As the NHL insiders and experts provide their predictions for the Stanley Cup Playoffs across the various networks, a popular narrative comes out about late season momentum and how a team is playing heading into the playoffs. Picking a team because of how they have performed in late March and early April is a popular reason used in predictions.
Is this reasoning useful? Is there value in looking at what team is hot heading into the playoffs and predicting them to have success? Why don’t we take a look at previous years and how “hot” teams did in the first round.
The Value of Late Season Momentum
For this I have used teams record over their last 10 games, and looked at the playoff team with the best record over that stretch. I have gone back to the 2004-05 lockout for this. In two of those years, two teams had identical records over the last ten games, in those cases, I included both.
| Year | Team | Record | Result |
| 2014 | Colorado | 7-1-2 | lost first round |
| 2013 | Washington | 8-1-1 | lost first round |
| 2012 | Vancouver | 8-1-1 | lost first round |
| 2011 | Pittsburgh | 8-2-0 | lost first round |
| 2010 | San Jose | 8-1-1 | won first round, lost conference final |
| 2010 | Detroit | 8-1-1 | won in first round, lost second round |
| 2009 | St. Louis | 8-1-1 | lost first round |
| 2008 | Washington | 9-1-0 | lost first round |
| 2007 | San Jose | 7-1-2 | won first round, lost second round |
| 2007 | Dallas | 7-1-2 | lost first round |
| 2006 | New Jersey | 10-0-0 | won first round, lost second round |
Of the 11 teams, seven have lost in the first round; none have made the Stanley Cup final, and only one advanced to the Conference final. That was the 2010 Sharks, who beat the 2010 Detroit Red Wings in the second round of the playoffs. Overall it does not seem that late season momentum has meant an awful lot.
With that in mind, I have also looked at the Stanley Cup Champions since 2005, attempting to see how they did in their final ten games of the regular season. The results were surprising. Going back to the 2006 Carolina Hurricanes, the average number of wins for a Stanley Cup Champion in their last ten games? 5.89. This is very close to their season winning percentage. Going back even further to the 2000 New Jersey Devils, we see an average of just 5.35, or worse than their overall winning percentage.
What does this all mean? While it would be silly to assume that playing well going into the playoffs is a bad thing, there is just no evidence to suggest that being hot at the end of the regular season is a good thing. Its far more important to be a good team over a long stretch, than to be hot late in the season.
The lesson here is one we have seen a number of times over the years. That elusive intangible known as “momentum” might be something we can observe in game, but it doesn’t carry over from one game to the next. The momentum acquired the previous night seems to evaporate once the first puck is dropped for a new game, or perhaps its once that first goal of the new game is scored.
