When it comes to the NHL Awards, a handful are earned on statistical achievement while the rest are won through votes cast by various organizations depending on the award. The chart below shows the award winners for the 2015 NHL season.
2015 NHL First All-Star Team honors went to Price (G), Karlsson (D), Subban (D), Tavares (C), Voracek (RW) and Ovechkin (LW). The 2015 NHL Second All-Star Team roster was Dubnyk (G), Weber (D), Doughty (D), Crosby (C), Tarasenko (RW) and Benn (LW).
The 2015 NHL All-Rookie Team was comprised of newcomers Jake Allen (G), Aaron Ekblad (D), John Klingberg (D), Mark Stone (F), Johnny Gaudreau (F) and Filip Forsberg (F).
Tweaks to the playoff seeding system prior to the 1994 regular season awarded division winners with the top three spots in each conference, saving the final five positions for the next highest finishing teams. In the 21 seasons since, a division champion has made it to the Stanley Cup Finals every year but three (2012, 2014, 2015), winning 15 of 21 times.
Realignment before the 2014 regular season reduced the number of divisions in each conference (from three to two) and introduced a revised playoff structure with teams playing through their division (with possible wildcard exceptions). For the purposes of this post we'll continue to ascribe conference standings to team seeding to test the importance of regular season finish on postseason performance, despite different playoff matchup methodology.
The chart below describes Cup Finals since 1994 by seeding and outcome.
It's worth noting that 6th to 8th seeded teams in the salary cap era are not quite the underdog they once were as playoffs clubs are more closely aligned in terms of regular season performance than ever before.
The chart below describes the regular season point differential for all playoff qualifiers and Stanley Cup finalists since 1994 by year.
* Abbreviated 48 game regular season due to lockout ^ Team with fewer regular season points won series
The chart shows that regular season point differentials between playoff qualifiers is narrowing. During the 82 game seasons from 1994 until the 2004 Lockout, 7 of 10 had at least a 30 point gap, compared to only 2 of the past 9 such seasons since. The largest spread during this span is 53 points (1996) and the smallest 16 points (2015), with a 21 season average of a 28 point differential. Interestingly, the last time there was a spread of less than 16 points was in 1965 when just four teams qualified for the postseason.
Similarly, the regular season point differential between Stanley Cup finalists is closing. Since 1994, only six Finals have boasted teams with a regular season point differential of 7 points or less, with three of those instances occurring over the past four years. The largest gap over the past 21 seasons is 27 points (1994) and the smallest is 1 point (2000), with an average of 13 points. Only 6 times during this span has a finalist with fewer regular season points than its opponent won the Cup (NJD 1995, DET 1997, PIT 2009, BOS 2011, LAK 2012, CHI 2015).
Cinderella teams tell an inspiring story but statistics show that clubs seeded 6th through 8th rarely qualify for the Final (9 of 42, 21% chance to qualify) and almost never go home a winner (2/42, 5% chance to win). That said, the narrowing regular season point differential between playoff qualifiers and Stanley Cup Final pairings could soon see more cinderella winners.
In short, unless you're the Devils, Penguins or unprecedented Kings, your best bet to win the Cup in the modern era comes with clinching your division (15 of 21 winners), earning more regular season points than your fellow finalist (15 of 21 winners), leading your conference (7 of 21 winners) and taking the Presidents' Trophy (6 of 21 winners).
The time-honored tradition of NHL playoff combatants shaking hands upon the conclusion of a series is among the greatest displays of sportsmanship in professional team sports today. Seconds after the horn sounds at the end of a series, players and coaches from both teams convene at center ice to celebrate each other's efforts.
The videos below capture the final moments of play in each series-ending game to date in the 2015 Stanley Cup playoffs along with the ensuing traditional team handshake line, sorted by round and series end date.
If you think 7th and 8th seeded wildcard teams teams don't have a fighting chance against the 1st and 2nd seeded division winners in the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, you'd be wrong. The mighty NHL underdog is no stranger to serving up early round upsets.
Since the introduction of the conference playoff format in 1994, opening round upsets have been ubiquitous with 30 of the 84 such 1st vs. 8th and 2nd vs. 7th series being won by lower seeds. That's a better than 1 in 3 chance (36%) of underdog success at the expense of division winners.
