Playoff Projection Report

Introduction

The playoff probability reports will be generated on a daily basis until the end of the regular season. The probabilties are empirical estimates based on simulating the remainder of the season 1000 times. Although I am not going to give complete details at this time, the method has been tried and tested: it was used to win the TrueHoop Stat Geek Smackdown in both 2007 and 2008.

Sample Report

Rk Eastern Conference W L OL PTS Current Remain Best Worst Playoffs Division Top Seed Win Conf Win Cup
1 Boston Bruins 56.0 16.2 9.8 121.8 88 34 132 110 100.0% 100.0% 94.8% 43.7% 25.9%
2 Washington Capitals 51.9 23.1 7.0 110.8 79 32 124 98 100.0% 99.4% 4.3% 17.1% 7.1%
3 New Jersey Devils 50.7 26.0 5.3 106.7 75 32 119 92 100.0% 80.8% 0.9% 16.9% 7.4%
4 Philadelphia Flyers 44.6 25.6 11.8 101.0 69 32 115 85 98.6% 18.0% 9.8% 3.6%
5 Montreal Canadiens 43.1 29.3 9.6 95.9 67 29 109 76 93.5% 2.2% 0.8%
6 New York Rangers 42.5 30.8 8.7 93.8 68 26 107 79 88.0% 1.1% 1.8% 0.3%
7 Florida Panthers 41.6 29.7 10.7 93.9 66 28 109 81 87.5% 0.4% 3.5% 0.8%
8 Buffalo Sabres 42.7 30.8 8.5 93.9 64 30 107 74 87.5% 4.3% 0.9%
 
9 Pittsburgh Penguins 38.8 34.6 8.7 86.2 60 26 101 71 23.8% 0.1% 0.5% 0.1%
10 Carolina Hurricanes 38.7 35.4 7.9 85.3 61 24 101 73 17.6% 0.2% 0.2%
11 Ottawa Senators 34.0 36.0 12.1 80.0 53 27 94 65 3.2%
12 Toronto Maple Leafs 31.1 37.6 13.3 75.5 52 23 88 64 0.3%
13 Atlanta Thrashers 31.0 42.7 8.3 70.3 47 23 88 56
14 New York Islanders 25.2 47.1 9.6 60.1 40 20 72 46
15 Tampa Bay Lightning 29.0 38.6 14.4 72.3 49 23 85 58

Here is a description of each of the columns:

  • W, L, OL, and PTS are the average number of wins, losses, overtime losses, and points, respectively, that the team had in the 1000 simulations.
  • Current is the team's curent point total.
  • Remain is the team's projected point total the remainder of the season.
  • Best is the team's best point total in the 1000 iterations.
  • Worst is the team's worst point total in the 1000 iterations.
  • Playoffs is the percentage of times the team made the playoffs in the 1000 iterations.
  • Division is the percentage of times the team won their division in the 1000 iterations.
  • Top Seed is the percentage of times the team was the top seed in their conference in the 1000 iterations.
  • Win Conf is the percentage of times the team won the conference playoffs in the 1000 iterations.
  • Win Cup is the percentage of times the team won the Stanley Cup in the 1000 iterations.