Daily Update March 31

Back into the (minor) winning ways with a bit of shootout luck.
Can Winnipeg duplicate their unlikely win in Anaheim from earlier this season? The model thinks perhaps they can, and 0.35 odds are lovely too. Florida given at the same level is also great value, as would be the case for any team playing Brodeur, who, after years and years of being good enough to single-handedly win games, is now bad enough to single-handedly lose them. Risky today but not crazy.

Playoff Chances

Still six spots. The really bizarre thing about this particular bunch of teams fighting (effectively) for three or four spots is that they don't play against one another nearly as much as you might thing -- maybe a third of the remaining games are internal to this bunch.
Three spots; no movement. Minnesota still in the driver's seat, but I wouldn't be too sure; if they beat Winnipeg and Nashville (plausible) but lose to all of Los Angeles, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Boston, and St Louis (OOF, also plausible) then the chance that they fall out is pretty non-trivial.

Points after elimination

Team	Points	Games
Buffalo	3	6
Edmonton	2	2
Florida	0	1
Calgary	0	1

Islanders should drop out fairly soon, after that it'll be pretty much down to the wire for almost every other club.

Daily Update March 30

Back in the winning! Mostly by betting on Dallas and against Toronto. I had the misfortune to watch the end of the Boston Washington game, which was the manhandling anybody could have expected. The announcers were whipping themselves into hysterics at every chance in a kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy about how Washington were poised to win, as they were scored on repeatedly, took many penalties, and generally were bad. I've never seen a game be less in spirit like what the announcers were saying.
Even odds for Chicago against anybody outside of LAK/SJS is pretty close to free money, and Boston is a lot better than Philadelphia, just like the Rangers are a lot better than the Oilers. Calgary are good value at 0.44; nothing out of the ordinary today at all.

Playoff Chances

Still six spots here. Wings and Bluejackets the overwhelming favourites now for the wildcard spots, solidified a little with wins. Sens have moved past the Leafs in the "hunt", and may well be putting together a nice drive to 9th. The jackets loss/win in the two previous days gives you a rough idea of how much each game is worth now -- about 10% in the odds. Both Colorado and Chicago clinched last night, so this is down to three spots. Losing to Minnesota while Dallas won is pretty much the nightmare scenario for Phoenix, and you see it in black and white.

Points after elimination

Team	Points	Games
Buffalo	3	6
Edmonton	2	2
Florida	0	1
Calgary	0	0

Buffalo retake the lead with a loser point! This "race" is not for the fleet-of-foot. The Flames are, in fact, eliminated -- in the best case scenario, they win out with 8 ROWs, and Dallas beats Phoenix on closing night *in a shootout*, and both Dallas and Phoenix lose all of their remaining games in regulation. That would create a three-way tie on 85 points for the final spot, Calgary and Dallas will both have 33 ROWs to Phoenix's 30; then you'd look at the head-to-head record between Calgary and Dallas which is two wins for Dallas and one for Calgary; the first Dallas win doesn't count because they had two home games and Calgary doesn't, so the first Dallas home game is thrown out, that leaves a regulation win for Dallas and shootout win for Calgary, so Dallas takes the tie. Whew.

Daily Update March 29

Hard to be sad about model losses when the Sens knocked off Chicago and the Leafs lost in regulation again.
Dallas given at 0.35 is delicious, as is Florida at 0.41 at home to a not-totally solid Montreal. Also, pick-em odds on Detroit @ Toronto is bizarre, although Detroit is badly hurt. Everything else looks pretty standard.

Playoff Chances

Pittsburgh clinched with a win yesterday, so this is down to five spots. The leafs continue to slide hard; they lost their seventh straight (all in regulation), although they put up a rare possession win. Capitals get a surprisingly large boost considering that they didn't play.

Points after elimination

Team	Points	Games
Edmonton	2	2
Buffalo	2	5
Florida	0	1

Daily Update March 28

So the model's long winning streak comes to an end, and I blame the 26-shooter shootout between the islanders and lightning. Colorado winning in overtime also didn't help; but on the whole I still feel good about the night.
All pretty small tonight, and mostly poor teams to boot.

Playoff Chances

Painful loss for the Red Wings but gives a noticeable tick for the Leafs and Caps. One point for NJ is just treading water. Minnesota lose again and the Coyotes win gives a picture of two teams heading in opposite directions. Either team, you would have to think, is just chum for San Jose or St Louis.

Points after elimination

Team	Points	Games
Buffalo	2	5
Edmonton	0	1
Florida	0	1

Florida and Buffalo both lost; that makes eliminated teams a combined 1-0-6.

Daily Update March 27

Even more winning is delicious. This run is tremendous and I assure you I changed nothing in the model. Chance is a strange thing. Good value on the Kings again, pretty much every game; playing at Pittsburgh. Vancouver at Colorado is the same story: good possession teams with low shooting recent shooting percentages plays at a goodish team with recent PDO surge. That's the model's bread and butter and if both of those come home I shall feel very good indeed. Islanders is simply tremendous odds; after that, small beer.

Playoff Chances

Almost no movement at all in the east, and just a jot in the west -- a little uptick for the Canucks and a small drop for Minnesota.

Points after elimination

Team	Points	Games
Buffalo	2	4
Edmonton	0	1
Florida	0	0

Pittsburgh clinches tonight with a point. Flames will be on the brink if Phoenix wins.

Daily Update March 26

It is a lot easier to like Luongo when he isn't making many, many ludicrous saves against Ottawa, including in the shootout. Sigh. (Spellcheck doesn't like "Luongo". Did you mean "Gluon"? Or perhaps you meant "Mongol"? "Longbow"?) Also, the maple leafs lost their sixth in a row, at home to St Louis who utterly, utterly dominated them -- 72% of the puck! However, the winning continues apace for the model; 57 smugs is one of the best days all year.

Playoff Chances

From now until the end of the season, I'll be including every team which hasn't clinched or been eliminated. (Isn't it strange, verbally, how one clinches oneself but one is eliminated by others? As if that were remotely true.)

East

Seven spots; Pittsburgh will clinch on Thursday or Friday. Toronto sliding ever harder; Isles just waiting for death, Carolina and Ottawa not far behind.

West

Five spots. Phoenix/Dallas on the final night starting to look bigger and bigger.

Points after elimination

Team	Points	Games
Buffalo	2	4
Edmonton	0	1
Florida	0	0

Florida eliminated despite beating Ottawa; they can't possibly get enough ROWs now to pass Columbus, who already have 80 points (Florida's maximum) and they can't pass both of detroit and toronto since they play each other one more time. Islanders will be next up, probably in a few days; then Calgary, then a lull again. San Jose clinched a spot yesterday, Anaheim today.

Daily Update March 25

Winning! Such delicious winning. A big model win on a senators shootout win is How We Like It. Winnipeg were good in Dallas but still lost by one; Buf nearly fought two dudes again. The model has been on an unholy tear the last few days and I have to say I am delighted. The officiating in the Sens game was dreadful, and MacLean says that the refs apologised to him after the game. If that's true, it's a first. Montreal knocked off boston in a game featuring this beautiful hip check. Obviously the Bruins responded to a clean hit with goonery, and Lucic called Emelin a chicken after the game, because boston.

I'm not totally comfortable with the Phoenix bet but it's not outlandish. Everything else is pretty routine.

Playoff Chances

Today, every team whose last ten days show any top-line movement at all:

East

Six spots. Somehow the caps sitting to the left of the leafs there makes the toronto slide all the more dramatic. Sens too far down to the move the needle although they won.

West

Points after elimination

Team	Points	Games
Buffalo	2	3
Edmonton	0	0

Edmonton finally eliminated; Florida still hanging by a thread. You can see that Buffalo has built an insurmountable lead in the 8 days they were the only eliminated team.

Daily Update March 24

Sadly, my outlandish bet on the Panthers did not come home. Phil Kessel scored an amazing power forward goal late in the third to make the score close (but remember, Kessel is a soft perimeter player who doesn't go to the dirty areas and disappears at important times) but the Maple Leafs still lost their fifth in a row. Reimer was bad again and may well be playing through a concussion from the game in LA, the same game in which Bernier was hurt. ('through' here is a bad word, since it suggests that playing while concussed will somehow slowly improve the concussion. That is most unlikely.) Just while we're at it, maybe somebody should look at how goalies who play LA mysteriously get hurt; I count Bernier, Reimer, Luongo, and Mike Smith, just off the top of my head. League might want to check that out.

As for tonight, at least the model lines up with my interests by backing Ottawa and Winnipeg while fading Philadelphia and Dallas. Odds on Ottawa look very good for my taste.

Playoff Chances

By popular demand, here is the full set of playoff chances for all 30 teams, using the same categories as I used a few weeks back: Locks, Steady, Bubble, Life Support, Dead. In the east, |Locks| + |Steady| = 8, so even the bubble teams will need somebody to play worse than usual (or be unlucky) to get a spot, let alone the life support teams. These are all over the last fortnight.

Locks

Yeah. If you look extremely closely you can see that there was a time, two weeks ago, where you could just possibly countenance the thought that Pittsburgh wouldn't win the Metropolitan. Not anymore.

Steady

Just keep on keepin' on and she'll be right. These are good teams, mostly, which means that the model is expecting them to win 60% or so of their remaining games. That's not as easy as it sounds late in the season, but these teams pretty handily control their own destiny.

Bubble

Similar chances for all three, around 15-20%, but two are sliding hard and one is sneaking out of the mire. Most likely is that all three miss.

Life Support

Need spectacular efforts and also massive luck. Not gonna happen.

Dead

Bring out the forks. Relevant only to shame teams that lose to them (which will happen several times, to great amusement) and to amuse me as I try to compute outlandish scenarios that save them from being mathematically eliminated.

In the west, there are fewer teams, so the predictions are a little more clear-cut:

Locks

Lots of jockeying for position but none of these teams in the faintest danger of falling out.

