What is the most important game to win in a series outside of game 7? Which game would you want a guaranteed win in?

[Hockey2Hockey]

If you are down 3-2 and headed home, I feel like your odds of winning the series are better than being down 3-2 headed on the road.

 

[MessierII]

The next one

 

[Hockey2Hockey]

The next one

Reminds me of a favorite Tom Brady quote:

Tom what is your favorite ring?

A: the next one

But yeah most athletes probably think the way you do.

 

[Hockey2Hockey]

Are there examples for others where a team won game 1 and you knew it was over for the other team?

Buffalo coming back and winning 6-5 against Ottawa in 06 comes to mind. They tied it with 11 seconds left. Won it early in OT.

Detroit Colorado beating Florida in 96?

 

[bobholly39]

Dallas won game 1 in the WCF

LA won game 1 in the quarters

Leafs won game 1 vs Florida

In all three series, game 4 was the biggest tilt. In game 4, Oilers tied LA 2-2 after losing 2-0. Same for the Panthers vs the Leafs. In game 4 vs Dallas, Oilers took a commanding 3-1 lead instead of being tied.

Game 4? I'd say game 3 was the biggest tilt in those three series...certainly in these first 2:

LA vs Edmonton......LA up 2-0, Edmonton going nowhere....and they win game 3. Sure game 4 was important too, but game 3 was by far more key. If they had lost it, it's over.

Leafs vs Florida. Same idea - Leafs go up 2-0....if Florida doesn't win game 3, it's all over.

As for Dallas/Oilers. Well - going into game 3, it was tied 1-1....most people had Dallas as favorites, and still felt they were going to win....but Oilers won and took the lead and never looked back. You can probably make as strong an argument for Oiler's game 4 win versus game 3, but I still lean on game 3 being more important.

I'm surprise so many people are voting for game 4 to be honest. To me, games 3 and 5 ring as more important.

 

[Fatass]

The most important game to win in any playoff round is the last one.

 

[MiscBrah]

Interesting that the right answer is the least selected. 79% of teams that win game 5 win the series. Of course 100% of teams that win game 7 win the series, but not enough series get there to make it the correct answer.

The statistically correct answer is game 5.

Edit. Game 4 is a common answer but only 68% of teams that win the game go on to win the series. Obviously if it's a sweep it's pretty decisive but if not it is dramatically less predictive.

But the later you go, the more series will start to end. I wasn't thinking of strictly from who wins the series, but from how important the game is in the context of the series.

You're kind of doing what people do in the NFL when they say, "teams that rush for over 150 yards a game win 90% of the time" and then saying that "oh we should try to rush 150 yards a game and then we are almost guaranteed to win". When in reality, the good teams have big leads late in games and can afford to rush the ball to drain the clock. Reaching 150 yards isn't why they're winning; it's because they're good teams. Same thing here, you can't say, "oh it doesn't matter what happens as long as we win game #5 we have the best chance of winning the series", the teams are winning the series are winning more games overall because they are the better team in that series. That doesn't make game 5 the most important game, you've even noted how this logic falls apart for game 7 but brush it off as not having enough series make it there (and the question specifically excluded game 7, but that's beside the point).

 

[Kyle McMahon]

Do you know in advance if you have home ice advantage or not in this hypothetical series? If you know, you'd almost certainly want to use your magic bullet on a road game.

I wouldn't consider Game 6; there's a plausible chance you could be eliminated before it occurs and you'd be going home having never made use of your magic bullet. Same logic applies to Game 5, although sweeps are rare enough that you could probably chance it.

If I have home ice, I'm using it in Game 3. That will be when your opponent crowd will be loudest and the opponent themselves most energized from it, and they're going to be playing desperate if they're down 0-2. You deliver a near-fatal blow with the auto-win in that scenario. If you happen to be down 0-2, the auto-win suddenly turns momentum and plants the seed of doubt, turning Game 4 into a must-win for the opponent just as much as it is for you. At 1-1, the win instantly gets you back the home ice advantage that you squandered earlier and you can still make a short series of it.

