Odd Stat

[Doggy 130]

If a team went 0-0-41-41 then that would be 82 points. 82 points in 82 games is a .500 record. What you are saying is that this team would be at .000 because they lost every game.

ROTFLMFAO!!!

You're dumb.

[Guest Hatethedrake!]

Points have no place in the traditional way someone calculates a teams win percentage.

Just because the NHL decided to reward a team for working hard for 60 minutes, doesn't mean that they didn't lose when the other team won.

How points are awarded has nothing to do with a teams win percentage.

The Wings have won 65% of their games.

The Lions won 43% of their games.

No points required.

Points have everything to do with how a winning percentage is calculated. 82 points out of a possible 164 is .500. As long as points are awarded for losing in OT and in SO's then it has everything to do with it. The NHL awards points for losing in OT and in a SO therefore it is not an actual loss. All losses are not created equal. However all wins are. 2 points for a regulation win, OT win and SO win.

As long as a team has more wins than regulation losses (where you get 0 points) then they have a winning record. It's quite simple really. Well for me it is anyway.

Edited March 21, 2008 by Hatethedrake!

[gsusluvshockey 0]

That's completely incorrect. Very few teams win 42 games in a season. You need to simply have more wins than reg. losses in a season to have a winning record. Eg. 37-35-10 is a winning record.

Actually, about half of the teams win over 41 games. And 37-35-10 is a losing record because you still lost 45 games. Whether you lost them in ot or not is irrelevant.

[Guest Hatethedrake!]

ROTFLMFAO!!!

You're dumb.

And you're a dumbass. Next?

[gsusluvshockey 0]

Points have everything to do with how a winning percentage is calculated. 82 points out of a possible 164 is .500. As long as points are awarded for losing in OT and in SO's then it has everything to do with it. The NHL awards points for losing so therefore it is not an actual loss. All losses are not created equal. However all wins are. 2 points for a regulation win, OT win and SO win.

As long as a team has more wins than regulation losses (where you get 0 points) then they have a winning record. It's quite simple really. Well for me it is anyway.

Points do not equal wins

In a league of 30 teams...15 of the teams MUST be at or below .500 and 15 of the teams MUST be at or above .500. It is impossible for there to only be 5 teams below .500. Who did all of those 25 other teams play?

Out of 82 games, there has to be 41 winners and 41 losers. There can't be 75 winners and 7 losers. Points have nothing to do with win percentages.

[Guest Hatethedrake!]

Points do not equal wins

In a league of 30 teams...15 of the teams MUST be at or below .500 and 15 of the teams MUST be at or above .500. It is impossible for there to only be 5 teams below .500. Who did all of those 25 other teams play?

Out of 82 games, there has to be 41 winners and 41 losers. There can't be 75 winners and 7 losers. Points have nothing to do with win percentages.

There are no "have to be's". Let me put it this way. In the old NHL where there was 1 point awarded for ties. In 95/96 the Wings went 62-13-7. By your logic the Wings lost 20 times that year. It is flawed. They did not lose 20 times. They lost 13 times.

In today's NHL an OT loss and a SO loss is worth 1 point. It is the same as a tie essentially. If you are going to award SO wins as WINS then you have to award SO losses as losses. Same for OT wins and OT losses. You also have to represent that teams get a point for losing in OT and in a SO. Pretending it does not exist is flawed. Your theory is the glass half full one. You do not represent all the variables of the equation.

Edited March 21, 2008 by Hatethedrake!

[gsusluvshockey 0]

There are no "have to be's". Let me put it this way. In the old NHL where there was 1 point awarded for ties. In 95/96 the Wings went 62-13-7. By your logic the Wings lost 20 times that year. It is flawed. They did not lose 20 times. They lost 13 times.

In today's NHL an OT loss and a SO loss is worth 1 point. It is the same as a tie essentially. If you are going to award SO wins as WINS then you have to award SO losses as losses. Same for OT wins and OT losses. You also have to represent that teams get a point for losing in OT and in a SO. Pretending it does not exist is flawed. Your theory is the glass half full one. You do not represent all the variables of the equation.

How do teams win in sports where points aren't awarded? How do they calculate a win percentage?

