It’s the time of year where every team is trying to decide whether or not they should make a run for the playoffs and the Stanley Cup or if they should start looking at potential trade partners for their veteran players. I thought it would be interesting to try and project the final standings based on statistics from the first part of the season.
I’ll spare you all the details but by using a regression based on data from the past 10 NHL seasons, I was able to find a formula that increases the predictability of the standings by about 20%. This formula of course includes a team’s points per game in the first four months of the season, but it also includes the team’s points per game from the past month as well as the goal differential from the past month.
With that said, here are the projected standings by conference:
|
GP
|
Pts
|
Proj. Pts
|
GP
|
Pts
|
Proj. Pts
|
||
|
NY Islanders
|
46
|
63
|
109
|
Anaheim
|
47
|
68
|
113
|
|
Montreal
|
45
|
61
|
106
|
St. Louis
|
46
|
62
|
111
|
|
NY Rangers
|
44
|
58
|
106
|
Nashville
|
45
|
65
|
111
|
|
Detroit
|
47
|
63
|
105
|
Chicago
|
47
|
62
|
104
|
|
Tampa Bay
|
48
|
64
|
105
|
Winnipeg
|
48
|
60
|
102
|
|
Pittsburgh
|
46
|
60
|
102
|
Vancouver
|
45
|
55
|
99
|
|
Washington
|
46
|
57
|
100
|
Calgary
|
47
|
53
|
93
|
|
Boston
|
48
|
57
|
97
|
San Jose
|
48
|
56
|
93
|
|
Florida
|
44
|
50
|
92
|
Dallas
|
46
|
49
|
92
|
|
Ottawa
|
46
|
47
|
87
|
Los Angeles
|
47
|
52
|
90
|
|
Toronto
|
48
|
47
|
82
|
Colorado
|
48
|
50
|
87
|
|
Columbus
|
45
|
43
|
81
|
Minnesota
|
46
|
46
|
84
|
|
Philadelphia
|
48
|
45
|
80
|
Arizona
|
46
|
37
|
69
|
|
New Jersey
|
47
|
42
|
80
|
Edmonton
|
47
|
33
|
68
|
|
Carolina
|
46
|
37
|
74
|
||||
|
Buffalo
|
47
|
31
|
59
|
It’s not a perfect science and things will certainly be different than what you see up here at the end of the season but it does give some interesting insight. The most interesting one is that despite the Los Angeles Kings being right being the Calgary Flames for the last playoff spot, they have been struggling of late while the Flames and Canucks have been playing well and are expected to move up the standings. They’re also expected to get some stiff competition from the Dallas Stars.