EU top five in historically close race for playoff seeding

[scoop 3,426]

While the playoff teams in the European Conference are all but settled, with Helsinki bowing out of the race, the seeding could go in any direction. From first to fifth, there is just a three point difference. The Nighthawks, atop the list right now, do have a game in hand, so the gap is mathematically a bit larger. Let's just look back to the point totals when each team had played 51 games, and note the five point difference there. Contrast this with the North American Conference, where the last time the fifth place team was within five points was all the way back when teams were just 12 games in, and the gap after 51 games each is 27 points.

 

The tightness of this playoff race is far from typical. Examining data since the 16-team era of the VHL (which goes back to S73), the average range from first to fifth in a conference after 51 games is 19.2. The closest a conference ever was at this time was back in S75, when the European Conference had just two points separating first and fith. In fact, the seventh place team that season was just seven points out of first at that time. This did spread out a bit by the end of the season, as the fifth place team ended up 15 points behind first.

 

Only twice (S77 NA, S87 EU) since Season 73 has the fifth seed been within ten points of first, and the gap was nine points in both of those seasons. It will be fun to watch the remainder of this season play out. Will someone go on a tear and put some real separation between them and the competition? Will a team stumble across the finish line as we head into the playoffs? Or will we see the tightest playoff field in modern VHL history?

[Victor 10,938]

5 hours ago, scoop said:

the average range from first to fifth in a conference after 51 games is 19.2

There's a way to see historical midseason standings??

[scoop 3,426]

4 hours ago, Victor said:

There's a way to see historical midseason standings??

Yes, by looking at the league schedule, and counting. Luckily spreadsheets can do all that work and all I have to do is create the template with formulas and then paste in the schedule output for each season.

 

This particular spreadsheet doesn't convert well to Google docs, so I'm not going to share it. Unless maybe there is demand for it and I can try to fix it up a bit to make it work.