How Montreal beat the Presidents’ Trophy Winners, or (one reason) why the Leafs suck so much

Round 2 started last night, and tonight sees Montreal start their series against Pittsburgh, after they somehow were able to as the 8th seeded team in the east take out the Washington Capitols, the team with the best record in the entire league during the regular season, in the first round.  It’s being described as a big upset, and I’ll admit that it kind of was, I wasn’t expecting Montreal to win, but I can’t say it’s as much of an upset that it at first seems.

The simple fact here is that the NHL’s schedule is not fair to the various teams.  You play 50% more games against one team in your division than against another team in your conference, you also play 33% more games against the 4 other teams in your division than you do against the 15 teams in the other conference.  Conferences and divisions are divided up geographically, and this is good as it reduces travel time on the players, and tends to lead to more games against rival teams which tend to be more exciting for the fans.  However, this is also the source of the unfairness because teams aren’t very well distributed around the continent in terms of skill.

Let’s look at the Washington Capitols and their season this year, 54-15-13 for a win percentage of about 74% (loss in overtime counts as half a win).  No doubt this is an impressive record but let’s look at how they got it:

Division	Games Played	Win%
North-East	20	.675
Atlantic	20	.775
South-East	24	.833
Central	7	.714
North-West	5	.600
Pacific	6	.583

These numbers show something that is perhaps a little different. Looking at these, we can see only two divisions whose win percentage is actually above their total for the season and that those divisions are the ones that Washington played the most games against (well alright, there was a tie between Atlantic and North East). Over half of their games were played against these teams making up one third of the league, against the other two thirds of the league they didn’t play nearly as well. Well enough to get a playoff spot sure, but I don’t think well enough to win the Presidents’ Trophy.

Speaking of playoff spots let’s look at the teams that got playoff spots in the eastern conference.  Washington, New Jersey, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Ottawa, Boston, Philadelphia and Montreal (in the order of their rankings).  Looking at this we see three teams from the Atlantic Division, four from the North-East, and only one from the South-East.  That one team from the South-East?  Washington.  None of the other teams they played so many games against were able to make the playoffs, not even playing against the other not so good teams in their division.  Montreal, on the other hand, comes from what I think would be fair to describe as one of the hardest divisions in the NHL, where four of the five teams made it (and this is where that Toronto reference from the title comes).  So, that says something about this year that hardly proves that one division is harder than another, so let’s look at the past 10 years.  In that time there have been 72 possible playoff spots in the eastern conference, 28 of them have been given to the North-East division, 30 to the Atlantic and 14 to the South-East.  Remember too, that the division leaders are guaranteed a spot so that means there has to be at least 9 handed out.  In the last 10 years there has never been more than two teams from the South-East Division make the playoffs in the same year, and four times only one team has made it.  Both other divisions in the East have not had only one team make it at all, and both have 3 times had all but one team make it.

Oddly enough the amount of Stanly Cup finals appearances over the last 10 years show only 1 appearance, a loss, by the North-East Division, 5 appearances, 3 wins, from the Atlantic, and 3 appearances, 2 wins, from the South-East, which considering the amount of times teams from that division make the playoffs seems kind of impressive.  However, this really only says that this 5 team division can only consistently put out one or two good teams a season, and not even the same ones year to year, however, whichever team that is tends to do very well (except this year) whereas the other divisions are constantly doing well throughout the season (and the North-East is just blowing it in the playoffs).

almost 750 words and I still haven’t directly answered what my title here said I would.  Washington’s 1st seed was inflated by having an easier regular season, whereas Montreal’s 8th seed is a little low because of having a much harder season.  As for  Toronto, yeah, the Leafs have been horrible the past couple years, but I bet if they were in a weaker division, they would only have gone the past 3 years of not making the playoffs, instead of the past 5.

Also, this is why the Jays are screwed, they’re in the same division as both the Yankees and the Red Sox, and in Major League Baseball there’s half as many playoff spots (keeping the same division leaders get in) for the same number of teams