And if the 95 Wings won 62 games and they played 82 games, that means that they lost 20 games.

lets put it this way, the number of games a team looses, has NOTHING to do with the WIN percentage. Only the games they actually WON. Only the games where they scored MORE goals than the other team. The only way you can WIN a game is to score more goals than the other team. You CANNOT WIN a game when the other team scores more goals. And if you scored the same number of goals, you still didn't win because the only way you can win is to score MORE goals.

If you tied a team, you did not win. Even if they let you split the points, you did not win. The only reason they show OT loses is to award points. If points were not involved it would be wins-loses. not Wins-loses-OT loses. Anything other than a win is a lose. OT loses aren't half a win. It's still a whole lose. Kind of like you can't dig a half hole.

Edited March 21, 2008 by gsusluvshockey

[Guest Hatethedrake!]

How do teams win in sports where points aren't awarded? How do they calculate a win percentage?

And if the 95 Wings won 62 games and they played 82 games, that means that they lost 20 games.

lets put it this way, the number of games a team loses, has NOTHING to do with the WIN percentage. Only the games they actually WON. Only they games where they scored MORE goals than the other team. The only way you can WIN a game is to score more goals than the other team. You CANNOT WIN a game when the other team scores more points.

Again you are failing to recognize all the variables of the equation. Hockey is not baseball. Or basketball. Or even football. However there are ties every now and then in that sport.

When a team in the NHL tie for points, the first tiebreaker is always WINS. By your logic the teams would not be tied to begin with because one team most likely had more SO WINS or OT wins. Or SO losses and OT losses. Do you see what I am getting at?

You are going by straight wins and that is NOT winning percentage. You have to recognize all the games played. You can't recognize the OT wins and not the OT losses. Selective deduction is flawed.

If the NHL went by your criteria then why are there separate columns for OT losses and SO losses. By your definintion there should only be 2 columns. Wins and losses. I will say it again however...as long as the league recognizes teams getting a point for losing in OT and in a SO then you must factor that in. Otherwise you are not giving an accurate analysis on a team's winning percentage.

Bottom line is you cannot act as if OT losses and SO losses do not exist. So long as teams are awarded points for such results then that will always be a part of a team's winning percentage.

Edited March 21, 2008 by Hatethedrake!

[gsusluvshockey 0]

Again you are failing to recognize all the variables of the equation. Hockey is not baseball. Or basketball. Or even football. However there are ties every now and then in that sport.

When a team in the NHL tie for points, the first tiebreaker is always WINS. By your logic the teams would not be tied to begin with because one team most likely had more SO WINS or OT wins. Or SO losses and OT losses. Do you see what I am getting at?

You are going by straight wins and that is NOT winning percentage. You have to recognize all the games played. You can't recognize the OT wins and not the OT losses. Selective deduction is flawed.

If the NHL went by your criteria then why are there separate columns for OT losses and SO losses. By your definintion there should only be 2 columns. Wins and losses. I will say it again however...as long as the league recognizes teams getting a point for losing in OT and in a SO then you must factor that in. Otherwise you are not giving an accurate analysis on a team's winning percentage.

Bottom line is you cannot act as if OT losses and SO losses do not exist. So long as teams are awarded points for such results then that will always be a part of a team's winning percentage.

You've got it backwards though. They don't award points for OT/SO losses because they have a column for it. They have a column for it because they award points for it. If they did not award points for it, there would be no third column. But just because they award points, doesn't make it a win.

If 2 teams play against eachother. In the current NHL One team MUST WIN. And one team MUST LOSE. The Winning team is awarded 2 points, no matter what. If the losing team loses in regulation, they get 0 points. If they lose in OT or a SO, they get 1 point. So if a game goes into OT the Winning team will get 2 points and the losing team will get 1 point. There is still a team that loses. The team that lost doesn't get a half of a win. they get ZERO wins.

By what you are saying, if a game goes into OT, there will be 1.5 winners of that game. And that is impossible. There is only 1 winner. Both teams can't win. And a team can't be half of a winner.

By what you say, if one game is played there can be a team that won 100% of their games. And the other team won 50% (or half) of their games. But that is impossible. If they only played 1 game, they can't be .500. If you only played 1 game, you couldn't have won half of them. in order to to win half of your games you MUST have played at least 2 games. You won one game and you lost one game.

