Welcome back to another edition of the NHL Playoff Report, a monthly look at the league through the eyes of each team’s chances of making the playoffs: who’s up, who’s down and why.
After each night’s slate of games, our playoff projections page is updated taking into account the results from those games and fresh new data to feed into the model. Every night, everything changes and those changes add up quickly, especially if a team goes on a heater (or cooler). Those changes can also be difficult to view at a glance and it’s good practice to take stock regularly of what’s been happening.
Here’s how things currently shake out in the East and West. As it stands, there are probably two spots up for grabs in the East, while in the West it would be a surprise if the eight spots weren’t already spoken for based on what we know about the top eight teams.
On the rise
The Kings didn’t exactly have a great month by any means, going 7-5-0. Still, they saw their playoff odds jump 17.5 percentage points amid a weakening Western Conference, the second-largest jump of any team. The Kings, now at 84 percent, should be relatively safe.
The real story is what happened under the hood, though, where the Kings are showing they’re still a defensive juggernaut even without Drew Doughty. Over the last month the Kings led the league in expected goals, a 58.5 percent mark fueled mostly by allowing a league-low 1.83 expected goals against per 60. They’re getting the five-on-five results to match too, and they also had one of the league’s best penalty kills.
The top story there is the team’s top pair of Vladislav Gavrikov and Mikey Anderson, with the latter arguably proving himself as one of the league’s very best shutdown defensemen. A lot of people would’ve likely given Doughty most of the credit for the pair’s work over the last few years, but the fact Anderson is doing it again without Doughty should show how strong he is in his own right. His projected Defensive Rating has moved up to plus-eight, a mark that now leads the league.
Over the last month, Anderson has held opponents to just 1.47 xGA/60, a mark made even more impressive given he gets the toughest assignments every night. Gavrikov is great too and deserves a lot of credit on that pair, but it’s hard not to fawn over the guy leading the league in projected Defensive Rating over Jonas Brodin, Jared Spurgeon and Chris Tanev. Anderson is special. Gavrikov, for what it’s worth, ranks 10th among defenders.
The Kings are probably not a legit contender in the West, but anyone who thought they’d fall apart completely without Doughty will likely be mistaken. They’re still a playoff team.
One of the chief concerns with the Devils going into this season was their defensive ability. Last season wasn’t just a goaltending problem, it was a full scale defensive meltdown exacerbated by poor goaltending. While there’s still room for improvement between the pipes, the team’s defensive work of late is enough to promote optimism that the Devils are for real.
Over the last month, no team has seen a bigger rise in their Defensive Rating than the Devils, who have gone from slightly above average to a top 10 team. That’s off the strength of allowing just 2.12 expected goals against per 60, the sixth-best mark in the league which helped the Devils put up a 57 percent xG rate, third-best in the league.
Here’s where it gets interesting: the biggest driver of that was Jack Hughes.
One thing Sheldon Keefe doesn’t get nearly enough credit for is how he helped develop both Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner into Selke-worthy players. While that lofty height might be a stretch for Hughes, he appears to be taking very real strides in his defensive game. Over the last month he was on for just 1.92 xGA/60 and 0.64 GA/60, both among the absolute best marks on the team. Managing that at the top of the lineup (where the pace is generally much faster) is really impressive — even if Nico Hischier is normally the one tasked with tough minutes. Funny enough, Luke Hughes has taken similar strides in his off-puck play too.
The best thing about Keefe’s tenure in Toronto was his ability to turn a high-octane, offense-first team into one that controlled the game more and defended better. That’s starting to play out in New Jersey as well and that it’s being led by Jack Hughes (and to a lesser extent, his brother) is great to see. New Jersey had one of the biggest jumps in Stanley Cup odds because of it.
After a lull in October, the Leafs are back to where the model forecasted them to start the season: right around 108 points and the division favourite in the Atlantic. Only the Flyers saw a bigger bump in projected points and no team had a bigger rise in division odds. An 8-2-0 stretch will have that effect, especially with nine of those games coming without Toronto’s best player.
Doing all that without Auston Matthews is the main reason the model held steady with the team’s Offensive Rating despite some worrying trends with the team’s five-on-five offense. The other top guys stepping up and a return to form for the power play certainly helped.
The major story in Toronto though is on defense, where the team’s Defensive Rating is now plus-18. That puts the team fifth in the league thanks to an eight-goal rise only bested by the Devils. Over the last month the Leafs allowed just two expected goals against per 60 at five-on-five, the second-best mark in the league. The team’s elite goaltending only made things more difficult for other teams on top of that, leading to 1.27 goals against per 60. That led the league by 0.35 goals.
Craig Berube’s Leafs are starting to take shape and they now look like a true defense-first team, backed by one of the strongest goaltending tandems in the league. With Matthews back now, the Leafs look like a real threat. We’ll see how much of that holds true come April.
Once again, we have to talk about the Washington Capitals, who simply won’t stop rising. No team saw a bigger jump in playoff odds than the Capitals, going from 68 percent to 93 percent. It would take a lot going wrong for the Caps to miss now after going 9-3-1 over the last month. They’re legit.
Despite leading the league in goal differential over that stretch against a difficult schedule (and without Alex Ovechkin for six games), the model hasn’t really budged in its opinion of the Capitals. Washington’s projected Net Rating only moved from plus-two to plus-three. That’s… probably wrong. Bad model!
We’ll see over the rest of the season whether the model was right to be this stubborn, but my personal feeling is it’s not catching up to Washington’s legitimate rise fast enough.
