Qualitative Trends to Predict a Stanley Cup Champion
Although we rightfully look towards the quantitative statistics such as special teams, differential, shots per game, etc in order to determine which team has a better chance against another, qualitative trends are often overlooked. This article will highlight three strong qualitative trends that have a noticeable correlation with Stanley Cup champions.
Rest Between the Conference Finals and Stanley Cup Finals
Since 1990, there have been 33 Stanley Cup Champions. Of these, 25 of them, which equates to 75.8% of cup winners, were less rested heading into the finals. In other words, the Stanley Cup Champion finished their Conference Finals series after their opponent 75.8% of the time. In fact, of the eight times a more rested team did win the Stanley Cup, half of them were only more rested by a single day. The 1993 Montreal Canadiens and 2022 Colorado Avalanche are the only teams to win in the Stanley Cup Finals when they finish their Conference Finals series two games earlier than their opponent. For example, the 2022 Avalanche beat the Oilers in four games, and played the Lightning who beat the Rangers in six games, two games more than the Avalanche. As seen by the list of team below, these two teams are the exception, not the rule.
Out of 11 instances where one team had two or more games played than their finals opponent, the team who played more games, and therefore had less rest, won nine times, or 82% of the time.
Less rest is likely correlated with the Stanley Cup champion due to the fact that being in a rhythm is important. It’s the same reason why teams that win a series in seven games have the best success rate in the next series over any other combination of games to win a series, and is why teams are often rusty when coming back from Christmas break or the All-Star break. Overall, this trend favours the Oilers, who finished their series one day later than the Panthers. However, because both teams have nearly a week off, it is unlikely to be as impactful this year as it has been in previous seasons. For a deeper dive into this trend, check out our previous article found here.
2 - Home Ice Advantage
This is a simple statistic, but one that is easy to overlook. In all four rounds combined, the team with home-ice advantage wins approximately 58% of the time. However, this number has been amplified to 73% among the Stanley Cup Finals since 1990, and would be even higher if we looked back even further. While this could be attributed to the fact that better teams get home-ice advantage, and better teams win more often, there is also something to be said about the difference in pressure in the Stanley Cup Finals versus any other round. After the road team loses game one, they can very rarely afford to lose game two, as 2009 and 2011 are the only 2-0 series comebacks since 1971. On the other hand, if the home team loses game one, while there is still pressure, they can at least play their important game two on home ice. In recent history, it has been very rare to see the home team go down 2-0 in the Stanley Cup Finals. The 2012 New Jersey Devils are the only team with home-ice advantage to go down 2-0 since the 1997 Philadelphia Flyers. On the other hand, in this same time period since 1997, there have been fourteen times where the team starting on the road goes down 2-0, with only two of them being able to comeback as mentioned previously. When mixing home-ice advantage with the previous qualitative rest trend, the two combined become an even more powerful predictor. When the team heading into the finals with less rest has home-ice advantage, they have won the Stanley Cup 90% of the time since 1990.
Matrix of the rest trend and home-ice advantage trend since 1990
Obviously, the home-ice advantage trend favours the Florida Panthers. However, they do not fall under the 90% win rate of a home-ice advantage and a less rested team. Instead, they fall in the category of the 46.2% win rate. However, because the two teams finished their Conference Finals’ series only one day apart, it is better to look at the overall advantage of 72.7% from having home-ice advantage.
3 - Experience
As mentioned in our article here which analyzes the success of teams that have been to the conference finals before, previous experience is very important. Many of the teams that have been to the Stanley Cup Finals between 1990 and 2024 have played for the cup multiple times in short time spans. When analyzing the situation of teams having been to the finals at least once in the previous five seasons up against a brand new finalist that has not been to the finals in over five years, the team with experience has won 14 out of 15 times, or 93.3% of the time. The only team who had not been to the finals once in the previous five years and beat their opponent who had been to the finals at least once in the previous five years was the 2022 Colorado Avalanche. If we take the time period back even further, we would have to go back to 1974 before finding another inexperienced team to win the Stanley Cup in this situation. After 1974, 95% of teams (19 out of 20) with experience under this criteria defeated their opponent to win the Stanley Cup. This trend favours the Florida Panthers, as they were in the 2023 Stanley Cup Finals last year, whereas the Oilers have not been to the finals in the previous five years.
Since the Philadelphia Flyers in 1974, the 2022 Colorado Avalanche are the only team to win the Stanley Cup as an inexperienced finals team playing an experienced finals team.
While these qualitative trends appear to be helpful, it is still important to make predictions with quantitative variables as well. If you are interested in learning about more qualitative variables ahead of the 2024 Stanley Cup Finals and also want a quantitative analysis, visit the services page for an in-depth 2024 Stanley Cup Finals Analysis, or get to this product directly by clicking here.