UPDATE:
Here are the picks for tonight... STL ROW over ANA CBJ ROW over Buf DET OTW over CHI PIT ROW over Edm MIN ROW over FLA
It was a night of upsets in the NHL last night, and our computer went 4-6. Oddly enough it did predict some of the upsets correctly.. We were right on San Jose over the Capitals ...We also exactly picked the Islanders to beat the Canucks in OT and Ottawa to handle Arizona... LA beat Nashville in OT, and we had Nashville beating LA in OT....
Our season record is now 41-20, for a .672 winning percentage.
Last night, the Maple Leafs and Kings both won big games and moved within 1 point of a playoff spot. According to sportsclubstats.com the Leafs now have a 48.2% chance of making the playoffs and the Kings sit at 42.4%. So why then do our projections have the Leafs and Kings finishing far out of the playoffs? It’s really simple. Their system is NOT taking into account strength of schedule, historical matchups, back to backs, travel, home and away records and other tendencies…
The Leafs are very close to turning some losses to OT points and some OT Points to Wins…so a few more wins would topple the scale and could still push them over. But they would have to defeat teams that are ahead of them in the standings and some teams slightly behind them in the standings that they have historically played poorly against. However, I will be the first to admit that since the comparables run over three years the Leafs are at a disadvantage because of how bad they were the last two years… For example, as of now the computer has the Leafs losing twice in OT to the Sabres…
The Leafs do have the Caps, Hawks, Penguins and Columbus still on the schedule…
The Kings on the other hand just have a killer bad schedule to overcome and the teams they are chasing have it much easier…
Remember these projections are simply supposed to show what “should… happen…And we all know the team that “should win… doesn’t always win…so far, since we are 41-20, the teams that is supposed to win is winning roughly 2 out of every 3 games..
So the Leafs and Kings can make up serious ground by winning, since right now they only have points from the games they are supposed to win…
What Did Last Night's Results do to the Projected Final Standings/ Stanley Cup Champion?
* The Lightning beat Minnesota and are now projected to finish third in the Atlantic, pushing Boston and Florida out of the playoffs.
* The Flames after beating up on Montreal jumped into third in the Pacific division pushing Edmonton into the first Wildcard spot and pushing Nashville down precariously into the final playoff spot.
* The Predators now would face the Wild and according to our computer, unlike Edmonton or Calgary, the Preds would defeat the Wild in 7 games...(It's so close we would call it 7th game double OT)
* Knocking the Wild out changes the entire path to the Cup in the West...With the Wild getting out of round 1, it was setting up for a Ducks/Capitals Cup Final, but now it sets up for a Hawks/Caps Final...
*However the Capitals are still Cup champs and would defeat the Hawks in 5, just like they would defeat the Ducks in 5...
*Curious how to knock the Caps out? Per our computer there is only one team...The NY Rangers slipping to the second wildcard spot would be your best bet.
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— Michael Augello (@MikeInBuffalo) December 12, 2016