[gsusluvshockey 0]

You are calculating the POINT percentage. Our current point percentage is .693 because we have 104 points out of a total 150 possible points.

The WIN percentage is .653 because we have WON 49 games out of a possible 75 total games.

Here is a link to NHL.com. This is their stats page. All of the teams POINT percentages are calculated and shown in red. These are not WIN percentages (note the P% at the top of the column).

You are calculating the POINT percentage. I am calculating the actual WIN percentage. When speaking of a teams winning and losing record, it is useless to calculate the point percentage.

[Guest Hatethedrake!]

You've got it backwards though. They don't award points for OT/SO losses because they have a column for it. They have a column for it because they award points for it. If they did not award points for it, there would be no third column. But just because they award points, doesn't make it a win.

If 2 teams play against eachother. In the current NHL One team MUST WIN. And one team MUST LOSE. The Winning team is awarded 2 points, no matter what. If the losing team loses in regulation, they get 0 points. If they lose in OT or a SO, they get 1 point. So if a game goes into OT the Winning team will get 2 points and the losing team will get 1 point. There is still a team that loses. The team that lost doesn't get a half of a win. they get ZERO wins.

By what you are saying, if a game goes into OT, there will be 1.5 winners of that game. And that is impossible. There is only 1 winner. Both teams can't win. And a team can't be half of a winner.

By what you say, if one game is played there can be a team that won 100% of their games. And the other team won 50% (or half) of their games. But that is impossible. If they only played 1 game, they can't be .500. If you only played 1 game, you couldn't have won half of them. in order to to win half of your games you MUST have played at least 2 games. You won one game and you lost one game.

The subject here is winning percentage. In the old NHL where there were wins, losses and ties a team would be awarded 1 for a win, 1 for a loss and .5 for a tie. So if a team went 1-1-1 their winning percentage is .500. Not .333 like you would likely suggest.

In today's NHL where a tie has been replaced by either an OT loss or a SO loss the same logic applies when determining winning percentage.

A team goes 32-30-10-10 the breakdown when determining the winning percentage is as follows...32+0+5+5=42 out of 82. Your definition would be 32+0+0+0=32 out of 82.

I'd suggest you go back to old NHL standings and try to find team's winning percentages for those given seasons. I am quite sure it will correspond with my interpretation of what a hockey team's winning percentage is.

[Guest Hatethedrake!]

Add on: What you said in your last post illustrates my point even further. In a 3 point game there ARE 1.5 winners for that game which is why the system is flawed IMO.

[gsusluvshockey 0]

The subject here is winning percentage. In the old NHL where there were wins, losses and ties a team would be awarded 1 for a win, 1 for a loss and .5 for a tie. So if a team went 1-1-1 their winning percentage is .500. Not .333 like you would likely suggest.

In today's NHL where a tie has been replaced by either an OT loss or a SO loss the same logic applies when determining winning percentage.

A team goes 32-30-10-10 the breakdown when determining the winning percentage is as follows...32+0+5+5=42 out of 82. Your definition would be 32+0+0+0=32 out of 82.

I'd suggest you go back to old NHL standings and try to find team's winning percentages for those given seasons. I am quite sure it will correspond with my interpretation of what a hockey team's winning percentage is.

Like I said before, you are calculating POINT percentages. If you mean to say POINT percentages, you are correct. But we were talking about WIN percentages. When talking about WIN percentages, I am correct.

With WIN percentages, only the WINS matter.

With point percentages, only the POINTS matter.

Personally, I find POINT% useless. It is a very subjective way of comparing teams.

[Guest Hatethedrake!]

Like I said before, you are calculating POINT percentages. If you mean to say POINT percentages, you are correct. But we were talking about WIN percentages. When talking about WIN percentages, I am correct.

With WIN percentages, only the WINS matter.

With point percentages, only the POINTS matter.

Personally, I find POINT% useless. It is a very subjective way of comparing teams.

The NHL goes with the points percentage obviously so I think it is very objective. Otherwise the standings would look totally different. The baseball way of thinking does not apply to hockey. It is not that simple. SO losses and OT losses are very much part of today's game. With today's 3 point game it should be called points percentage. Your definition of winning percentage has no meaning really. Other than if 2 teams end the season with the same number of points, then the greater number of wins applies. Other than that it means nothing really.

