Which Teams Are Gonna Blow it?
And how much does American Thanksgiving really matter? Like, for hockey.
Happy first Monday of December.
UGH? YAY?
I probably don’t need to explain this to you if you’re reading this newsletter (unless you’re my mom who only subscribes to keep me out of her basement), but American Thanksgiving is a pretty big deal in our little Hockey World. The standings on the last Thursday in November paint a decent picture of what the actual playoff field will become.
But how accurate is it?
Last season, 13 of 16 teams in a playoff position on Thanksgiving went on to make it. That’s a success rate of 81.25%, which is pretty dang accurate if it’s not your team imploding.
Folks before me have done even more research (thanks, folks) and found that from the 2013-14 season to 2017-18, 62 of 80 of teams in a playoff spot at U.S. Thanksgiving — around 77 percent — made the playoffs. When you dig into the past few years of post-Thanksgiving spoilers, you notice teams that were supposed to be good rounding into form and teams that were pretty mediocre to begin with slipping through the cracks.
You’ll also notice the Nashville Predators, who were told they couldn’t go to the U2 concert unless they turned their season around, went on a historic points streak.
More realistically, the Oilers were out of a playoff position on Thanksgiving last year, fired their coach, fired it up on offense like many anticipated, then took it all the way to Game 7 of the Cup Final.
The Islanders (like Luigi stealing your star at the end of Mario Party) rounded out the 2023-24 spoiler group, as the Blues, Kraken, and Red Wings fell out of the picture. I’m tempted to say that in a fairer world, the Islanders and their loser points wouldn’t have ruined the party, but it’s not like any of the three fallen teams particularly deserved to be there.
So if you’re a fan of a bubble team, I have some bad news: more than three quarters of the positions are decided already if the trend continues, and there’s no reason it won’t continue. But, some hope: in every NHL season for the past decade, at least three and as many as six playoff spots were determined after Thanksgiving.
And really, the deserve-to-be-there-vibe-ometer is the biggest indication of which three-ish teams are going to fall out of playoff spots. I find it easier to predict who will fall out than who will sneak in, so let’s start there.
As a side note, Do you think it’s cheating to do this a few days into the future? I debated using today’s updated standings, but the rule is strict about the Thanksgiving cut off.
Here lie the Eastern Conference standings from Nov. 28, 2024
