Week 13 in complete. 

Congrats to Steel and the Kingfishers for cracking the 200 point barrier. With so many exciting matchups this week the playoff outlook looks the same. I will make sure that I go through all of the tiebreakers when determining the final seeding. 

With their win this week the Chevaliers clinch the Eastern Conference Title and the Canadian Shield. They own the tiebreaker with Halifax. Next for the Chevs is the Gritty Cup which they can win with a win OR a loss by Portland. 

The Sawblades can win the Adams Cup by winning a game OR Boston loses one game. If this week Portland loses and Boston wins then it comes down to a winner take all in the last week of the season when they face each other. 

Halifax joins the playoff field officially. There are few teams that are pretty close but will most likely clinch next week.

Because there are never enough spreadsheets, I quantified luck! I basically found how often a team won a game while scoring less than the league's median that week (meaning they got an opponent that was going to be easier to beat that week), then found their average score against (the lower the number, the easier it is to win), ran this formula to determine a team's "luck number":

(Wins - Weeks above Median) + (League AVG points against / Team AVG points against)

The higher the number, the luckier the team is. I could also possibly add in strength of schedule, but I think this will do for now. Here are the results! (And also here's the spreadsheet if you want to see it yourself)

The luckiest team so far: Quebec. Quebec has been gifted three wins against sub-par opponents and has an average points against score of an absurd 85.8. Of course, scoring an average of 106.2 points a game helps, creating a difference of 20.3 points per game. This gives the Owls a luck number of 3.232.

So who's the unluckiest team? While many of you may suspect the Arrows, it's actually the Loons. Minnesota should have 3 more wins than they do (so should Winnipeg, actually) and they've also had to face a brutal average of 113.6 points a game, good for third-most in the league (only Toronto and Charlotte are higher). This is what pushes them over Winnipeg with a -3.069 luck number.

In sheer coincidence, Denver happens to be the most luck-neutral team. The Bighorns are closest to a luck number of 0 (0.003), an average points/points against difference 0 (3.57), and are very close to both the average points for and against. In a very close second is Calgary, with a luck number of -0.007. Denver, Calgary, San Francisco, Toronto, and Montreal are all the teams with the "correct" number of wins according to my methods. Interestingly, Portland should actually be 13-0, but some very bad luck has given them 2 losses in real life.

These methods aren't perfect, but it is interesting to see nonetheless. Just something to talk about while the season wraps up.

Full results:
1. Quebec (3.231563642)
2. Vancouver (3.053400457)
3. New York (2.992456161)
4. Los Angeles (2.172202317)
5. Chicago (1.948278506)
6. Seattle (0.979230014)
7. San Francisco (0.016087817)
8. Denver (0.003326437)
9. Calgary (-0.006826486769)
10. Montreal (-0.05873711772)
11. Toronto (-0.0811451414)
12. Halifax (-0.983160249)
13. Philadelphia (-.9944708704)
14. Portland (-1.966020351)
15. Boston (-2.017900396)
16. Charlotte (-2.074585429)
17. Winnipeg (-3.043536436)
18. Minnesota (-3.069257227)

(Shout out to IDM for helping me make this accurate!)

Edit: Changed it so that 0 is the average for easier interpretation.

Last edited by QCS (4/12/2021 4:55 pm)

IMPORTANT ALTHL UPDATE:

Due to the fluidity of this year's NHL season we are going to have to adjust our schedule. I was lucky that I caught this today. The Fantrax adjustment of our schedule seems to have chopped down our playoffs and expanded our regular season. I sincerely apologize for not catching this sooner. Luckily this won't be something that happens again as we'll be back to a normal schedule for Season 2. 

Therefore in order to have a fair and complete three-round playoff tournament we have decided to make the following adjustments. 

The regular season will end after this week (Week 14). The top 8 teams will qualify for the playoffs. The top three seeds will be our division winners. Here is how this change will impact the playoff races:

The following teams have clinched playoff spots. Their seeding is still left to be determined. 

1. Montreal
2. Portland
3. Halifax
4. Boston
5. Quebec

The following teams are still in playoff contention:

6. Calgary
7. Winnipeg (Central Division leader)
8. Los Angeles
9. Denver

A reminder, the tiebreakers are as follows:
1.) Head to Head 
2.) Points For

From the looks of it, Calgary and Winnipeg are relatively safe due to their healthy 'Points For' lead over Los Angeles and Denver. That means that this final week we will really be watching the Denver Bighorns and the Los Angeles Titans to see who gets in.

Some scenarios to watch out for...

Week 14 matchups:
Seattle at Denver
Los Angeles at Halifax

1.) If LA wins they are in. 
2.) If Denver loses they are out. 
3.) If LA loses and Denver wins - Denver is in (due to their Week 3 win over LA). 

The playoff seedings will be determined after the results of this week. Once again I really apologize for this shake up at the end of the season. Luckily we are really just moving the drama of next week to this week. If anyone has any questions please PM me and I'll give you the answers. 

Thank you for all being understanding. Good luck to everyone this week! 




 

I like your system QCS. Don’t agree or disagree, it is just fascinating to me. Portland has been called one of the luckiest teams before and your system has them on the opposite end of that argument. Statistics can be so strange sometimes. That also makes the two losses hurt even more. (Let me remind everyone that the one against LA was a 2.6 difference, while the gut punch against Montreal was decided by .1 point.)

Also, does that mean I get the Adams?

Last edited by Thehealthiestscratch (4/12/2021 3:43 pm)

Glad to know that luck gave me a playoff spot. Haha Phil Kessel go munch munch