Playoff Predictions, Round 2, 2008
I posted before the first round playoffs started to present some output from my NHL playoff simulator. How'd it do at predicting the results? Well let's have a look. I removed the later round predictions from the last post just to clean this up and make it easier to read. Correct predictions are in bold.
Montreal_Canadiens 0.720 Detroit_Red_Wings 0.811 Boston_Bruins 0.280 Nashville_Predators 0.189 Pittsburgh_Penguins 0.590 San_Jose_Sharks 0.634 Ottawa_Senators 0.410 Calgary_Flames 0.366 Washington_Capitals 0.481 Minnesota_Wild 0.468 Philadelphia_Flyers 0.519 Colorado_Avalanche 0.532 New_Jersey_Devils 0.477 Anaheim_Ducks 0.414 New_York_Rangers 0.523 Dallas_Stars 0.586
Not bad huh? In every case, the favourite team of each match was the one that won. Three of the series went right down to the wire though, and I honestly thought Washington was going to beat Philly in game 7. They were a feel good story this year, along with the Oilers late season push to the playoffs that fell *just* short. San Jose and Montreal almost choked in the first round on series leads, but managed to pull through in the end.
So what does the simulator say for the next round? Once again the first column is the probability of winning that round. The second column is the probability of winning the conference final, and the third column is the probability of taking home the cup. This run is one million playoff simulations seeded with the results of the first playoff round.
Montreal_Canadiens 0.616 0.348 0.147 Pittsburgh_Penguins 0.568 0.289 0.114 New_York_Rangers 0.432 0.189 0.064 Philadelphia_Flyers 0.384 0.174 0.056 Detroit_Red_Wings 0.772 0.530 0.380 San_Jose_Sharks 0.483 0.180 0.094 Dallas_Stars 0.517 0.199 0.107 Colorado_Avalanche 0.228 0.091 0.039
Detroit, Dallas, Montreal, and Pittsburgh are the favourites according to the simulator. The only selection that is a bit surprising for this round is Dallas - but I'm not too surprised by that considering some of the numbers they put up this year. If they can shut down Thornton, they've got a pretty good shot at the conference finals.
Overall Detroit still has the highest probability of winning the cup, up to 38% now. Montreal and Pittsburgh are neck and neck for second place in probability of winning the cup. Dallas and San Jose are next and the last three have a 6% or less chance.
Now that the first round is out, the last remaining Canadian team is my second favourite team in the league: the Montreal Canadiens. So since the Oil are down and out, I'm cheering for them. Push that 14.7% edge boys!
Heraldk