Yesterday I previewed the first round series between the Jackets and Penguins and went into players to watch and what to expect from the series. Today we are going to dive into some numbers to see what team has the advantage.
We will start with the projection systems. First here are Micah Blake McCurdy’s projections.
Including injuries, these are the Cordelia cup chances with the bracket now set. pic.twitter.com/jBorQFx0CT
— Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath) April 10, 2017
This accounts for injuries so the fact that Kris Letang will be out is included here. His model gives the Jackets just a 42% chance to get past Pittsburgh.
Over at The Athletic Dom Luszczyszyn gives the Jackets just a 36% chance of moving on.
Here's the first ever Blue Jackets story on our network via @domluszczyszyn: Can Columbus beat the Caps/Pens? https://t.co/ngMoZd97pA
— James Mirtle (@mirtle) March 28, 2017
That model is based on Game Score and did not account for injuries. With Letang out you could likely bump that projection up a few percentage points. Finally we have the projections done by Emmanuel Perry.
PIT-CBJ Series Probabilities, via Alice: pic.twitter.com/q6HbhQ7BaL
— Emmanuel Perry (@MannyElk) April 11, 2017
His projections are the closest giving the Penguins just a 52.8% chance. It doesn’t matter what projection system, it’s clear that the Jackets enter this as an underdog. This comes as no surprise they have been sort of an underdog all season. Even when they were the top team, they didn’t get the respect from those around the league and had to keep proving themselves.
As we know projections are just educated guess and not the be all end all. Let’s turn our attention to how these teams played on the ice to get an idea as to who may have an advantage going into this.
We know that how a team plays over its final 25 games can be an indication of how they will play in the playoffs.
This year only the Bruins, Capitals & BlackHawks finished >53% over the last 25GP. Rangers and Senators are the only two playoff teams <50%. pic.twitter.com/orgduZOC09
— Zac Urback (@Zac_Urback) April 10, 2017
Zac here uses adjusted Corsi, which has the Jackets at 13th in the league and the Penguins at 15th. Using just 5 on 5 Corsi gives us a similar situation. Over the last 25 games according to Natural Stat Trick the Jackets have been very average with a 49.98% Corsi, which ranks 17th in the league, the Penguins have actually be worse than that, siting 25th with a 48.45% Corsi. If we look at the last 10 games the difference is even starker. The Jackets are again average at 50.16%. The Penguins however have been brutal at 44.89%, only ahead of Arizona. Pittsburgh was missing a few key players for this stretch, and are clearly a much better team than that, but the point stands the Jackets are playing much better heading into this.
So Pittsburgh has the edge on paper but the Jackets have the end of season momentum. The head to head stats will be the tie break. Travis Yost talked about in March how head to head stats did quite well when predicting playoff series’. I used that information and found that at the time Pittsburgh was a neutral opponent for the Jackets, with one head to head match up still to come.
With that final game included the Jackets actually had the edge this season. They went 2-1-1 with a goal differential of +3 and a shot differential of +12 in all situations. At 5 on 5 they controlled the game with a 54.12% Corsi. The Jackets have played the Penguins extremely tough this season and have had success. I believe that will continue into the playoffs and that is why, despite what the projections say, I think the Jackets will win their first ever playoff series.
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