Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Oilers Playoff Hopes or Neurotic Math



Its the middle of February. Its the time of year Edmonton Oilers fans start working themselves into a frenzy about whether the team will make the playoffs or not.

With Horkoff, Torres and Souray all out for the rest of the year, the odds are not good for a playoff spot.

And then there's the math. They did the math on the Radio the other morning and assumed that the cutoff for making the playoffs would be a minimum of 95 points. I think it will be higher this year because of overall improvement of the teams in the conference. Maybe this year you will need 100 points.

But for sake of argument, if the cutoff is 95 points, and the oilers have 24 games remaining, they will need to get 80% of the remaining potential points. Of course this ratio changes on a day to day basis. If they go on a winning streak, they might get within reach.

The Oilers do have one incentive to finish as high as possible. The lower they finish the higher their draft pick, but its a pick which goes to Anaheim. This is because of the terms of the Penner trade and the free agency of Teemu Selanne's moustache.

Daryl Katz will have some difficult decisions to make this summer about management and general top level strategy. Most Oilers fans live in kind of a bubble, they don't really think anything is wrong with the coaching or the management. Katz has a different business philosophy than the EIG, and will be able to make decisions much easier and quicker. I think next year results will be much more important. Please recommend this post

No comments: