Go For the Predz-idents Trophy

by Dirk Hoag on Mar 29, 2007 10:23 AM EDT

Today's Tennessean has a boilerplate article about how winning the President's Trophy isn't a big deal, and that "only six Presidents' Trophy winners have gone on to win the Stanley Cup in the 20 years the league has given out the award." Setting aside the notion that it's a bad idea for teams to poo-poo the importance of the regular season (shall I just save my ticket-purchasing money for the playoffs?), earning home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs is indeed worth something.

There are sixteen teams in each playoff run, and if regular season standings really don't mean anything, then each team has a 6.25% chance of winning the Cup. If 6 President's Trophy winners have won in 20 years, however, that suggests a 30% chance for the best regular season team.

I don't know about you, but a 30% shot sounds better than 6.25% any day.

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If you have time it might be fun to take a look at playoff positioning and Stanley cups. I suspect that as you go farther down the ranking the less it means for two reasons: one would be reseeding and the other would be the a leveling of the skill/talent pool (the top team is probably more of an outlier in skill than the 4 or 5th place teams).

by Mogen_david on Mar 29, 2007 10:46 AM EDT reply actions

It might be most accurate do determine the following:

8 seeds: # of Stanley Cups
7 seeds: # of Stanley Cups
6 seeds: # of Stanley Cups
5 seeds: # of Stanley Cups
4 seeds: # of Stanley Cups
3 seeds: # of Stanley Cups
2 seeds: # of Stanley Cups
1 seeds: # of Stanley Cups

That would be a true measure of wanting the #1 seed.

by Jeffrey on Mar 29, 2007 11:16 AM EDT reply actions