How to make sense of a nonsensical NHL season? Just follow the chain of blowouts
How do you know if one NHL team is better than another?
We used to thank that that was a relatively simple question. You could just look at the standings, and they’d tell you who was good and who wasn’t. That was kind of the standings page’s whole job. But that was before the league started handing out points for losing (or did they?), encouraging everyone to play for overtime during the regular season and basically making a team’s won-loss record all but useless on its own.
And that’s in a good year. This one? It’s chaos. One division is terrible, another how arguably the three best teams in the league, and a bunch of teams are going to get screwed by the playoff format. We’ve got teams we thought would be bad winning divisions, and teams we thought would win their division who are completely unwatchable, the two-time defending Cup champs are terrible, the reigning Presidents’ Trophy winner is even worse, and a contender just fired their coach with eight games left. The Blue Jackets are good, the Blues might still make the playoffs, and the Sabres are doing whatever it is they’re doing. And we’re supposed to be able to figure out which teams are better than others?
Well, yeah. And I think it’s simpler than we’re making it out to be.
We’re overthinking this. Because while the standings page might lie, the results on the ice don’t. Or at least, they don’t as long as you know where to look.
Here’s my proposal: Forget about the won-loss records, and just ask your self what happens when two teams take the ice.