If I'm the road team, I'm using it in Game 1. Puts the favourite on their back foot instantly, turning Game 2 into a critical pressure-test that they were perhaps not anticipating so early. Being behind in a series is a psychological disadvantage, and from the perspective of the favoured team, 1-1 isn't a great feeling either. By taking the first game on the road, you've ensured your team is feeling better about themselves than their opponent heading into Game 2, and quite possibly Game 3 as well.

It's tempting to use Game 5 based on the series win probability stats posted earlier, but very few of those eventual series wins would have been achieved by teams that were down 3-1 going in. I'd rather use the magic advantage earlier to best protect against falling behind 3-1 in the first place (or getting swept in rare occurrences).

 

[zenator]

It's game 4.

If the series is 3-0, game 3 is the most important game in that scenario; 2-1 and 3-0 have a huge difference.

The large majority of series are 2-1 at some point. There's a big difference between 3-1 and 2-2, which is why I picked game 4.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I would take Game 3.

Here are the scenarios:

A) You win won first two games. Winning Game 3 now virtually guarantees a series win.

B) You split the first two games.

B1) You started the series on the road. As the underdog, you now have a home win and a series lead. Two of the next three games are at home. The door is wide open for an upset series win.​

​

B2) You started the series at home. Winning Game 3 on the road crucially prevents the opponent from being able to exploit home ice to close out the series.​

C) You lost the first two games. Game 3 is the most important game of your entire season. Which not technically a must-win, it may as well be one.


I would rather have this game than Game 4, primarily because of Scenario C. Plenty of teams come back from down 2-0. Almost nobody comes back from down 3-0. While a Game 4 win might preserve your season from a variety of trailing scenarios, it would be better to not be in those scenarios in the first place.

​

 

[Goptor]

Game 6 because of the added implication that you did not get eliminated in game 4 or 5.

 

[Tripledeke333]

Interesting that the right answer is the least selected. 79% of teams that win game 5 win the series. Of course 100% of teams that win game 7 win the series, but not enough series get there to make it the correct answer.

The statistically correct answer is game 5.

Edit. Game 4 is a common answer but only 68% of teams that win the game go on to win the series. Obviously if it's a sweep it's pretty decisive but if not it is dramatically less predictive.

Someone posted that 82% that win game 4 win the series. are their stats wrong?

 

[HFBS]

The last one.

 

[TrKB PAM]

This shouldn't be too difficult to solve mathematically. Being guaranteed to win any game from one to seven would actually give a symmetrical advantage, assuming that we don't expect that the game is guaranteed to happen. Any series that goes to 7 you would've already won by swinging one game into your favour prior to the game 7. And if if was a game you'd have won even without the odds swinging into your favour, that would also apply equally likely to the game 7. In fact because advantage in earlier games makes the series shorter, you should prioritize winning games 1-4 more if you believe fatigue is a factor.

Now, if choosing to win a game actually somehow guarantees that game happens, this is not symmetrical anymore. The simplest way would be to calculate all the possibilities left in a situation.

Game 7: possibilities 3-3 series
win: 4-3

win series 100%

Game 6: possibilities
3-2 series
2-3 series
win: 50% 4-3 series
win: 50% 3-3 series (-->50% of these 4-3)

win series 75%

Someone with better time can do the manual calculations for the rest of the games, I have two actual math probability courses that I need to do in the summer. I'll probably think this post was bad by the time I'm done with those

 

[Cashville]

Read the first page of statistics-based answers and they're worth scanning. Anecdotally, Game 5 has always felt the biggest to me. 2-2 swinging to 3-2 with elimination on the horizon is a big momentum shift. 3-1 going to 3-2 suddenly instills fear of a collapse in the leading squad. Certainly open to debate.

For the Preds, winning Game 5 in the 2011 series vs Anaheim to eventually win their first playoff series ever was so big. Shea Weber with the pulled-goalie slapper with 20-30s left to go to OT, and Jared Smithson with the OT winner.

 

[Norris4Norris]

This is a math question with no right answer.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

Game 4? I'd say game 3 was the biggest tilt in those three series...certainly in these first 2:

LA vs Edmonton......LA up 2-0, Edmonton going nowhere....and they win game 3. Sure game 4 was important too, but game 3 was by far more key. If they had lost it, it's over.

