Despite struggles against Chicago and Vancouver, San Jose has a good record against playoff teams

by psantangeli on Jan 20, 2012 12:00 PM PST in Statistical Analysis

As Sharks fans this year are very aware, the timing and layout of a teams schedule can make it quite difficult to compare one teams performance to another in any kind of complete way. Even coach McLellan had no idea he was up for the ASG coaching spot given the strange nature of this year's Sharks schedule.

But comparing teams based on regular season results poses additional problems. Quite apart from varying numbers of games played, the nature of the unbalanced NHL schedule dictates that all teams will not see the same competition. Teams in the Pacific Division have typically had hard slogging against good competition, while teams like Vancouver in the Northwest have been able to beat up on Edmonton, Colorado, and Calgary, each of whom have recently had years of weakness.

Come playoff time, this all gets sorted out. But what's the best way to compare the performance of teams while factoring out those differences before the playoffs?

Last year I started using a measure I've been calling Record against Strength. The idea is to look at only the record of the teams in the league against strong competition. Beating up on the Blue Jackets isn't the best measure of a teams strength. So how do we define strong? Easy - how did each team do against the teams that are would make it into the playoffs if they started tomorrow.

I thought that the half-way-point might be a good time to look at how this is shaping up.

I've been fortunate that a friend of mine runs TheHockeyPool.com (an excellent hockey pool management site). He has added the nightly calculation of these strength charts to his site. Here are Wednesday nights results comparing performance of teams against all 16 "playoff" teams, and they are interesting:

Best Western Conference Records vs. "Playoff Teams"

Team	GP	Points	PTS/GP	PTS/82 GP
Minnesota	20	25	1.25	102.5
San Jose	22	26	1.18	96.9
St. Louis	22	26	1.18	96.
Los Angeles	22	25	1.14	93.2
Detroit	22	25	1.14	93.2
Chicago	16	18	1.12	93.2
Nashville	16	18	1.12	92.2
Vancouver	25	28	1.12	91.8

And of course the data for the Eastern Conference:

Best Eastern Conference Records vs. "Playoff Teams"

Team	GP	Points	PTS/GP	PTS/82 GP
Boston	18	27	1.50	123.0
New York (R)	18	26	1.44	118.4
Philadelphia	18	22	1.22	100.2
New Jersey	20	22	1.10	90.2
Ottawa	21	23	1.10	89.8
Washington	23	24	1.04	85.6
Florida	21	20	0.95	78.1
Carolina	26	24	0.92	75.7

[Note]: Data does not include Thursday's games.

The 'Season points' column is the one to look at - it represents the average points per game versus strong competition, scaled out to an 82 game season for comparison purposes.

The west is very even. Despite their recent struggles, Minnesota has done well against strong teams so far this year. St. Louis being up at the top should also not be a surprise. What is most surprising is Los Angeles. Despite their early season slide, they have performed well against good teams. Vancouver has also been bit surprising, doing relatively poorly against strength. The Sharks are close to the top of the west.

What is really surprising to me though is how good Boston and New York are doing. So far, they have been in a class by themselves when it comes to playing tough games. If they keep this up, expect them to be tough in the playoffs.

Tweet Comment 20 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Thanks for posting these numbers. I’m always interested in how good teams play against other good teams when it comes to the playoffs. They way I look at it is this…. some good teams have a tendency to play down to their opponents and tend to struggle against the lesser teams. When April comes around, I’m always looking for the teams that can raise their game.

I have no idea if that’s true… it’s just the way I’ve always looked at it.

Still, the most surprising for me on that list are the Wild. I love the way they were playing at the beginning of the season (when everyone was healthy), but I had assumed that they were beating up on some of the Northwest Division….

View From My Seats
Sarcasm: God's gift to smart people...

by Matt Reitz on Jan 20, 2012 12:13 PM PST reply actions

Quick question...

Did you mean to put Carolina in the top 8 in the East? ‘Cus they’re dead last.

by milanahalek on Jan 20, 2012 12:13 PM PST reply actions

Or...

Maybe I misunderstood and these are the teams that perform best against the other top teams?

I’d be interested to see how the top 8 in each conference (based on pts %) are head to head.

by milanahalek on Jan 20, 2012 12:17 PM PST up reply actions

Carolina has the eighth best record in the East against top competition.

by Briceratops on Jan 20, 2012 12:36 PM PST up reply actions

Right. By this metric they are 8th. They’ve done relatively well against tough teams, and clearly have sucked against easy one.s

by psantangeli on Jan 20, 2012 12:18 PM PST reply actions

Nice Post

Here and here are a few examples of why I try to stay away from W% as the predicting variable of future success, although towards the end of the season it becomes more reliable. (There are a ton of articles in the SB Nation blogosphere about it) Similarly, It’s been extremely well documented that Minn is a terrible team, despite as you can see they have a “good” record against strength.

