Comments / New

Further to: Always bet the ‘Under’

It's important to understand how a player ends up being in the top 20 in the league in scoring. Let's look at his performance in the seasons before and after that performance:

GP G A Pts
Year -1 73 29 40 69
Year 0 79 34 49 83
Year 1 71 27 40 67

This list goes back to 1996-97, which gives us nine sets of consecutive seasons (ie – 2003-04, 2004-05, 2005-06 and 2009-10 do not have a full season before and after them.) Overall, 75% of players who finished in the top 20 improved their scoring totals from year -1 to year 0 (the year they finished in the top 20). Then 79% of those players regressed from year 0 to year 1. Essentially, in year 1, they went back to what they were before, which means a 10% drop in their scoring rate, and a 10% drop in games played. If we knew nothing else about a player, except that he finished in the top 20 in scoring, we should expect him to do significantly worse in his next season.

Long story short: if you want to be right, bet the under.

Looking for an easy way to support Arctic Ice Hockey?
Use our Affiliate Link when shopping hockey merch this holiday season!

Talking Points