The World's Worst Sports Blog

NHL Luck and Playoffs through February 1 February 1, 2016

Following the technically brilliant performance of John Scott in last night’s All-Star Game,¹ the NHL is slightly past its midway point in the season. Most teams have played 49 of their 82 games, and while the Buffalo Sabres haven’t been mathematically eliminated yet, winning every game for the remainder of the season would only get them as many points as last year’s third-place finisher in the Eastern conference.

In other words, it’s spring.

Currently, the Eastern Conference would send Florida, Tampa Bay, and Detroit automatically to the playoffs from the Atlantic division, along with Washington and both New York teams. The wild cards would be Boston and New Jersey, with the latter at 52 points. The Sabres have 44.

The Western Conference would send Chicago, Dallas, and St. Louis from the Central and Los Angeles, San Jose, and Arizona automatically from the Pacific. Both wild card slots would come from the Central, going to Nashville with 56 and Colorado with 57. Minnesota (55) would be edged out, though they’d have made the playoffs instead of Arizona under last year’s system.

That’s a pisser for the Wild, who are actually playing about 3.3 wins below expectation; in other words, for their goals for and goals against, we’d expect about 26.3 wins, but they only have 23. Arizona, meanwhile, is at 24 wins, but “should” have only about 21.7. Though Minnesota can overtake Nashville or Colorado relatively easily, it looks like the more competitive Central division is going to lead to someone being excluded from the playoffs who would have made it under last year’s system.

Luck numbers through the All-Star Break follow.

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¹Since I will never be able to type that phrase again, I figured I’d use it while I could.