Friday, December 01, 2006

The Big Comeback

I guess I should have googled before I posted that request for stats help re. New NHL v. Old NHL and leads holding up.

Jesse Rogers has done the math and it turns out there isn't much truth to the notion that in the New NHL no lead is safe (unless you happen to be wearing a Maple Leaf jersey while playing in the Meadowlands).

Here's the money quote from Mr. Rogers:

In the 2003-04 season, before the rule changes, the winning percentage of teams scoring the first goal was .678. Since the beginning of last season, that has only dropped to .666. In other words for every 1,000 games played pre-lockout, the team scoring first won 678 times; now that number is 666. That isn't much of a drop-off.

Even more interesting is the 3rd period come-from-behind win...a .151 winning percentage existed in 2003-'04. Now it's a whopping .156.

New NHL indeed.

2 comments:

  1. That is some damning evidence that last year the media was just hyping the increase in comeback wins.

    However, my question is whether that changes your opinion on Paul Maurice's in-game adjustments to being behind since it doesn't seem to really matter anyway.

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  2. Anonymous10:35 pm

    I'd be interested to see the stats comparison on teams coming back to tie games, but eventually lose them, in the past few years versus the pre-lockout era. While it seems that virtually the same number of teams are winning when they score first, I wonder how many of those games are being tied before the team that scored first gets the last goal for the win.

    There is undoubtedly some media hype about the "new NHL", there is unquestionably a different feel to the hockey of the past two seasons compared to the ten seasons prior. Even if a lead is still as safe as it ever has been, it usually doesn't feel like it is.

    Of course, that could simply be because I watch every Leaf game and no Leaf lead appears to ever be safe.

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