What margin of victory tells us about the Stanley Cup Playoffs

You need not ask who this year’s prohibitive favourite is heading into the Stanley Cup Playoffs – it’s the Boston Bruins, who are chasing history in all of the right ways.

This Bruins season is so impressive because of how dominant the team has been from wire to wire. This isn’t your typical Presidents’ Trophy winner. They are racking up a ton of wins, and they are doing so with rather decisive margin of victory. Margin of victory is one of the most important statistics you can track – it captures the sheer magnitude of wins and is much more sensitive to a team’s dominance than wins and losses.

Consider Boston’s season to date by margin of victory. I’ve overlaid the Toronto Maple Leafs – one of the other best teams this regular season, and sitting on a very comfortable +54 goal differential – to highlight just how significant the difference is, even when compared to other elite teams:

Yost - Bos/Tor chart

The Maple Leafs are a Stanley Cup contender. They have been, save for a brief stretch in December, decisively outplayed by their divisional counterpart. That’s how impressive Boston’s run has been.

This type of margin of victory – beating teams by an average of nearly two goals a game – is extraordinary over a full season, and one of the reasons the Bruins are chasing the record books. Historically, this matters an awful lot. Margin of victory is a strong predictor of playoff performance, and it also helps separate contenders and pretenders quite well.

How well? The NHL has crowned 15 Stanley Cup winners since the start of the 2007-08 season. In 13 of those 15 seasons (excluding the 2013-14 Los Angeles Kings, and 2017-18 Washington Capitals), the team that won the title led the league in margin of victory at some point or points during the regular season. 

Yost

Each year, we see about six to eight teams vie for the crown of best team in the league – injuries, roster moves, line combinations, and myriad other factors play a pivotal role intra-season. But simply put: if your team has a chance at winning the title, they will exemplify it at some point over the course of a regular season.

Let’s bring our focus to this year’s list of plausible contenders. The 2022-23 season has been markedly more top heavy than years past, and consequently, only four teams have led in margin of victory over the course of the season. Those four teams are the Boston Bruins, Edmonton Oilers, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Washington Capitals.

We need not spend any time on the eliminated Capitals. The Lightning should never be written off, but their play has been abysmal of late. That leaves us with just two teams. Are the Edmonton Oilers the biggest threat to Boston’s title hopes?

Yost - Edm chart

This isn’t foolproof, of course. Context matters quite a bit, and a team like the Colorado Avalanche, who dealt with a ton of injury issues mid-year, should be evaluated accordingly. There is also a stable of teams – the New York Rangers, Carolina Hurricanes, New Jersey Devils, Maple Leafs, Dallas Stars, and Vegas Golden Knights – that have been quality all season long.

But dominance matters, and Boston’s dominance has been unparalleled for most of this year. That said, Edmonton is starting to ask some interesting questions out West.

Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Evolving Hockey, Hockey Reference