Does It Matter That the Oilers and Stars Don’t Beat Good Teams?
It's a trend that might become pertinent in the playoffs.
The Edmonton Oilers and Dallas Stars have been among the most successful teams in the NHL this season, with each ranking among the Top 10 in the league standings. That’s not exactly surprising for teams led by stars such as Connor McDavid and Jason Robertson — but what is surprising is how they’ve accumulated their records.
Against teams with sub-.500 winning percentages1 this season, Edmonton has the league’s best mark, winning 78.8% of its games, while Dallas is No. 2 at 77.4% versus losing teams. But against teams with .500 records or better, Edmonton’s winning percentage drops to 45.5% (15th in the NHL) and Dallas’ isn’t much better, at 46.2% (13th). Here’s a chart featuring every team’s split against winning and losing opponents:
The largest split in the league actually belongs to the L.A. Kings, who have a winning percentage 36.7 points higher against losing teams (71.9%) than winning teams (35.1%). (The Devils and Capitals are sandwiched between Edmonton and Dallas in the split rankings as well.) But the Oilers and Stars are viewed as serious Stanley Cup contenders — and their splits raise the question of whether each team has a ceiling on its playoff success.
One piece of evidence that is concerning for Dallas and Edmonton? Performance against winning opponents in the regular season matters more in the playoffs than performance against losing opponents. Like, a lot more.
To test this, I looked at how each category of winning percentage predicted playoff wins2 in each season since the 2005 lockout. While neither category held an especially strong correlation against postseason success — the hockey playoffs are random, who knew? — only performance against winning teams was a significant predictor of playoff wins. Furthermore, if we look at the relative importance of each category in predicting playoff success, a team’s regular-season record against opponents with winning records was 14 times as important as a team’s record against opponents with losing records.
In other words, it might actually matter that the Oilers and Stars have cleaned up this season against weak competition. And on the other side of things, it might matter that teams like the Bruins, Panthers, Rangers and Canucks have held up well against the strongest foes. (To the extent that any of these statistical trends matter in the playoffs, that is.)
Ignoring the loser point, and just considering a win a win and a loss a loss, to keep things simple.
Considering only the Round of 16 onward in 2020.