In a recent post, I outlined some of the information I found about best-of-seven Stanley Cup Playoff series from 1942-2014, and which of the seven games have statistically been the most important. I suggested some alternative formats, which would actually allow teams with home ice advantage to host more games in a series than their […]

I was dead wrong. I had an idea for a study and went into it with a concrete, seemingly well reasoned hypothesis. It could not have been further from the truth. To summarize: my father always had spouted the idea that the even-numbered games in a playoff series were the most important, and through years […]

The heartbeat of the playoffs is the beautiful creation called the 7-Game Series. We take it for granted, at times, but the genius of it is everlasting; it provides a rhythm, a consistency, to the madness of the postseason. Since the dawn of the Original 6 era in 1942, there have been 614 completed 7-Game Series […]

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are nearly impossible to predict. And as we know, recent Presidents’ Trophy winners have struggled to win the more important team trophy; only two of the previous 10 Presidents’ Trophy winners have also won the Stanley Cup. Anything can happen in a best-of-seven series, including the lesser team prevailing. Even juggernaut regular season […]

By and large, NHL general managers seem to undervalue third and fourth liners in July. So many good ones go unsigned well into free agency. To wit, Daniel Winnik, whom both numbers people and non-numbers people agree is a good player, wasn’t signed until July 28th. And he just fetched second and fourth round draft […]