Possible First Round Upsets Using Analytics
from Travis Yost of TSN,
In the pantheon of fears in sports, being the target of a first-round upset is near the top of the list. There’s little worse than being sent home early and unexpectedly, and some organizations can live this nightmare for years.
Hockey is a low-scoring, volatile sport susceptible to upsets. It’s part of what makes it so captivating. Yet we know talent does prevail long-term – look no further than what the Tampa Bay Lightning have done in recent years, or a handful of other brief dynasties predating them.
As we head into the 2021-22 Stanley Cup Playoffs, a question arises: Are there statistical indicators of a team’s likelihood of being upset against an inferior opponent, and if so, what are those measurements?
To analyze this, I started with the trailing 10 years of first-round playoff performances. Teams that advanced as the stronger seed from Round 1 were differentiated from teams that were upset in the opening round. I focused on the usual key performance indicators for the time being – goals and expected goals (shots adjusted for quality), stop rates and save percentages, with those numbers split across the varying game states.
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