The luck of the puck within the Stanley Cup – why probability plays such a giant role in ice hockey

The NHL playoffs are almost like a second season – two months of tough, relentless games where the highest teams vie for a probability to win Lord Stanley's Cup.

The 16 hockey teams that made it to the postseason owe much of their success to the abilities of their players and the tactics of their coaching staff.

They also needs to thank their lucky stars.

In my latest book “The random factor“I explain why of the five major U.S. team sports—basketball, football, baseball, hockey, and soccer—ice hockey is the one with essentially the most luck in wins and losses.

Skill vs. probability

Using a mathematical approach called “true rating theory“Analysts were in a position to assess the contribution of luck to a team’s overall success.

This statistical technique uses the variance when it comes to skill, probability, and end result to estimate the relative importance of skill versus probability in determining outcomes.

In the NHL it’s estimated that the Contribution of luck to a team's seasonal balance is around 53%. At the opposite end of the spectrum, only 12% of an NBA team's success is because of luck.

The other three sports are grouped in the center, with a few third of their position in the general standings depending on luck.

More scoring likelihood is essential

How could these differences be understood?

An important factor is the variety of scoring probabilities a team has. The more probabilities a team has, the less luck plays a task within the end result.

In a typical NBA game, each team may rating 35 or more baskets during a game, whereas in an NHL game, a team may only rating a couple of times. Luck plays a much larger role when the possibilities of scoring are fewer. In such situations, a lucky hit is more likely to choose the end result of a game.

One can see that with coin tosses. If you flip a coin ten times, you could well find yourself with heads or tails seven or eight times, though the general probability of every flip is 50%. With so few throws, there might be significant deviations from what should theoretically occur: five heads and five tails.

However, in case you flip a coin 100 times, you'll probably find that just about half of those coin flips come out heads. The more events – on this case, coin tosses – that occur, the more likely the ultimate tally is to reflect the underlying probability.

In sports, too, the players' skills come into their very own when there are more scoring opportunities. In the NBA, a player can try greater than 20 shots in the midst of a game – perhaps half of that – so that they have more probabilities to point out off their skills and influence the end result of a game.

Distract, distract, distract

The oversized role of luck in ice hockey will also be explained by one other factor.

Although the rating in typical NHL games is sort of low, each team can easily attempt 45 or 50 shots. This would seemingly refute the reason that the variety of events or opportunities influences the role of luck within the end result of a game.

But anyone who has ever watched knowledgeable ice hockey game can understand the serendipity that takes place on the ice. Skates or sticks often deflect shots randomly when players cross the trail of a puck. Pucks can experience strange bounces as they travel across the court. Goalkeepers could simply be in the precise place at the precise time.

In short, there is critical randomness between the time the hockey stick hits the puck and the time it ultimately lands.

Plus, it's just difficult to attain a goal in ice hockey. The net is small and the goalkeepers are tall and wear bulky pads. Pucks have little or no space to splash through.

In all sports, probability and luck ensure excitement and fascination in these competitions. You can never be completely sure how the ball or puck will bounce. Even in case your team is heavily favored, the random factor all the time plays a task.

Nowhere is that this more evident than in ice hockey.

Despite all of the predictions from experts and oddsmakers, fans of NHL playoff teams could be sensible to do something else: keep their fingers crossed.