[gsusluvshockey 0]

I'd suggest you go back to old NHL standings and try to find team's winning percentages for those given seasons. I am quite sure it will correspond with my interpretation of what a hockey team's winning percentage is.

It doesn't matter if it's the old NHL or the new NHL. Point percentages are DIFFERENT than Win percentages.

which is why the system is flawed

agreed, the NHL's keeping up with POINT percentages is ridiculous. Too bad everyone is talking about WIN percentages.

[Guest Hatethedrake!]

It doesn't matter if it's the old NHL or the new NHL. Point percentages are DIFFERENT than Win percentages.

agreed, the NHL's keeping up with POINT percentages is ridiculous. Too bad everyone is talking about WIN percentages.

It would be much easier if there were only 2 categories. WINS and LOSSES. If the NHL wishes to keep OT and the SO's then do not award points for losing. You have 3 chances to win a game. Regulation, OT and a SO. If you cannot get the job done then you don't deserve the win. The standings would be much easier to follow and it really would be winning percentage just like baseball and basketball.

You would sure see teams trying harder to win in regulation and in OT then having to rely on a shootout for 2 points. Actually you could eliminate points altogether and just go by wins and losses. It is my hope they go this way in the future but I am not holding my breath.

Edited March 21, 2008 by Hatethedrake!

[Guest Hatethedrake!]

Here are the standings with straight wins and losses...The order is based on what the current NHL standings are...

WEST

1 DETROIT 49-26

2 SAN JOSE 44-30

3 MINNESOTA 39-35

4 ANAHEIM 42-33

5 DALLAS 42-33

6 VANCOUVER 38-36

7 CALGARY 38-36

8 COLORADO 39-36

9 NASHVILLE 36-39

10 EDMONTON 37-38

11 PHOENIX 36-39

12 CHICAGO 35-39

13 COLUMBUS 33-41

14 ST. LOUIS 30-44

15 LOS ANGELES 29-46

EAST

1 MONTREAL 41-34

2 NEW JERSEY 42-31

3 CAROLINA 41-35

4 PITTSBURGH 42-32

5 OTTAWA 41-33

6 NY RANGERS 39-35

7 BOSTON 37-37

8 PHILADELPHIA 36-38

9 BUFFALO 35-39

10 WASHINGTON 36-39

11 FLORIDA 35-40

12 TORONTO 33-41

13 NY ISLANDERS 32-42

14 ATLANTA 31-45

15 TAMPA BAY 29-45

[Doggy 130]

The reason the NHL doesn't keep track of win% is because it's a completely useless statistic that has no bearing on the standings whatsoever. Pt% is what matters.

The NHL has always called it win% despite the fact it is Pt%. Regardless, to be above .500 you must have more wins than reg. losses. End of story. Why would anyone care about win%? It's completely meaningless.

[gsusluvshockey 0]

The reason the NHL doesn't keep track of win% is because it's a completely useless statistic that has no bearing on the standings whatsoever. Pt% is what matters.

The NHL has always called it win% despite the fact it is Pt%. Regardless, to be above .500 you must have more wins than reg. losses. End of story. Why would anyone care about win%? It's completely meaningless.

When comparing teams, the Point percentage is useless.

Everybody knows that a team that wins is better than a team that loses, right.

According to POINT%

one team can go 41-41-0 and have .500

They WON 41 games.

But another team can go 0-0-82 and have .500

They LOST ALL of their games but now they look like they are as good as the team that won half of them.

Point % is very SUBJECTIVE. A team who is better could have won more games but have a lower %.

The actual WIN % is Objective. If you calculate the Actual win %, you will automatically know what team is better.

The NHL does use point % to calculate standings, but in REAL life the win % is the true test of a team. In REAL life a team that loses ALL of their games sucks. Whether they lost them in OT or not.

[FinWing 26]

Maybe a bit off topic but I would like to see NHL implement the same system we have in Finland: 3 points for regulation win, 2 for OT/SO win and 1 for OT/SO loss. Thus equal amount of points would be handed out each game and teams would be more encouraged to go for the win in regulation.

Just my 0,02€.

