The OTL Point Is Evil: The Final Chapter (of the 06-07 season) by tgirsch

Let’s have a final look at the 1-10 standings in each conference, shall we? Below the fold.

EAST:

Rk Team Wins Pts
1 * Buffalo 53 113
2 * New Jersey 49 107
3 * Atlanta 43 97
4 Ottawa 48 105
5 Pittsburgh 47 105
6 NY Rangers 42 94
7 Tampa Bay 44 93
8 NY Islanders 40 92
9 Toronto 40 91
10 Montreal 42 90

WEST:

Rk Team Wins Pts
1 * Detroit 50 113
2 * Anaheim 48 110
3 * Vancouver 49 105
4 Nashville 51 110
5 San Jose 51 107
6 Dallas 50 107
7 Minnesota 48 104
8 Calgary 43 96
9 Colorado 44 95
10 St. Louis 34 81

Notice how the wins aren’t really reflected in the standings? Let’s have a look at both lists, this time doing what pretty much every other real sport does and make wins the most important criterion in the standings:

EAST:

Rk Team Wins Pts
1 * Buffalo 53 113
2 * New Jersey 49 107
3 * Tampa Bay 44 93
4 Ottawa 48 105
5 Pittsburgh 47 105
6 * Atlanta 43 97
7 NY Rangers 42 94
8 Montreal 42 90
9 NY Islanders 40 92
10 Toronto 40 91

WEST:

Rk Team Wins Pts
1 * Nashville 51 110
2 * San Jose 51 107
3 * Vancouver 49 105
4 Detroit 50 113
5 Dallas 50 107
6 Anaheim 48 110
7 Minnesota 48 104
8 Colorado 44 95
9 Calgary 43 96
10 St. Louis 34 81

Note the changes in the East:

  • Montreal qualifies for the playoffs, and the Islanders do not. (Montreal has 42 wins against NYI’s 40.)
  • The Lightning win their division, and move up from the 7 spot to the 3 seed. (They have 44 wins against Atlanta’s 43.)
  • The Rangers slide from sixth to seventh. (The Thrashers have 43 wins against NYR’s 42.)

And in the West, things are even more dramatic:

  • The Predators and Sharks rightfully take over the 1 and 2 spots, thanks to their 51 wins.
  • The Red Wings drop from first overall to fourth, taking them from the “easiest” first-round series to the hardest.
  • The Stars move ahead of the Ducks, and move up to the fifth spot.
  • The Mighty Ducks drop from second all the way down to sixth, because of their low win total.
  • The Avalanche (44 wins) qualify for the eighth and final spot and the Flames (43 wins) do not.

As you can see, the playoff picture would be decidedly different if not for the stupid, evil, ugly, OTL point. And I say this knowing that without the OTL point, the Leafs would have been eliminated from contention several days earlier.

NOTE 1: In this case, I used points as the first tie-breaker, just for ease of calculation. But that’s not my preferred choice. The first tie-break ought to be head-to-head results, with division record as the second. Use fewest regulation losses as a third tie-breaker.

NOTE 2: I’ll spare you all the numbers, but Kevin and I worked out the math, and going to a three-point game actually makes this skew even worse. There’s no saving the OTL point, and as far as I can tell, no compelling reason to do so.

April 11th, 2007 in NHL, Sports

2 Comments

TedApril 11th, 2007

You did not explain how you ranked the teams.

tgirschApril 11th, 2007

I thought it was obvious from my wording: I ranked them in descending order of wins. The three division winners (in terms of most wins) from each conference are given the 1-3 spots, and everyone else below that is ranked in terms of wins, with points as a holdover tiebreaker to emulate using overtime losses as the other tiebreaker.