Despite abandoning the conference playoff format in favor of a divisional playoff format for the 2014 postseason, top finishers remain paired with the weakest qualifiers in the opening round, with the top division winner in each conference playing the weakest wildcard (i.e., 1st vs. 8th) and the other division winner playing the remaining wildcard (i.e., 2nd vs. 7th).
The chart below shows series records by year for 1st vs. 8th and 2nd vs. 7th opening round matchups, with annual and cumulative totals.
In 11 of the past 21 postseasons both top seeded teams prevailed, including 4 in the past 5 years. The remaining 10 series saw a split. Never have both top seeded teams been eliminated in the opening round. Put another way, top finishers have a 32-10 record during this span, representing a 76% success rate over their 8th seeded foes.
Of the 2nd seeded teams, 5 of 21 times (1996, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011) both won their opening round and 4 of 21 times (1994, 1998, 2001, 2013) each were eliminated. The remaining 12 of 21 postseasons saw a split with a 2nd seeded team advancing in one series and the 7th seed prevailing in the other. In sum, 2nd seeded teams have a 22-20 record during this period, representing a mere 52% margin of success.
In only 4 of the past 21 playoffs (1996, 2007, 2008, 2011) have all four 1st and 2nd seeded teams advanced past the opening round, representing a lowly 19% chance of collective success. That said, never before have all four favorites been eliminated in the first round.
More than ever, regular season point differentials between playoff qualifiers is narrowing, blurring the lines between favorites and underdogs. During the 82 game seasons from 1994 until the 2004 Lockout, 7 of 10 had at least a 30 point gap, compared to only 2 of the past 9 such seasons since. The largest spread during this span is 53 points (1996) and the smallest 16 points (2015), with a 21 season average of a 28 point differential. The last time there was a spread of less than 16 points was in 1965 when just four teams qualified for the postseason. In short, the conference's best usually survive but others are exposed. But that could be changing in the NHL's modern age of postseason parity. Stay tuned.
Tonight Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly presented the NHL Draft lottery results live on CBC, with the top overall pick in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft, to be held on June 26-27, 2015 in Sunrise, Florida, being awarded to the perennially awful Edmonton Oilers. The actual lottery was conducted 30 minutes earlier in Rogers Sportnet's Toronto studios. This video from 2013, featuring NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman offers a detailed explanation of the process. Designed to guard against teams purposely losing regular season games to improve their draft position, the weighted lottery system implemented prior to the 1995 NHL Entry Draft provides weaker teams with a greater chance of a higher pick without any guarantees for poor performance.
Until 2013, only the league's five worst regular season teams were eligible for the top overall pick, allowing teams to advance up to four spots and fall only one spot in the lottery. That changed in 2013 with all non-playoff teams eligible for the top overall pick albeit with their statistical likelihood directly tied to their final regular season standing. A team can still only fall one spot in lottery position.
In 2014, additional changes were implemented for the lottery to reflect he competitive balance of the league, with more balanced odds being introduced in 2015 and separate draws in 2016 for the first four positions ( as opposed to just for the top overall pick), allowing the league's worst regular season performer to slip as low as fourth overall (as opposed to just second overall under the current regime). For the fourth year in a row, the top pick went to someone other than the statistical favorite with the last place Buffalo Sabres edged out by the lottery winning Oilers. The win gives Edmonton their fourth top overall pick in six years (Taylor Hall 2010, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins 2011, Nail Yakupov 2012).
Other than Edmonton pushing Buffalo and Arizona down two spots, the remaining clubs placed as predicted by their statistical probabilities. The chart below shows final draft position by team and their accompanying odds of having won first pick overall in the lottery.
Draft Position
Likelihood of 1st Pick
1. Edmonton
11.5%
2. Buffalo
20.0%
3. Arizona
13.5%
4. Toronto
9.5%
5. Carolina
8.5%
6. New Jersey
7.5%
7. Philadelphia
6.5%
8. Columbus
6.0%
9. San Jose
5.0%
10. Colorado
3.5%
11. Florida
3.0%
12. Dallas
2.5%
13. Los Angeles
2.0%
14. Boston
1.0%
Remaining NHL Entry Draft positions are set after the playoffs with the Stanley Cup champion and runner-up picking 30th and 29th, respectively. Conference finalists (28th, 27th) as well as division winners and wildcard teams (26th through 15th) are then ordered among their respective subgroup based on regular season standings, positioning teams with better regular season records to pick later than their peers.