The Impact of Rest in the Playoffs
by Hawerchuk on May 6, 2011 7:00 AM EDT
Email
Print
Last Friday, someone was telling me that Detroit had an advantage over San Jose because they'd had more time off leading into their second round matchup (which didn't appear to be true). We always hear that a team with more rest prior to a series has an advantage and we'd expect the numbers to bear that out, no doubt. So here's the expected and actual winning percentage in the first game of 2nd round, 3rd round and Cup Finals since 1979-80 for varying amounts of rest:
| Days Off | Series | Expected | Actual | Delta |
| 2 | 69 | 0.485 | 0.449 | -0.036 |
| 3 | 42 | 0.473 | 0.500 | +0.027 |
| 4 | 90 | 0.494 | 0.467 | -0.027 |
| 5 | 81 | 0.514 | 0.556 | +0.041 |
| 6 | 53 | 0.500 | 0.509 | +0.009 |
| 7 | 37 | 0.516 | 0.541 | +0.024 |
| 8 | 29 | 0.520 | 0.448 | -0.072 |
| 9 | 17 | 0.529 | 0.588 | +0.059 |
Obviously, teams never have to play back-to-back games - 2 days off is just slightly less than 48 hours rest. If there's a trend in this data, it's not clear to me, aside from weaker teams getting less rest on average than stronger teams.
What if we look at the difference in the number of days of rest?
| Days Diff | Series | Expected | Actual | Delta |
| 0 | 66 | 0.500 | 0.500 | 0.000 |
| 1 | 37 | 0.490 | 0.568 | +0.078 |
| 2 | 52 | 0.525 | 0.538 | +0.013 |
| 3 | 36 | 0.515 | 0.583 | +0.068 |
| 4 | 31 | 0.524 | 0.581 | +0.057 |
| 5 | 9 | 0.545 | 0.333 | -0.211 |
| 6 | 10 | 0.525 | 0.500 | -0.025 |
| 7 | 2 | 0.500 | 0.500 | 0.000 |
This seems like a trend - teams that get more rest than their opponents prior to a series are not only better than their opponents but also outperform their expected winning percentage in the first game of the series. As for the claim that there's such a thing as too much rest, we don't have enough data to draw a conclusions for 5-, 6- and 7-game deltas.
4 comments
|
1 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
Does the “rested” team tend to win the series?
Glen Sather is a Hockey Genius.
http://twitter.com/ThGeneralissimo
http://twitter.com/poplosertwit
I’d bet that it only has an impact on the first game, and maybe a small amount on the second game. After that the opposing teams have identical schedules and it shouldn’t matter. So I think its best to analyze only the 1st game; analyzing any subsequent games would only increase noise.
"Though we do run the risk of one of the pucks generating human-like emotions, and yearning for a better life outside of its cold, violent existence…" -Ben
by ThrashersRecaps on May 6, 2011 3:16 PM EDT up reply actions
On an unrelated note
Vancouver has been criticized for going into a defensive shell once they get a lead against Nashville. Yet, the stat community tells us that teams on average give up more shots/chances when they have a lead. Should this be viewed as a smart thing to do (that you lower the risk of being scored on by being less aggressive offensively), or just an inevitable result of the trailing team being desperate and abandoning defense in the attempt to tie up the game?
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
