Colorado's Hot Start

by Hawerchuk on Oct 29, 2009 2:54 PM EDT Comment 11 comments

James Mirtle's post about the Colorado Avalanche's unexpectedly hot start got me wondering about historical precedents. Their numbers so far in regulation are impressive:

	W	L	T	WPCT	GF	GA	WPCT
COL	9	1	3	.808	43	26	.732

Since 1967-68, there have been 36 teams that have started the season with a winning percentage between .769 and .846, essentially one more win or one more loss than the Avs. The second WPCT is Colorado's pythagorean winning percentage, based on its goals for and goals against.

Here's how they finished the season - some numbers may not add up perfectly due to rounding:

	W	L	T	WPCT	Pts	GF	GA	WPCT
Start	9	2	2	.793	22	54	32	.743
Rest	34	21	13	.594	88	245	201	.599
Total	44	23	15	.626	110	299	233	.624

I've assumed that OT and SO performance is pure luck, and awarded 1.5 points per game that ends tied after regulation. Teams that have started hot have generally been pretty good - 110 points over a full season would be an amazing outcome for the Avalanche, a 41-point improvement over last season's disaster. Note that the GF and GA totals clearly reflect other eras in the history of hockey!

Now that's the average performance. What about the range of possible performances?

	W	L	T	WPCT	Pts
Average	44	23	15	.595	110
-1 stdev	36	29	17	.543	98
Worst	31	33	18	.488	89

We can be completely sure that the 2009-10 Colorado Avalanche are not the 1976 Montreal Canadiens, who went 58-11-11 and whose 9-2-2 start was actually worse than their record the rest of the way. So if we compare the Avalanche only to the teams whose record over the rest of the season was in the bottom half of our sample, what does their playoff performance look like?

Miss	1st Rd	2nd Rd	3rd Rd	Finals	Win Cup	Avg # Playoff GP
2	10	2	2	0	2	8.3

So even among the bottom half of this group, we still have some very good teams - the cup winners were the 1998 Red Wings and the 1983 Islanders, both of whom swept the finals. But 2/3 of our comparative group either missed the playoffs or didn't make it out of the first round.

If Colorado finishes with 98 points (the -1 standard deviation record shown above), 6th in the West, and makes a 1st-round playoff exit, their fans should be overjoyed. There's really very little precedent for a team starting the season this hot and not actually being very good - except the 2008-09 Avalanche was, by six losses, by far the worst team ever to have this hot a start to the next season.

As best I can tell, NHL futures have the Avalanche in the middle of a dogpile at around 90 points, just outside of the last playoff spot. In other words, the people who have money riding on this are giving Colorado 50/50 odds to be the worst team ever to have this good a start to the season.

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Having 22 points in the bank probably doesn’t hurt the Avs as far as their odds of making the playoffs.

That said, it is within the range of possiblity for the Avs percentages to plummet and for them to go 4-for-20 or something this season. The reasonable expecation is for them to have average luck on both sides of SH/SV% from here on out – under that assumption I have a hard time seeing them go more than 0.500 here on out, given that they’re getting outshot by wide margins and outchanced something like 46% to 54% over their first ten games.

by R O on Oct 29, 2009 5:07 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

It’s too bad we don’t really have game-by-game shooting data going back more than a few years. It would be good to see just how different this Colorado team is from the rest of the group. Those 1975-76 Canadiens outshot their opponents 35-28 on average.

by Hawerchuk on Oct 29, 2009 5:37 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

ugh

you are convinced they’ll plummet. we get it.

Beachie: Injuring hottie Avs players' almighty groins since 1996

by BeachNSnowGirl on Oct 30, 2009 1:53 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs

The biggest problem I have with assuming their PDO will be average from here on in is that I believe Craig Anderson is very good and will put up a very good EV Sv%. It’s the same my expectation for the Canucks is higher than 100. I know Javageek projected them to have 91 points before the season started and that was without any contributions from Duchene and O’Reilly as well as a big role for Peter Budaj. At the time I thought that was crazy but if he’s right this hot start should be more than enough to puch them over the playoff bubble.

Nonetheless, your overall point is correct. They’ve been very lucky in some of the games they’ve won (and been full value in others) and that will probably won’t happen all year. They also haven’t yet lost a game where they outchanced their opponents and you know that’s going to happen at least once or twice as well. I definitely don’t think they’re one of the best teams in the Conference, but my pre-season prediction of 14th in the Conference definitely looks to have been incorrect.

by Scott Reynolds on Oct 30, 2009 11:07 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Hey Scott, I agree with you, Anderson looks to be above average and PDO from here out will probably greater than 100.

I should have been clearer, what I meant by a reasonable expectation of “average luck” was more referring to the variations in the Avs percentages from average, not the average values themselves. On the shooting front, league average is probably a good first estimate of where they might end up, and on the save front Anderson would tail off from his Hasek-like performance. Which is not to say he is going to provide league average goaltending, the numbers say otherwise. But Hasek-level is probably not reasonable.

by R O on Oct 30, 2009 3:18 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I have a feeling

that the Avs will end up at the bottom end of the playoff bubble, with the stretch run differentiating. As amazing as going from last in the West to first in the league ~1/5 the way through is, I’d kindof prefer another shi++y season so we can properly restock and not end up being a perennial first round bust…

by wflan on Oct 30, 2009 12:36 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Thank you

for a statistical analysis void of opinion and that addresses the highs as well as the lows that the Avs could see. It is greatly appreciated! = )

Beachie: Injuring hottie Avs players' almighty groins since 1996

by BeachNSnowGirl on Oct 30, 2009 1:55 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

The odds of the Avalanche missing the playoffs after a start like this are pretty low, one would think, just given that the amount of points they already have in the bank will provide a good buffer against a cold streak later on.

There’s a pretty clear point here, though. The Avs are winning games while being consistently outshot and outchanced at even strength, which is something we just haven’t seen before. Odds are this is just plain old variance rearing its ugly head, and the Avs will come back down to earth sooner or later…….I mean, either that, or they’ve somehow found a formula for NHL success that no one in decades (and probably ever) has ever been able to replicate. Some realism is needed when looking at these numbers.

Still, if I was 10-1-2, I wouldn’t be complaining.

by HarryNeale'sGarden on Oct 30, 2009 2:15 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I think effort and goaltending are the X factors… Anderson is being amazing and the entire team is playing like they want it for at least half of every game, almost always for most of the game. Sacco has benched top and bottom talent alike when the effort isn’t there and it is working. Darcy frickin Tucker was putting in good time and scoring for god’s sake…

Another thing is the number of chances in front of the net and from the circles seem very low after watching a good number of the games. I think our D is less screening and blocking an more manipulating and clearing the slot.

Also, Anderson leads the league in goalie penalty minutes with backstorm, nabokov, and khabibulin. He’s doing his part on the ‘get the f out of my crease’ front…

by wflan on Oct 30, 2009 2:21 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Lots of love this year for Anderson, and with good reason, as his start has been spectacular. I wonder how well he can keep it up down the stretch, given that he’s being asked to shoulder a starter’s load for the first time, and will likely start more than twice as many games as he’s ever played in a single season. I really liked him in Florida last year, though.

Strangely, very little love/notice of Ryan Miller’s play thus far, even though he’s the runaway league leader in GAA and also first in SV%.

by HarryNeale'sGarden on Oct 30, 2009 2:27 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

well...

I’m not sure is .4% advantage over Anderson is a runaway lead, but after about a fifth of the season, the top goalies are fantastic.

Props to Bryzgalov and the Coyote’s SV/GAA… Around .93 I think…

by wflan on Oct 30, 2009 2:38 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

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