdog go on a playoff run? Why do we get these surprises every season? In hockey's case, I'd say it happens when you add parity to the normal variability of human performance. Yes, obviously there's SOME variability, otherwise sports wouldn't exist. But hockey, more than most sports, has little separating the best from the worst teams. Even less separation between teams good enough to make the playoffs. Add the extra pressure and the head-to-head nature of a playoff series, and regular season numbers often go out the window.

 

[wolfgaze]

beacuse of the high randomness in this sport.

 

[Reality Czech]

I'm a NBA-guy and I'm interested in your opinion. Does the random factor reduce the enjoyment of watching NHL for you? It often happens that the best team does not win the championship beacuse of the high randomness in this sport.

How do you determine who the "best team" is?

This is why imo North American pro sports championships are dumb.

You know who wins the title in the English Premier league ? The team with the most points at the end of the season. What a concept.

Playoff formats push the door wide open for randomness , luck and momentum to rule the results.

There's tons of Stanley cup finalists who wouldn't have a hope of winning a Presidents trophy. Which is the trophy for having the most points in the season.


Total nonsense. 82 games a year takes out the randomness. Playoffs is built for randomness.

Yeah let's just end the season early and get rid of the most exciting part. Great idea.

Imagine a car race. You don't give the trophy to the car that led the most laps, you give it to whoever crosses the finish line first.

 

[Brookbank]

This is supposedly why soccer is the world's favorite sport. Any team can beat any other team based on luck. I like the luck factor in hockey in that it is enough that it mirrors my life, but not over-the-top like in soccer. I plan shit out in my life and then throw it at the net. Some deep planning ends up in the glove and some random shit I do ends up in the back of the goal, but overall over the course of a season my decisions shape the outcome.

Soccer doesn't have playoffs. The best team over the season is the champion

Four playoff series is about 20-25 games. More than enough to eliminate the type of randomness people would describe as luck or fluke.

Then how does the 2006 Oilers have as many cup appearances as the Mcdavid Oilers.

Do you know how good the Wings Sharks and Ducks were in 2006? Do you really think the 2006 Oilers were the better team ? Not a chance