Steady

This is pretty close to being a lock in practice since they only need to keep playing as good as they have been and they haven't exactly set a high standard.

Bubble

The only real fight left; only one of these teams will make it, assuming Minnesota does. They play each other on the final night of the season, too.

Life Support

Same story as the east, tremendous runs together with massive luck.

Dead

If there was any doubt about which of these two dreadful teams was the better, look no further than the 8-1 drubbing from the other day. There's bad, and then there's Edmonton.

Points after elimination

Team	Points	Games
Buffalo	2	3

Florida are exceptionally close to being eliminated. The only scenario that seems to work is if they win all of their games in regulation, Toronto must pick up 0 points from 9 games, Washington must pick up no more than 1 point from 10 games, and Columbus must pick up no more than 2 points from 11 games. Amazingly, all of those things can all happen, since Tor/Was/Col have no games among themselves. The situation for Edmonton is similar; win all their games, all but a few of them in regulation, and have phoenix lose all their games in regulation, and Dallas lose all their games in regulation except the one against Phoenix, and have Vancouver take three points or fewer from their last nine. St Louis clinched a spot with the win in Pittsburgh.

Daily Update March 23

Playoff Chances

Oh leafs. Toronto plays New Jersey tonight. I wonder.

Finally cracked and took the Jets/Canucks/Predators out of the graph. They're not eliminated yet, but the flatline graphs make me sad.

Points after elimination

Team	Points	Games
Buffalo	2	2

Daily Update March 22

Winning! Mostly. I paid no attention whatsoever. Played games and drank beer. Happy to see NYR-CBJ end in regulation.

As for tonight, much madness and much fake betting. Florida at great odds again, battle of Alberta good value when in Edmonton. Otherwise a lot going on but nothing out of the ordinary.

Playoff Chances East

Playoff Chances West

Nothing substantial in either conference. I only made them because pretty.

Points after elimination

Team	Points	Games
Buffalo	2	2

Boston have clinched the first playoff spot; Detroit and Columbus need to both win out, but they can't since they play each other -- even if that game is a three point game, Boston has the tie-break over both teams, even assuming that all of the other games are regulation wins. Yes, that is how far Boston is ahead of everybody in the east.

Daily Update March 21

Have to be happy with the model winning big, because pretty much everything else went wrong. Games which included amusing things:

Cory Conacher (come back we love you really) had a three-point night for Buffalo who opened their "points-after-elimination" account with a win at edmonton. At one point he wound up in the penalty box without his helmet and somehow was given John Scott's. Scott outweighs Conacher by eighty pounds (yes really) and is a foot taller, so the results were a little silly.

Detroit beat Pittsburgh with 0.4 seconds to go in overtime, on a Daniel Alfredsson (come back we love you really) goal which was the *second* of the night to go in off of a penguin. Those of you who watch afl may be familiar with the "hard tag" which is what happens when an opposing player is so good and so important to shut down that a tagger is told to be immediately next to him at all times for an entire game. Make no attempt at offence, ever, just lock down on this one guy. Buddy Franklin routinely gets hard tags, Gary Ablett, those types of players. It's an extraordinarily thankless task for both people involved but it makes for compelling tv. Hockey has much more frequent changing and so hard tagging (as opposed to your common-or-garden line matching) is pretty much impossible, but you see it now and again, especially from the better coaches. Mike Babcock had Legwand hard-tag Malkin about as tightly as hockey permits, and, let me tell you, it didn't work. Malkin was about 75% corsi on the night, and at one point Legwand got so frustrated with being outmuscled and outplayed that he did this. That is a penalty, kids, and "butt-ending" is, in fact, its name. You may wonder why you've never seen a butt-ending minor, and that's because they don't exist: five minutes if you get the guy, four if you try and miss; just like spearing. Sometimes I have a hard time explaining to non-hockey types what is and what is not a penalty (you can smoke a guy like *this* but not like *that*? Yes) but this is not one of those times. "Are you allowed to do that?" "No. That is not allowed." But it's ok, David, you won!

But but but but really really the highlight of the night was this ridiculous goal from Ales Hemsky (re-sign we love you really): That may be the goal of the year. Just extraordinary. Obviously the senators lost anyway and their playoff chances are now infinitesimal.

Nothing at all surprising here. Boston the no-respect favourites, Carolina the unlikely-but-delicious-odds. Nashville-Calgary may be the most boring matchup possible.

Playoff Chances

East

Only two spots here; Columbus have been over 75% for ten straight days and so "graduated" into "uninteresting" class. Flyers beat another good team; but the notable thing is how far the maple leafs fell. The drop itself is not that dramatic, except that the leafs *didn't play*.

West

The stars lose again, as they do so very, very often these days, so now the Coyotes have (slightly) leapfrogged them for the 8th spot. This makes me sad. The coyotes should not make the playoffs. Ever.

Points after elimination

Team	Points	Games
Buffalo	2	2

Only very outlandish scenarios stand between Edmonton being eliminated and St Louis clinching; if neither are true by Monday it already be remarkable.