Why a Seattle vs Malmo finals made so much sense (in hindsight)

[studentized 166]

 

The S68 playoffs of the VHL just wrapped up and Seattle won in four games over Malmo. Both of these teams failed to make the playoffs in S67, so it’s hard to believe that anyone would have predicted them both to make the finals at the beginning of the year (and to the best of my knowledge no one did predict both correctly). But take a closer look and you will see that neither of these teams were Cinderella stories. Both had good off-seasons, and more importantly good development during the regular season that allowed them to make the jump from sitting out of playoffs to being the last ones left in their conferences. Here is how they stacked up against the rest of the league in terms of TPA growth:

The following graphs show end-of-season S67 team TPA vs end-of-season S68 team TPA (ordered by S68 TPA). Seattle and Malmo may not have led the league in terms of overall TPA, but the growth they got from S67 put them very close. Looking at this another way in terms of percentage growth (see second chart), it’s apparent that no other team had quite the same off-season/regular season as these two. Only three teams saw any amount positive percent growth (thanks expansion) and in terms of net gains, Seattle and Malmo were the only ones that were meaningful. Just really good GMing in a year where many teams were forced to take steps back. Congrats to both teams once again; both deserved to make it far.