Expectations largely shape how a past season is perceived. Last season for example was dreadful. The Jackets started slow right out of the gate and were immediately out of the playoff race. That is bad enough on its own, but considering the expectations for the Jackets were that they would be in the playoff hunt and challenge for a spot, it made the season that much worse.
This season expectations have been tempered. Many realized that the Jackets were not as good as predicted last season, and the Jackets have brought back basically the same team this year. I searched Twitter and found some very interesting mathematical models predicting the NHL season. I like these types of models as they exclude bias and can give a more realistic projection.
The first is from Micah McCurdy.
Micah simulated the NHL season a million times and had the Jackets finishing on average with 87.1 points. That was second last in the East ahead of only the Buffalo Sabres, who had 83.1 points. The teams immediately ahead of the Blue Jackets were the Devils at 87.3 and the Leafs at 87.8. The standard deviation for the Jackets was 8.4 points, so they could hypothetically finish anywhere from 78.7 points to 95.5 points. Overall Micah’s model gives the Jackets a 24% chance of making the playoffs.
Dom’s model focuses on Game Score, which is a fascinating stat and one I have
discussed before. Dom simulated the season 10,000 times and has the Jackets finishing with 88.6 points and a sixth place finish in the Metro. The best case scenario was a 96.6 point finish and worst was 80.6. Again very similar to what Micah had above. Columbus has a lot of talented young players on the roster that could carry this team to the playoffs. However banking on this many young kids and rookies is risky, you never know how they are going to adjust and what their learning curve will be.
Overall Dom’s model gives the Jackets a 32.3% chance at making the playoffs.
Finally we will take a look at these projections from Matt Cane. Matt has the Jackets as the worst team in the Metro finishing with 86.0 points. The standard deviation is 8.6 points which has the Jackets in the same range as the two above, finishing anywhere between 77.4 and 94.6 points. Matt gives the Jackets a 33.81% chance at making the playoffs and a 1.10% chance of winning the President’s Trophy.
I really like the range each model provides. It really shows how hit or miss this roster is. The Jackets have a ton of question marks whether it be with youth like Oliver Bjorkstrand or Zach Werenski or with players who underperformed last season like Nick Foligno or Sam Gagner. Not to mention the health question mark surrounding Sergei Bobrovsky. If Bobrovsky can stay healthy for the full season and everything breaks right, the Jackets will be squarely in the playoff mix. They are not going to challenge Pittsburgh or Washington for top of the Metro but they should be in the Wild Card mix. If everything goes wrong this is a team that will be looking at anther lottery pick and will become very familiar with the name Nolan Patrick.
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