I've sort of seen this theory kicked around lately about the 2011 and, probably more specifically, the 2012 Ottawa Senators. The hypothesizing is that both prior teams were a bit lucky to make the playoffs, and this year's rendition of Paul MacLean's club -- the one that's now basically guaranteed to miss the post-season -- is a more accurate finish for the team's true talent level.
An article over at Puck Daddy tried to look into this year's team and why it all fell apart. Their conclusion struck me as two-fold: it's more or less the same team; but without the unbelievable save percentages of last season to buoy them in the standings. And that's it.
There is truth to Ottawa's save percentages falling wildly apart this year, regressing heavily from last year's absurd and obviously unsustainable .934 at 5-on-5 to this year's .912, which is pretty close to the bottom of the league.
But, I just don't know that movement in the save percentages alone really explains how it came apart for Ottawa this year. Nor does luck, for that matter.
Below is a simple chart for Ottawa over the last three seasons, identifying a handful of things that really do a quick and neat job explaining a team's position in the standings:
(1) Score-Adjusted Fenwick, our accurate proxy for even-strength possession that correlates extremely well with success; (2) Save percentage, five-on-five; (3) Shooting percentage, five-on-five; (a) PDO, a combination of (2) and (3) expressed over 1000 -- PDO regresses heavily to the mean of 1000 over a long period of time, and is a good quick reference for negative variance (well below 1000) and positive variance (well above 1000); and (4) Special teams goal differential, a simple total number to let us know where the special teams fell over the course of a full season.
Blue is good. Red is bad.
The biggest objection I have with the Puck Daddy piece (and others) is that it fails to identify that this year's shooting percentages have normalized in the right direction. It was one year ago where Ottawa couldn't buy a goal, and that was, for whatever reason, ignored. Now, they're not surprisingly just fine again with respect to goal-scoring. A lot of this (but not all) off-sets some of the issues the team's had on the other end of the ice, where they can't keep a puck out of the back of their net.
The "last year was lucky" theory also ignores another major factor, undoubtedly the most important of all: Ottawa was a plus-possession team for the last two seasons (extremely strong last year, for that matter), but that hasn't been the case in 2013-2014. We are talking about a three-percentage decline in one season, which is -- assuming all other constants hold (and we know they didn't) -- already a bit tough to overcome. Add that to the fact they are woeful away from even-strength, and you have recipe for disaster.
Perhaps most amazing is that, for as pitiful as the goaltending has been at points during this season, it's not dissimilar to the 2011-2012 year -- especially at even-strength.
It certainly seems to me that Ottawa's really not unlucky this year, nor were they lucky last year (or the year before). The 2011-2012 version was just good enough to get into the playoffs, and they did. The 2012-2013 version was a pretty good hockey team; certainly good enough to win a round in the playoffs. And this year's club? They're just not very good.
Luck or variance does play a big role in hockey, but sometimes it's slapped on when it's not really warranted. The truth of the matter is this team's actually playing worse than what we previously witnessed in the standings, and their position in the standings is a reflection of their performance -- just like it was in the last two seasons.
Thanks for reading!