The Thanksgiving Checkpoint
American Thanksgiving is often considered as one of the most important checkpoints in the NHL season. Despite being only one quarter into each season, sometimes further along depending on how early the season starts, history has shown that the standings at American Thanksgiving paints an accurate picture for which teams will qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Because the number of games played by each team at American Thanksgiving is uneven, the numbers from the analysis will be related to a re-ordering of the standings based on points percentage, not points alone. This also made a marginally difference, so the original question is not altered from the findings. Additionally, the analysis will be kept simple by allowing for ties in the standings at Thanksgiving, as accounting for tie-breaking procedures did not change the number of teams that changed from a playoff/non-playoff team by the end of the season. As a final note, despite the playoff format change in 2013-2014, the top eight teams have always qualified for the playoffs; so for consistency purposes, the wild card format will be converted to the Conference Standings format.
In the salary cap era beginning in the 2005-2006 season, there have been a total of 488 team records after excluding the 2013, 2019-2020, and 2021 shortened seasons. Of these, a total of 374 teams, or 76.6% of teams, maintained their American Thanksgiving playoff position by the end of the season. The number of teams maintaining their standings status is consistent, where the most changes occurred in the 2007-2008 season with 30% of teams changing as playoff/non-playoff teams, whereas the fewest changes was 20% of teams, occurring among multiple seasons. Unsurprisingly, of the 114 teams involved in their playoff status changing by the end of the season, the majority were teams ranked between the sixth seed and the 11th seed, where 64.0% of all teams with a changed status by the end of the season fell in this range. No team qualified for the playoffs while ranking 16th in the conference, however, the 2007-2008 Washington Capitals did qualify for the playoffs, and even won their division, despite ranking 15th in the East, which is the only occurrence of a team qualifying for the playoffs after ranking last in the conference at Thanksgiving. The Capitals’ points percentage increase from their Thanksgiving position compared to their final record was 0.213, the second highest increase only next to the 2005-2006 Columbus Blue Jackets. Two teams qualified for the playoffs after sitting at rank 14 in the conference, those being the 2017-2018 Philadelphia Flyers, and the 2018-2019 St. Louis Blues. Of course, the Blues would become well known as one of the best season comeback stories in NHL history, eventually winning the Stanley Cup despite their poor start to the season. They would improve 10 ranks in the Western Conference standings from Thanksgiving to the end of the season, which is tied for the most improved ranking. The 2018-2019 Blues are also the only Stanley Cup winning team in the Salary Cap era that was not in a playoff spot at American Thanksgiving. The 2017-2018 Capitals are the closest Stanley Cup winning team to the playoff line, as they were the 8th seed in the Eastern Conference.
The number of teams that increased/decreased by each quantity of positions in the conference standings. The most common occurrence was no change in standings position.
On the other end of the spectrum, only two teams ranked first in the conference at Thanksgiving eventually missed the playoffs, those being the 2015-2016 Montreal Canadiens and, ironically, the 2017-2018 St. Louis Blues, one season prior to the polar opposite scenario. While the Blues’ drop-off was surprising, the 2015-2016 Canadiens’ drop-off can be easily explained by the long-term injury to goaltender Carey Price, who most considered to be the best goaltender in the league at the time. The Canadiens had a drop of 0.283 points percentage from their Thanksgiving position compared to their final record, which is the highest points percentage drop of all 488 teams. Additionally, their standings rank drop of 12 spots is tied for the most along with the 2007-2008 St. Louis Blues.
The number of teams from each seed at Thanksgiving that dropped out of the playoffs or qualified for the playoffs. Because the ranking is based on points percentage and the tie breaking variables are not considered, there will be some teams tied as the eighth seed, but for the purposes of this analysis, all teams marked as an eighth seed will be considered to be in a playoff position.
Teams seeded 16 at Thanksgiving are not included in this chart since there were no instances of a 16th seed becoming a playoff team.
Despite the fact that American Thanksgiving occurs only a quarter of the way through the season each year, and despite the fact that there are approximately 60 games remaining to decide playoff positions, the data is clear that the majority of teams in a playoff spot at Thanksgiving maintain their position by the end of the season. One explanation for this is that a sample size of approximately 20 games is enough to gauge how “good” most teams are, and that any early season woes are no longer woes, but are instead the norm by this point in the season. Another explanation is that, despite being only a quarter through the season, it is already at the point where it is difficult for any teams far out of a playoff spot to catch up. For example, a team ranked 12th in their conference would not only have to improve their play and win more games, but they would also need teams 11 through eight to perform worse over the remainder of the season, a tough ask for a team that likely won less than half of their games by this point in the season. Finally, as discussed in a previous article about how a strong start is an important factor for Stanley Cup champions, this would suggest that, as a byproduct, it would also be an important factor for most playoff teams. This is likely due to the psychological advantage of the players, feeling confident and comfortable from being in a strong position early in the season, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in that a team can continue to thrive and win games. On the contrary, teams that get off to a slow start may feel panicked that they need to begin winning regularly, or unconfident in their current play which leads to frustration.
While it may seem like common sense that teams in a playoff position one quarter through the season will likely qualify for the playoffs by the end of the season, visualizing the numbers puts into perspective just how early the majority of the playoff teams are decided, and just how unlikely season comebacks really are.