I just wrote a beware fan post about this exact topic, stressing how the sharks record against top talent should be taken with a grain of salt. It might be worth your time to look at it.

by SnarkSD on Jan 20, 2012 12:42 PM PST reply actions

Definitely more reliable as the season goes on. That’s why I only started looking at it again after the first half. In some ways its a better mechanism to cut through some of the hype. Boston is a great example. Hugely hyped as a monster this year, as of this morning, they have played the weakest schedule in the NHL (comparatively), with only 17 games versus ‘strong’ teams compared to as many as 28 by other teams. It’s only one of many stats, so it doesn’t answer everything, but it gives clues.

by psantangeli on Jan 20, 2012 1:24 PM PST up reply actions

Yea I agree

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to attack our article or anything =) I just love advanced stats too much not to say something.

Boston this year is a real interesting case. Their 8th in Fenwick% Road Close, with a monster PDO . A lot of people are beginning to believe it’s sustainable, mostly because of Thomas’ career save% numbers. One of the more difficult concepts I think to grasp is that although we do our best to use the most predictive stats, we are forced to generalize much of the game. BOS is no doubt much stronger than their FRC would suggest, just as Minn is much weaker than their W% would suggest.

by SnarkSD on Jan 20, 2012 1:37 PM PST up reply actions

Oh you know, we do good against good teams. Except the two we’ll likely face in the playoffs.

by besologic on Jan 20, 2012 1:19 PM PST reply actions

Also a fact to look at is that the Sharks haven’t really been totally blown out scorewise in the regular season. I remember there were some 7-2 losses to Chicago and Vancouver the last couple of years. This year we have only lost by more than 3 goals 3 times – once against the Rangers, once against the Coyotes (but we also blew them out Opening Night with our backup goaltender), and this latest one to Ottawa.

The bottom line is that the Sharks with Niemi in net can beat any team in the NHL on any given night. And Niemi has proven himself in the playoffs capable of stealing a series.

by berge7f9 on Jan 20, 2012 1:26 PM PST reply actions

Yep

And I think that the teams who get hot come playoff time stand the best chance to win it all. Great goaltending, good team health and unbelievable confidence can lift a lower seed to beat a top seeded team.

Before the season started, did anyone think the S.F. Giants would win the World Series two years ago? Or, could anyone have predicted that the 49 ers would be one game away from the Super Bowl before the season started?

I think if Niemi gets hot and the chemistry is right for the Sharks (with good team health), there is no reason why they cannot win it all. Look at our record last year at this time, and we righted the ship and made it all the way to the conference finals before injuries and perhaps a better team ended our run.

Or, look at the Dallas Mavericks who made the playoffs 10 straight times before they won it all.

Enjoy each game, root for your team to make the playoffs and hope for the best. You never know how the puck will bounce. Just ask Kevin Bieksa.

by douchebags on Jan 20, 2012 2:08 PM PST up reply actions

Well

I was kind of liking your post until that last sentence…now I wanna hit something.

by milanahalek on Jan 20, 2012 2:14 PM PST up reply actions

Sorry

LOL, I take it back. But remember, in the end justice was served as Boston won game 7 in Vancouver and we all got to rejoice in that!

by douchebags on Jan 20, 2012 2:16 PM PST up reply actions

Ya

That really didn’t make me feel any better at all about how that damn game ended!

by milanahalek on Jan 20, 2012 2:18 PM PST up reply actions

If I remember correctly

I wasn’t overly confident that we were going to win that series regardless. Thornton, Clowe and Heater were all banged up. But at least Vancouver didn’t win it. I take solice in that.

by douchebags on Jan 20, 2012 2:20 PM PST up reply actions

After game 4 in San Jose I knew the series was over but the way game 5 ended just doesn’t sit well with me…

by milanahalek on Jan 20, 2012 2:23 PM PST up reply actions

*should say didn’t sit well with me…I’ve somehow managed to get over it.

by milanahalek on Jan 20, 2012 2:25 PM PST up reply actions

Nor should it!

I hope our guys feel the same way as you do. That’s the type of fire in their collective belly that they will need to defeat their demons (or Canucks if you like).
We need Joe Thornton to stand up in the locker room this year in the playoffs when the Sharks are in imminent danger of losing a series and say, “Over”? “Was it over when the German’s bombed Pearl Harbor”!?

by douchebags on Jan 20, 2012 2:27 PM PST up reply actions

I take the long view on the Bieksa (Stanchion) goal. We were put in a position where a bad bounce would eliminate us. We lost that series after losing game 4 to go down 3-1.

Picklesnakebit since 2011.
@shampeon

by ievans on Jan 20, 2012 2:19 PM PST up reply actions