The Contrarian – An Avalanche of One Goal Games
Thomas Drance
2014-11-23
The Contrarian looks at sustainable success and close-game records.
In an article written by Ian Cooper, for the Toronto Star, called "Analytics poke hole in success of Patrick Roy, Avs" he details an argument that shows us that last year's Avalanche were destined to fail this year.
He states, "Because as is becoming increasingly clear, Roy had a very lucky season" and he believes that it was due to all those one goals games.
Continuing, "The problem is one-goal games are pretty much coin tosses. Last year's elite teams such as Chicago (.425 win percentage in one goal games), Boston (.485) and Los Angeles (.488) all earned the lion's share of their points by drubbing their opponents. Teams that expect to win one-goal games consistently usually find their luck turns."
Adding more to the argument, "There is a myth in some hockey circles that teams with 'grit and determination' can 'tough out hard games' and 'pull out a win'.
Let us look at the data from the previous three seasons. The links to the full data including the current season at NHL.com are 2014-15, 2013-14, 2012-13 and 2011-12.
Stanley Cup winners are highlighted in yellow, finalists are in red, conference finalists are in blue and quarter-finalists are in green.
It sure looks like he's got a point about one-goal games being tossups. Look at all those finalists and where they ranked in one-goal game win percentage. It is all over the map.
If you clicked on the link for the current season you'll see that Colorado has a winning percentage of .308 in one-goal games as compared to last year's .700 rate. So his point has some validity.
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