So it's 30 hours before puck drop in the next Game 7, and I thought it would be fun to review the Bold Predictions we and the staff made prior to the start of the series. I realize that there's still a game's worth of action that could decide all of these one way or another, but let's be honest: if the Caps lose, there's no way I'm going to want to do this; and if they win, there's no way anyone is going to want to read this. The time, as they say, appears to be ripe. Or as ripe as it's going to get, anyway.

So, after the jump, the predictions and the results.

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We know, thanks to BtN, that the final 35 games of the regular season have the most predictive value with regard to first round playoff performance.  Thanks to shrpsports.com, we also know that 35 games ago takes us more or less back to January 18, 2011.  With that in mind, who's hot and who's not?  Who scares us as a playoff opponent, and who doesn't worry us?  After the jump, the current top 9 teams (8 playoff teams plus the Rangers) , sorted by points percentage based on games since January 18, 2011. 

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On the Forecheck (via Puckdaddy) has some updated numbers regarding Strength of Schedule for the balance of the season,  and adds some additional angles to consider.

Caps looking goooooood here.  Relatively few back-to-back sets, bad opponents, and fewer road games than the rest of the contenders for the top seed in the East.

Looking at it another way, if the Devils put it in gear and play, say, .700 hockey the rest of the way (note that their current win points pct is .667), they end up with 111.2 points.  Let's be generous and round them up to 112 points.

The Caps would only need to play .611 hockey for the balance of the schedule to end up with 113 points.

Of course, the one club with an "easier" schedule than the Caps is those very same NJD.  But they have two more sets of back-to-back games, and their opponents, while they have a lower points percentage, have a slightly higher 5 v. 5 goal ratio.  In rough terms, a wash (?).

By one metric, at least, the Caps are a 70% favorite to take the top seed in the East.  Their schedule, which gets particularly east after the Olympic break, has got to be a major factor in that number.

I'm sure most of you have run into the Pythag Expectation as a baseball stat; for the uninitiated, it correlates runs scored and runs allowed with expected winning percentage.  It's not entirely precise, but it is a handy metric to gauge if a particular team is winning (or losing) more than their actual performance might warrant.

I have searched in vain for a similar formula in hockey.

Do any of you know of something I've missed?  If so, please leave in the comments.

In a similar vein, I am not quite sure what stats are and are not predictive in hockey.  I vaguely remember hearing that shot differential is predictive, but Google searches have not yielded me anything meaty here.  Is goal differential predictive, similar to baseball?  Can't find anything that corroborates or dismisses that.

Again, if you know of any prior work in this vein, please leave us a link in the comments.

If there's nothing out there, I might try to carve out a little time to mess around with some numbers to see if there's a simple formula that will correlate.  If I get that motivated, I'll of course share the results here.

Thanks,

FD

Interesting game coming up with the Capitals and Lightning meeting for the first time this year.  Ordinarily, with the Caps coming off of two blowouts, I'd say the 'Ning have better than even odds of winning this one.  The Caps have a distinct tendency to take their foot off the pedal after a couple of good performances, and this would be a classic time to do so.

There are a couple of wild cards, however.

First, this is Alex Ovechkin's first game back after a two game suspension.  He was distinctly not amused by the suspension, and an annoyed Ovechkin has been a fearsome beast in the past.  See, for instance, the time when the Habs broke his nose, and he put of 4 goals on them.  So I think we can expect AO to be on a mission.  Good for the Caps.

But there's the rest of the team to consider as well.  They will probably defer to him.  Do they lose productivity?  A little at the very least.  Potentially a lot.  Bad for the Caps.

Then there's history to consider.  The Caps have dominated the series of late.  This Lightning team isn't the same as last year's model of course.  But David Steckel has scored in 100% of his last one games, and he's a noted TBL Killer.  But Marty St. Louis has been a long time thorn in the Caps' collective side.

In the end, I think the biggest question is, can AO carry the Caps?  If he can score 3, the Caps win.  Any less, and the Lightning probably take home 2 points.

