Category: pointless

Update: Predicting the 2019 NHL Stanley Cup Playoff Results

Oof. Not even close.

First Round
  • Calgary Flames vs Colorado Avalanche
  • San Jose Sharks vs Vegas Golden Knights
  • Nashville Predators vs Dallas Stars
  • Winnipeg Jets vs St. Louis Blues
  • Tampa Bay Lightning vs Columbus Blue Jackets
  • Boston Bruins vs Toronto Maple Leafs
  • Washington Capitals vs Carolina Hurricanes
  • New York Islanders vs Pittsburgh Penguins

Sharks made it to the Conference Finals. That’s pretty much as far as I got correct.

Random coinflips predicted the First Round better than I did at a 37.5% accuracy vs my 12.5%.

Congrats Blues on the cup win.

Predicting the 2019 NHL Stanley Cup Playoff Results

Here are my predictions for the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Winners in turquoise.

First round

  • Calgary Flames vs Colorado Avalanche
  • San Jose Sharks vs Vegas Golden Knights
  • Nashville Predators vs Dallas Stars
  • Winnipeg Jets vs St. Louis Blues
  • Tampa Bay Lightning vs Columbus Blue Jackets
  • Boston Bruins vs Toronto Maple Leafs
  • Washington Capitals vs Carolina Hurricanes
  • New York Islanders vs Pittsburgh Penguins

Second round

  • Calgary Flames vs San Jose Sharks
  • Nashville Predators vs Winnipeg Jets
  • Tampa Bay Lightning vs Toronto Maple Leafs
  • Washington Capitals vs Pittsburgh Penguins

Conference Finals

  • San Jose Sharks vs Winnipeg Jets
  • Tampa Bay Lightning vs Washington Capitals

Stanley Cup Final

  • San Jose Sharks vs Tampa Bay Lightning

The above was constructed by me, a human, using hockey knowledge. The following is another prediction for the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs using best of seven random coin flips to determine the winner for each pair. Let’s see if I can predict the results with better accuracy than random coin flips. Will report back after the playoffs.

First round

  • Calgary Flames vs Colorado Avalanche
  • San Jose Sharks vs Vegas Golden Knights
  • Nashville Predators vs Dallas Stars
  • Winnipeg Jets vs St. Louis Blues
  • Tampa Bay Lightning vs Columbus Blue Jackets
  • Boston Bruins vs Toronto Maple Leafs
  • Washington Capitals vs Carolina Hurricanes
  • New York Islanders vs Pittsburgh Penguins

Second round

  • Colorado Avalanche vs San Jose Sharks
  • Nashville Predators vs Winnipeg Jets
  • Tampa Bay Lightning vs Boston Bruins
  • Carolina Hurricanes vs Pittsburgh Penguins

Conference Finals

  • Colorado Avalanche vs Nashville Predators
  • Tampa Bay Lightning vs Pittsburgh Penguins

Stanley Cup Final

  • Colorado Avalanche vs Pittsburgh Penguins

A Heat Map

Only included the 31 of the 50 in the list that involved one baking step. Bake times rounded to the nearest 15 minutes. Weird outlier is a recipe for ribs–baked for 2.5 hours at 250°F.

Star Wars Films Ranked (as of 2018)

In order of my current favorite to least favorite with short description of how I feel about the film:

  1. Rogue One  (the Star Wars-iest Star Wars film)
  2. Star Wars: Episode IV, A New Hope (the most satisfying to rewatch)
  3. Star Wars: Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back (best universe-building)
  4. Star Wars: Episode VIII, The Last Jedi (coolest tone)
  5. Star Wars: Episode VII, The Force Awakens (neat characters)
  6. Star Wars: Episode VI, The Return of the Jedi (desert muppets and hunter-gatherer teddy bears)
  7. Star Wars: Episode I, The Phantom Menace (good fight scene)
  8. Star Wars: Episode III, Revenge of the Sith (“not from a Jedi” is all I remember)
  9. Star Wars: Episode II, Attack of the Clones (I felt nothing)

Haven’t yet seen Solo. Not in a huge rush. Will update list whenever I watch it or the next Skywalker saga film.

How Important is Height in Hockey?

During my last recreational league hockey season, my captain had me play center. My favorite part (aside from face-offs) was the increased defensive responsibilities. I think it would be a fun idea to switch to defense for a season. However, I’m a bit concerned that at 5’7″ (67 inches) tall, I would be seen as too small to effectively play defense. I decided to check NHL stats and throw something together in R. Data includes all players currently in the NHL as of June 20, 2018.

Based on my findings, it looks like there is a lot of variation across each position. Sure, the trend seems to be that players are taller the further back in the rink they are, but there is a lot of overlap in distributions of heights for each position.

  • Median heights across all players is only about 3-5 inches taller than average males
  • Roughly speaking, centers and wings are around the same height
  • Heights for defensemen closely resemble the spread of heights for forwards, but shifted up about an inch
  • Goalie is the one position where someone of my height playing the position would be a large outlier

After seeing the data, I don’t think that hockey has too much specialization based on height. Yeah, I’m not the tallest person, but especially for a rec league, I shouldn’t be discouraged from playing any position. I’ll sign myself up to play D next season.

Who are the Sharks’s Playmakers?

Similar to the last post, here is a visualization made with R of the players’ assists awarded over the last 5 seasons.  Graph only includes players with at least 5 full NHL seasons of data and is not adjusted for games missed due to injuries.

  • Note: Mikkel Boedker was traded this morning to the Ottawa Senators.
  • There weren’t any particularly notable exclusions from this list. Closest might be Kevin Labanc, who had a season high 29 assists last season, but only 2 full seasons of data to pull from.
  • I mentioned Patrick Marleau in the last post. If he were included in this post, he’d fall around where Mikkel Boedker or Logan Couture are listed: He has a median assists count of 23 with a 5-season high of 38 in 2014-2015.
  • John Tavares has a 5-season median of 42 assists with a high of 48 assists in 2014-205. If John Tavares were inserted into this graph, he’d fall right between Burns and Pavelski. Not bad!