The Playoff Index (@playoffindex) answers the NHL stats question that matters most during the regular season:
Is my team winning enough points to make the playoffs?
If your team is above the Playoff Threshold, it is on track to beat the historical benchmark for making the playoffs, or an updated target near the end of the season.
Here is the Playoff Index for the end of the 2011-2012 NHL season on Saturday, April 6, 2012:
[17 Mar 2012: Note that some numbers get funny at the end of the season because there are so few games remaining. That's why e.g. Montreal's Win % could be higher than the Islanders' Win %, but their VPT could be lower...]
Playoff Threshold = Historical Points & Win % Needed to Make the Playoffs
GP = Number of Games Played
Pts = Points Earned to Date
Trnd = Points Trend (total points a team would earn over the whole season at the current Win %)
Win % = Win Percentage
VPT = Variable Playoff Threshold (the Win % a team needs in all its remaining games to cross the Playoff Threshold)
Strk = Streak Required (the number of games a team has to win in a row to cross the Playoff Threshold)
PI = Playoff Index Rank (the team’s rank in the Playoff Index standings; teams with the same Win % get the same rank)
NHL = NHL Rank (the team’s rank in the traditional conference standings)
Other Playoff Index Stuff – Historical Tables, Charts and More!
You can go here to see a 63-game Playoff Index, which shows where all the teams stood in the rankings at that point in their respective records. The point is to provide rankings that correct for games played, so you can see what the true standings are.
Check out your team’s page to see its Playoff Index Chart, which shows its performance up to game 45. PI Charts are a cool way to visualize your team’s progress this season. See the St Louis Blues page for a great example.
Go to the History page to see the historical Playoff Thresholds, End-of-Season Standings, and more!
Finally, for some amateurish running commentary and more links, check out the PI Blog page.
A Wordy Explanation
The basis for the index is the common observation that an NHL team needs to win about 93 points to make the playoffs. This amounts to a Win % of about 57%.
Normal NHL standings are muddled because they’re based on points earned and an arbitrary calendar date. This means that the only day you actually see the ‘real’ standings – when the standings are set based on points earned after the same number of games have been played by every team – is the last day of the season.
The Playoff Index corrects for this error by ranking teams on a given date by Win Percentage (Win %). You can see the difference by comparing the Playoff Index standings to the traditional NHL standings.
If you think this is a meaningless difference, check out this chart. It shows that for the last 40 or so games of last season, Montreal was in fact ranked exactly 6th, if the standings correct for the number of games played. Since the traditional standings are based on points and an arbitrary date, lots of the day-to-day volatility you see is driven not just by wins and losses but by differences in the number of games played by different teams.
This approach also lets you know when a team has hit the Playoff Wall – the point at which it can’t make the playoffs even if it wins all its remaining games, because there aren’t enough games left for it to win enough points to hit the Playoff Threshold. Here’s an example.
There’s also the Historical Playoff Wall, a simple table that answers questions like “Has a team in 12th place or lower after game 60 ever made the playoffs?”
This is an independently-run website, i.e. right now it’s a one-man show. If you see any errors, have any suggestions for more tables and charts or analysis, or like what you see and want to send a kind word of support, please email me.