[Opie 308]

0 points for a loss, with a tie completely impossible in the NHL now why on earth should the losing team get a point. You win, you win and you get 2 points. You lose, you lose and get 0 points. Pretty basic right.

If I am not mistaken the one point thing was put in to prevent teams from playing for the tie or giving them something (the extra point) to try and get. But now with no tie possible they should change that again so that if it does go to OT the teams will fight for the points especially at the end of the season.

But then again what do I know!

[tweekvp 0]

Points do not equal wins

In a league of 30 teams...15 of the teams MUST be at or below .500 and 15 of the teams MUST be at or above .500. It is impossible for there to only be 5 teams below .500. Who did all of those 25 other teams play?

Out of 82 games, there has to be 41 winners and 41 losers. There can't be 75 winners and 7 losers. Points have nothing to do with win percentages.

Just a quick correction the average winning percentage for the 30 teams will be .500. You could have a team with a very low or high win% shifting more teams in the other direction.

With the parity in the league right now it happens that there are 15 teams .500 or above and 15 teams below.

[Austin 5]

I'm just going to throw my $0.02 in on what is probably a dead issue.

A winning record is a record with more wins than losses (in regulation or overtime).

42-40-0 = Winning Record

40-0-42 = Losing Record

Regardless of whether or not a loss is in regulation, it is a loss. If you have more losses, no matter how they come about, than wins, you have a losing record. If you have more wins than losses, you have a winning record.

Now, a win percentage is the percentage of games that a team was won. If a team went 30-22-30, that would be a win percentage of 36.6%. They won thirty of their 82 games.

Points percentage, on the other hand, is the amount of points a team got out of how many they could have got. In the same 30-22-30 scenario, the team would have a 54.9% points percentage.

Let me point out a few things that I've read..

That's completely incorrect. Very few teams win 42 games in a season. You need to simply have more wins than reg. losses in a season to have a winning record. Eg. 37-35-10 is a winning record.

Not true. As I pointed out, that is a record that would be over .500 in the points percentage category, but it is not a winning record. They won 37 games, and lost 45 games. That is not a winning record.

Out of 82 games, there has to be 41 winners and 41 losers. There can't be 75 winners and 7 losers. Points have nothing to do with win percentages.

Could be a typo on your part, but in 82 games, there are 82 losers and 82 winners.

The subject here is winning percentage. In the old NHL where there were wins, losses and ties a team would be awarded 1 for a win, 1 for a loss and .5 for a tie. So if a team went 1-1-1 their winning percentage is .500. Not .333 like you would likely suggest.

No. Winning percentage, as stated above, is the amount of games a team won. The win percentage would be .333.

Points percentage would be .500.

Let me know if this isn't clear, I'll do my best to elaborate further

[Doggy 130]

When comparing teams, the Point percentage is useless.

Everybody knows that a team that wins is better than a team that loses, right.

According to POINT%

one team can go 41-41-0 and have .500

They WON 41 games.

But another team can go 0-0-82 and have .500

They LOST ALL of their games but now they look like they are as good as the team that won half of them.

Point % is very SUBJECTIVE. A team who is better could have won more games but have a lower %.

The actual WIN % is Objective. If you calculate the Actual win %, you will automatically know what team is better.

The NHL does use point % to calculate standings, but in REAL life the win % is the true test of a team. In REAL life a team that loses ALL of their games sucks. Whether they lost them in OT or not.

Yeah I'm sure a team that misses the playoffs can take solace in the fact they had a better win% than one that did make the playoffs with more points because win% is so important.

That's just as good.

[stormboy 47]

i agree with the poster(s) saying that win percentage is irrelevant in the nhl, since we do go by points. a team that's 42-40-0 has a "winning record" based on win percentage, but the team that's 40-0-42 will have more points. despite the fact that they have a "losing" record, they'll still be higher than the team that went 42-40-0. so what's the point in saying team a has a winning record and team b has a losing record? technically, you're correct, but that is a meaningless statement in the nhl since conference rankings are based on points.

i agree that it's a f***ed up system: you shouldn't be able to have 25 teams with an over-fifty percent points percentage, but that's the way it is, and "winning record" and "win percentage" have no functional value in discussions of the nhl at this time.