Final advice: try to avoid undue thuggery.  It appears probable that putting your team in an extended PK situation is not a winning strategy against the Caps.

Good luck, and enjoy the game.  If you have a game day thread, I'm sure myself and some others from Japers' will drop by.

The one team I really do not want to see in Round 1 is the Penguins.  You all know the reasons, and probably share them.

The best thing that could happen here is for Carolina to fall off a cliff, pushing the Pens into 5th (aside: I would pay money to see a brutal 7-gamer between the Phlyers and Whiney & Co) and the Rangers into 6th.  There's no team I would feel better against than the Rangers, if you'll permit another aside.

If I can get this thing to format right (odds: low; zero idea how to insert a table from Excel in here), here is a look at Pitt's and Carolina's remaining schedules, and how they stack up.

PITT                                                  CAR

• NYR                                           @NJD
  
• NJD                                            NYR
  
• @CAR                                        PIT
  
• @FLA                                         NYI                           
  
• @TBL                                        BUF
  
• NYI                                             @NJD
  
• @MTL

The big thing that jumps out, obviously, is the April 4 game between the two teams.  I will be praying to God that that the Pens win that one in regulation.  The other thing is that they have a lot of common opponents - they both play the Devils, Rangers, and Islanders.  The "odd" games have Carolina against Buffalo and @ the Devils (last game of the season, perhaps NJ has a spot locked up and takes the night off?); the Pens are @Tampa and @Montreal.  Looking like easy points, thank God.

And of course the Pens have a game in hand, thanksbetothedinosaurrider.    Of course, they do have a road back-to-back in there.

Looking at the schedule, I don't think either of them is particularly brutal, but the Pens looks slightly better - I like the FLA, TBL, NYI, MTL stretch to end the season.  The Pens currently are 2-1 against the Canes (dunno if any of those were in OT, though). In the end, I think the Pens push into 5th place by a whisker.  Carolina has to cool off eventually, right?

First, the headline is somewhat tongue-in-cheek.  Second, it's not going to happen.  Bruce lead the renaissance in DC, and he's going to get a shot at the playoffs this year.  But...

Hear me out here.  Remember when Lou Lamoriello (sp?) fired Ftorek with less than 10 games in the season?  The team was obviously talented, the playoffs were a cinch, but the team had entered a slump and showed no signs of breaking out of it.  The ploy worked, if I recall, and the Devs went on to win the Cup that year.

If Ted is serious about winning a cup, he'll pull the trigger.  The team has just stopped trying, stopped caring about winning.  Can they turn it on once the playoffs come around?  Well, that's the million dollar question, but I am skeptical.  They have flat been going through the motions against the Florida/Carolina/Toronto types that they ought to dominate.

My best viewing option for the Caps was atdhe.net.  Now that's gone away, it appears.  Which sucks so hard I can't tell you.

Can anyone out there help a brother out and let me know a site that streams the video of the Caps games?  I know I can always pick up the radio feed, but watching the action is so much more rewarding...

Anyway, thanks in advance for any advice and assistance that can be rendered here.

Thought I would add my $.02 on the "bad win" against the Canadiens.

We've come a loooooong way, baby.  Remember where this club was as recently as three years ago?  They constantly got pinned in their own end for extended stretches of time, completely unable to get the puck out of their zone, let alone generate much offense.

When you reviewed rosters, the Caps almost never had the best player at any one position.  Contrast that with the present, where the Caps routinely have the best 3-4 players on the ice at any one time.

Or you can go back even further in time, when Pat Peake and Mike Ridley (et al) were outworking the opposition in the regular season, but unable to raise their games in the playoffs. 

Now we as fans have the collective luxury of bitching about style points.  That's so awesome I can't even begin to tell you...

As for tonite, here's what I expect: another humdrum effort against a bad team, and another win.  Why?  Because they can.  It's a long season, and there's just no way to play max-effort for 82 games.  When they need to, they'll score.  When they need to, they'll play just enough defense.  That is good enough for me, and so much better than the frustration of being on the other end of the stick.