Philadelphia Flyers
The Flyers looked ready to tank for a draft pick one month ago but look suddenly frisky after a strong November, going 8-3-2 since the last playoff report. Philadelphia is still a playoff long shot, but that’s still a much better position than the Flyers were in before the hot stretch.
Under the hood, the main thing to note is a stronger offense. The Flyers ranked top 10 in expected goals over the last month with a strong surge in particular from Travis Konecny. Over this stretch he’s scored 20 points in 13 games, tied for second with Jack Eichel and one point behind Connor McDavid. Great company.
Also noteworthy: Sean Couturier and Travis Sanheim playing terrific hockey and Matvei Michkov blossoming into a game-breaker. The team’s core has been good — will it be good enough to keep this hot stretch up?
Honourable mentions: Columbus Blue Jackets, Tampa Bay Lightning, Edmonton Oilers
Falling off
The last few weeks have been rough for the Rangers, with the team’s forecast taking a sharp turn going from near playoff lock (94 percent) to bubble team (66 percent). They’re still likely to make it, but with how they’ve played lately the Rangers just don’t look like a safe bet anymore.
The main reason for that is the team’s underlying foundation collapsing. The Rangers don’t look good anymore and the model has taken note. Interestingly enough, it took note while the team was still winning games, matching some of the fan base frustration at the time.
On Oct. 27, the Rangers sat 6-1-1 with a projected Net Rating of plus-35, a shade up from their plus-30 starting point. Over the next 10 games the model actually downgraded the Rangers to plus-17 despite going 6-4-0. The reason for that was a weakening five-on-five game specifically driven by the team’s top players, all while playing an extremely soft schedule. A course correction felt likely. What was unexpected, though, was for that correction to happen in one fell swoop with a five-game losing streak. That drove the Rangers’ projections even further down across the board. Over the month of November the Rangers had a 44 percent xG, 30th in the league ahead of only the Blackhawks and Sharks.
There’s still a lot of season left to play and the hope is Saturday’s win against Montreal could be the basis for a turnaround. Whether the Rangers can flip their current script depends largely on some of their best players getting back to their usual level. Before the season, the projected combined ratings for Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Vincent Trocheck, Chris Kreider, Adam Fox and K’Andre Miller was plus-78. That group is at plus-57 now with all six seeing a noticeable drop in expected value.
Can the Rangers right the ship back to contender status or is wildcard team their new normal?
Over the last month, no team saw a bigger drop in playoff odds than Ottawa, who went from a 50-50 bet all the way down to 18 percent. New season, same pain.
Since the last Playoff Report, the Senators are 4-7-2 and while their underlying numbers are fine, the team isn’t executing. No team had a worse goals percentage than Ottawa’s 39 percent, a full 12 percentage points worse than expected.
On offense, that means a lower opinion on the team’s finishing talent. While some of the team’s top players have been impressive (Tim Stützle, Brady Tkachuk, Drake Batherson and Thomas Chabot all saw their ratings increase), the depth is struggling. Shane Pinto has been especially disappointing with zero points in his last 11 games and just three in 16 games on the year.
More worrying perhaps is the team’s goaltending. Linus Ullmark was supposed to be a big-time addition that fixed Ottawa’s biggest flaw, but he’s struggled heavily. Over the last month in particular, Ullmark has an .882 and has allowed 3.5 goals above expected. Anton Forsberg has been even worse.
The model still has some faith in Ullmark, just not as much as it did at the start of the season. That, plus the team’s lack of finishing, has Ottawa looking like a below-average team. Again.
The Predators headlined this side of the ledger last month and unfortunately things have not improved since. Whatever was left of their already timid playoff chances has all but evaporated after the team somehow played worse, going 3-5-5, since the last playoff report.
Under the hood, the Predators just aren’t clicking. At five-on-five they were one of the league’s worst teams in November and now rank 23rd on the year in xG. Their 35 percent goal rate ranks last by five full percentage points.
Will the Predators keep shooting 5.4 percent at five-on-five forever? Probably not. But they also rank 24th in chance generation, which is far from ideal. Even if they regress, there’s not a lot of upwards momentum for the team’s offense. From start to finish, the team’s top offensive threats — old and new — have simply been not good enough.
The model still views Nashville as an average team, but that’s far from the dark horse they appeared to be at the start. The Predators will need to be a lot better than average going forward if they want to salvage this season.
The Avalanche are still a strong team and a very likely playoff bet, especially in a weak West. They’ll be fine. But there is room for concern with the team’s offense, especially at five-on-five.
There, the team has only scored 2.21 goals per 60, just a shade above the New York Islanders and good for 23rd in the league. The Avalanche have just three players scoring over 1.5 points per 60 and even the ones above that line are way below their usual mark. Nathan MacKinnon has oddly scored just 1.8 points per 60 at five-on-five this season.
The Avalanche still have the second-best Offensive Rating in the league and have clearly made some sacrifices in order to protect their weak goaltending. Still, it’s a noteworthy drop and one worth keeping an eye on for the team that led the league in five-on-five goals per 60 last season. Colorado’s superpower feels less overwhelming than usual and the tradeoff to stronger defense hasn’t panned out quite yet.
Things have started to turn around for the Bruins since changing coaches (4-2-0), but not enough to escape the hole they dug themselves into to start the season. The Bruins saw a 10.5-goal drop in their Net Rating since the last playoff report, a trend that hasn’t materially changed since Joe Sacco took over. The Bruins are now graded as a below-average team.
Boston is still in the thick of the playoff hunt and has some tantalizing star players that can carry the team in. But it’s unlikely this team can go much farther than that.
Honourable mentions: Montreal Canadiens, Chicago Blackhawks, Utah HC
Here’s a league-wide look at how the odds have changed over the last month.
