B's chance of winning the cup

by Toe Nash on Mar 4, 2009 4:39 PM EST

Tom Awad over at the newly-launched Puck Prospectus wrote an interesting article giving his Power Rankings for each team in the NHL. Included was his projected chance for each team of both making the playoffs and winning the Cup.

Here's a link to the article:
http://www.puckprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=21

As you can see, the B's have a 24% chance of winning the whole thing, according to these rankings.

Given there are 4 rounds of the playoffs and many of the teams are reasonably strong, I found this number to be high. By a quick calculation, that would mean the Bruins had a 70% chance of winning each round! So I e-mailed Tom to ask about his methodology. Here was the relevant portion of his response:

As for the "Chance to win the Cup", it's a Monte Carlo
simulation, as you correctly guessed. I agree, 24%
for Boston sounds a bit high intuitively, but it comes
mostly from playing in a weak conference. Specifically,
the odds for the Bruins to win each round were:

79.0% 74.9% 69.9% 58.9%

So, according to this, the Bruins are the overwhelming favorites to beat the #8 seed (Buffalo / Carolina / Pittsburgh / NYR) and win the next round as well (re-seeding probably helps in this prediction). Now, I'm more of a baseball fan than a hockey fan, but I know that statistics have shown in baseball that the odds in a short series are rarely that much in favor of one team regardless of their respective ability.

Now I'm not picking on Tom at all, as this is a very worthy topic of discussion, but I think his odds are too high. Here are my questions for you:

-Is there something inherent in hockey that would make a top team that much more likely to win a 7-game series than in baseball (even against a #20 or so-ranked team)?
-Where would you put the B's chance at winning the Cup? Reaching the Final?
-By how much did they help themselves with the recent additions?

Many FanPosts are written by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Stanley Cup of Chowder, SB Nation, their sponsors, or business partners.

Tweet Comment 8 comments | 1 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

To answer my own question, I subjectively can’t give them more than a 60% chance to win any round, and would put them about 50-50 against either the Sharks / Red Wings or the Caps / Devils. So I’d say 60% * 60% * 52% (including the chance the Caps / Devils are upset) * 52% (including the chance the Wings / Sharks are upset) = 9.7% chance of the Bruins winning the Cup.

by Toe Nash on Mar 4, 2009 4:42 PM EST reply actions

50% chance of Boston beating San Jose or Detroit is pretty optimistic.

Pension Plan Puppets*
* Blog contains less than 2% puppet content by weight.

by Chemmy on Mar 4, 2009 5:16 PM EST up reply actions

Im optimistic thats theres a 100% chance that I will be getting really drunk a lot this postseason, and 50% chance of the bruins beating San Jose or Detriot is optimistic, if your a San Jose or Detroit fan cuz its Bostons decade! The Cup is the missing link and the Bruins are gonna shit on anyone that gets in there way!!!

by austinbrooks3210 on Mar 5, 2009 1:05 PM EST reply actions

Yeah…eat that, Wings fans…

by Toe Nash on Mar 5, 2009 1:11 PM EST up reply actions

-Is there something inherent in hockey that would make a top team that much more likely to win a 7-game series than in baseball (even against a #20 or so-ranked team)?

I’m not a baseball nut, but the first thing that came to mind was the dependence on X number of starting pitchers (and relievers) in a baseball series vs. goalies in hockey. Not that goalies and pitchers are exactly analogous, but I would think that single goalies’ performance over time would be more consistent than what you’d get out of X number of pitchers.

That said, I agree the odds sound too high.

Lighthouse Hockey: SBN's New York Islanders blog with hip issues.

by Dominik on Mar 6, 2009 8:12 PM EST reply actions

This seems fair. But, I’d think “replacement level” with goalies would be a lot better than the same with pitchers…thus making the difference between the best goalie in the league and the worst goalie with a starting job not as big as the best pitcher in the league and the worst (well, the worst #4 pitcher on a playoff team). Which might negate that advantage somewhat? Also, how important to the outcome of a single game is a goalie’s performance? More or less important than a starting pitcher?

by Toe Nash on Mar 10, 2009 10:30 AM EDT up reply actions

I would say that starting pitching plays a bigger role. Just look at the lines for MLB games. The odds can be complete different between two teams from one day to the next based solely on the pitching matchup that night.

by Stanley Cup of Chowder on Mar 10, 2009 10:58 AM EDT up reply actions