Leafs vs Florida. Same idea - Leafs go up 2-0....if Florida doesn't win game 3, it's all over.

As for Dallas/Oilers. Well - going into game 3, it was tied 1-1....most people had Dallas as favorites, and still felt they were going to win....but Oilers won and took the lead and never looked back. You can probably make as strong an argument for Oiler's game 4 win versus game 3, but I still lean on game 3 being more important.

I'm surprise so many people are voting for game 4 to be honest. To me, games 3 and 5 ring as more important.

Because it's simply the one with the biggest gap (game 4) between winning and losing. At game 3, it's often 1-1 and whoever wins, takes a 2-1 lead. At game 4, the 2-1 can either become 2-2 or 3-1. 2-2 or 3-1 have series go in really opposite ways. It's either your 2-1 lead gets squashed and it's a new 2 of 3 where anything can happen. At 2-2, the momentum is definitely switched for the team tying it. At 3-1, you're almost assured to win the series. Both games 3 and 4 are important, but game 4 offers the biggest difference between winning the series or having to battle to 6 or 7 games.

 

[hamzarocks]

Game 7
Game 4
Game 5
Game 6
Game 3
Game 2
Game 1

In ranked order

 

[tarheelhockey]

Historically the team that wins game 4 has the best chance of winning the series.

Game 1 67.8% 526–250 Sets tone early; especially strong at home
Game 2 72.1% 528–204 Increases greatly if also won Game 1
Game 3 67.1% 500–245 First road game usually; pivotal momentum swing
Game 4 82.0% 555–122 Often leads to a 3–1 series lead
Game 5 78.8% 496–133 Critical when series is tied 2–2
Game 6 71.1% 393–160 Often the clincher or forces Game 7

So the answer is game 4, followed closely by game 5. They are the two most important by a large margin.

Helpful numbers to focus the discussion. One nuance to this which I think is important — the data about Game 4 includes sweeps, where the winner of Game 4 wins the series 100% of the time. But in this exercise, we have the ability to prevent a sweep by auto-winning game 1/2/3. So there’s a bit of an illusion in the Game 4 data.

On a different but related note, I do think we should be thinking about Games 5/6/7 in terms of being non-guaranteed. I mean yes, winning Game 6 is huge if we get there. But I would not take an auto-win in Game 6 if there were a possibility of losing in 5.

 

[BenningHurtsMySoul]

If I could choose any team for the Canucks to beat, it would be the Leafs

In Toronto. In a Game 7. After they blew a 3-1 series lead and a 3-0 lead in Game 7.

 

[FunkySeeFunkyDo]

Historically the team that wins game 4 has the best chance of winning the series.

Game 1 67.8% 526–250 Sets tone early; especially strong at home
Game 2 72.1% 528–204 Increases greatly if also won Game 1
Game 3 67.1% 500–245 First road game usually; pivotal momentum swing
Game 4 82.0% 555–122 Often leads to a 3–1 series lead
Game 5 78.8% 496–133 Critical when series is tied 2–2
Game 6 71.1% 393–160 Often the clincher or forces Game 7

So the answer is game 4, followed closely by game 5. They are the two most important by a large margin.

Shouldn’t the number of series for the first 4 games be the same?

I would have guessed game 2 or game 4 is the most important and that because of sweeps games 5,6 and 7 are less important than the first 4.

 

[Bank Shot]

Shouldn’t the number of series for the first 4 games be the same?

I would have guessed game 2 or game 4 is the most important and that because of sweeps games 5,6 and 7 are less important than the first 4.

Used to be best of 5s in the NHL playoffs. That might be the reason for the discrepancies.

I also used chatgpt so maybe it screwed up the math.

 

[Son of Nogatco]

The game…. of sportsmanship ,, and fair-play

 

[Dhockey16]

Mathematically it has to be game 1, right? It's the only game that guarantees a lead in the series.

 

[Silky Johnson]

Someone posted that 82% that win game 4 win the series. are their stats wrong?

The stat I saw was 68%.