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The Real Western Conference Standings — Hawks really aren’t that much better than Oilers Edition

Posted on by Daws Butler

Q OFF. GP W L WSO OTL PTS W% PRJ W%* PRJ* GB PS +/- PB to95
1 1 DET 18 13 3 0 2 28 0.778 128 0.722 118 0 7 8 30-27-7
2 2 LAK 19 10 6 3 0 26 0.684 112 0.684 112 -2 3 12 31-25-7
3 6 CBJ 18 11 6 1 0 24 0.667 109 0.667 109 -2 3 12 32-25-7
4 4 STL 19 9 5 2 3 25 0.658 108 0.579 95 -2.5 2 13 32-24-7
5 3 COL 20 10 7 2 1 25 0.625 103 0.600 98 -3.5 0 15 32-24-6
6 5 PHX 20 9 5 1 5 25 0.625 103 0.500 82 -3.5 0 15 32-24-6
7 12 DAL 18 8 7 2 1 21 0.583 96 0.556 91 -3.5 0 15 34-23-7
8 13 NAS 18 6 6 3 3 21 0.583 96 0.500 82 -3.5 0 15 34-23-7
9 10 MIN 19 10 7 0 2 22 0.579 95 0.526 86 -4 -1 16 33-23-7
10 11 SJS 19 8 6 1 4 22 0.579 95 0.474 78 -4 -1 16 33-23-7
11 8 VAN 20 10 7 0 3 23 0.575 94 0.500 82 -4.5 -2 17 33-23-6
12 7 CHI 23 9 10 2 2 24 0.522 86 0.478 78 -7 -7 22 33-20-6
13 9 ANA 23 10 10 0 3 23 0.500 82 0.435 71 -7.5 -8 23 33-20-6
14 14 CGY 18 7 9 1 1 17 0.472 77 0.444 73 -5.5 -4 19 36-21-7
15 15 EDM 19 5 10 0 4 14 0.368 60 0.263 43 -8 -9 24 37-19-7

Chart key:

  • Sorted by winning percentage (W%).

  • Only regulation wins and OT wins are counted as wins (W).

  • Shoot-out wins (WSO) are tallied separately. Why? Because they don’t count in the “total wins” tie-breaker, so we need to keep them out of the W column.

  • “OTL” = loss in OT or shoot-out (i.e. Bettman point).

  • “OFF.” = the official standings, as rendered by ESPN.

  • “Q” = Quisp standings.

  • “PRJ” = projected final point total.

  • “W%*” and “PRJ*” (note the asterisks) show the team’s win percentage an projected point total if you eliminate the “Bettman Point” and treat a loss as a loss.

  • “GB” = games back, i.e. baseball standings.

  • “PB” = points blown. Points-blown refers to the number of potential points a team has failed to earn. Lower number is better, like golf. This may seem like a needlessly confusing and pointless stat to keep track of, in which case, feel free to skip this column entirely. However, I find it’s a useful way to correct for disparities in games-played. Think of points-blown as a kind of “hidden reason for optimism (or pessimism)”.

  • “PS +/-“ = points blown, relative to the 8th seed. In other words, how far above or below the post-season (“P.S.”) cut-off a team is.

  • In the first two columns (Q rank and ESPN rank), green means 1-4 seed, yellow is 5-8, orange is 9-12, red is 13-15.

  • For the columns “team name” through “PRJ”, green indicates a projected finish 100 points or above (certain to qualify for playoffs). yellow is 94-99 projected points (probable for playoffs), orange is 86-93 (projected to fall short), red is below 85 (falling short of falling short).

  • For the No Bettman Point columns (with asterisks), the thresholds have been shifted downward slightly, to reflect the fact that teams across the board earn between 2-14 fewer points.

  • For the last four columns, the colors translate to great, good, bad and screwed.

  • “to95” – the record each team needs to get to the presumed playoff threshold of 95 points.

    • Some observations:

    • CBJ, DAL and NAS all are significantly higher in my standings than in the deceptive “official” ones.
    • ANA, VAN and (especially) CHI are much worse off in my standings than in the “official” ones.
    • In terms of points blown, CHI and ANA are only a couple of points better than EDM.
    • NAS and LAK both have 3 shoot-out wins, which is great in terms of points (yay) but not so great if they end up being tied with anyone at the end of the season (boo).
    • As of tonight, 5 points separate 2nd place from 13th. That’s tight. This time last season, the spread from 2nd to 13th was 10 points.
    • On 11/21/09, the Kings were 13-9-2. Vancouver and Nashville were not in the top 8 seeds; Calgary and Columbus each had at least twice as many wins as losses. Calgary was in 4th.

    Talking Points