Degree Of Difficulty of Winning in the NHL When the Other Team Scores First

DegreeOfDifficulty.html June 8, 2004

Degree of Difficulty

In Round 1 of the 2003-2004 NHL playoffs, the Ottawa Senators managed to extend the series to seven games despite the fact that their opponents, the Toronto Maple Leafs, scored first in all seven games.

As you can see from the table below, the probability of one team scoring first in every game in a seven game series is just .00814. This is a first order of approximation. That is, we would expect that in only one out of every 122, seven game series would one team score first. To go 7 games, this means that the team that did not score first had to have won at least three games to prolong the series. That is, they managed to overcome at least a one goal lead in at least three games.

Degrees of Difficulty—A Concept Well Understood in Sports like Diving

To give you some idea of the degree of difficulty involved for the Ottawa Senators, in the final round of the 2003-2004 playoffs between the Tamps Bay Lightning and the Calgary Flames, the team that scored first won all seven games.

8-Jun-04		Degree of Difficulty

		Number of	Scored First by	Scored First By
		Games in Series	Ottawa/Calgary	Toronto/Tampa

First Round

Ottawa versus Toronto		7	0	7

Final Round

Calgary versus Tampa		7	3	4


Probability of Toronto scoring first in all seven games is calculated as follows:

	Home Team	Probability of Toronto
		Scoring First

Game 1	Toronto	0.525
Game 2	Toronto	0.525
Game 3	Ottawa	0.475
Game 4	Ottawa	0.475
Game 5	Toronto	0.525
Game 6	Ottawa	0.475
Game 7	Toronto	0.525

Probability of Toronto scoring first in all		0.008141755
7 games		122.8236382

Calgary won all three games where they scored first. Tampa won all four games where they scored first. In the Toronto versus Ottawa series, Toronto scored first all seven times, but Ottawa won three games. Even though they lost the series, Ottawa's degree of difficulty in winning three games despite the fact that Toronto scored first in every game was higher than what the other three teams faced in winning their games. In today’s NHL, overcoming leads is very tough.

I have assumed above that the home team’s chances of scoring first are slightly higher—I have used 52.5% for the home team to score first and 47.5% for the away team. It doesn’t really matter what the assumptions are on this. Assume that the probability of the home team scoring first is just 50/50 and it changes the probability of Toronto scoring first in all seven games to .0078 or 1 in every 128 series.

In any event, we are not likely to see another seven game series where one team scores first in every game soon. There are 15 series held each year in four rounds to win the Stanley Cup. So we wouldn’t expect another occurrence of the Toronto-Ottawa series for

about eight years assuming that every series goes seven games. Obviously, if only half of the series are 7 gamers, we won’t see another occurrence for 16 years, or if only a third go 7 games, it will take another 24 years until we see one team score first in all 7 games.

So why would a team like Toronto be able to score first in all seven games and why would a team like Ottawa be able to overcome those leads in three of those games? One might speculate that the Senators were not well prepared to start games but that their skill level was such that they were able to overcome leads in some of these games. One might also wonder if their goaltending was not quite as good as Toronto’s.

Certainly, the two finalists for 2003-2004 had a few things in common with each other—they had great goaltending, they were good at protecting leads, they were physically tough, they were mentally tough, they were both led by Canadian Captains*, they had good coaching and they played to win, every shift and every game. The degree of difficulty in capturing Lord Stanley’s Cup has got to be the toughest challenge in all sport—two plus months of grueling physical play to claim hockey’s greatest prize.

* Another curious stat shows that every Stanley Cup winner has been led by a Canadian Captain with one exception—the Dallas Stars captured the Cup with a US Captain.