There’s less parity in the NHL than you think

Is the National Hockey League increasingly becoming a story of haves and have-nots?

It’s something I’ve been thinking about, in part because parity — whether you love or loathe it — has been sold as a real differentiator between the NHL and other major North American sports leagues.

There are several reasons this phenomenon exists. Chief among them is the fact that scoring goals in the NHL is quite hard and games are low scoring in relation to the other major sports, which lends itself to more random chance outcomes. Add in a hard salary cap and a playoff format that invites half of the teams in the league, and you get an awful lot of year-over-year change.

Or so we thought. Two major developments in the past decade have eroded, to some degree, league parity — the NHL’s reformatting of its playoff structure in 2013-14, and a recent multi-year offensive explosion across the league. More shots and goals have led to less volatility and more relatively predictable outcomes.

If you look at the past decade of playoff data, you see less parity than one would think. The numbers suggest that if you missed the playoffs one season, it’s quite likely you will miss again the following year.

The below graph shows year-over-year repeat rates since 2007, with the data binned accordingly:

• Playoff repeat rates prior to realignment and playoff reformatting (2013-14 season)
• Playoff repeat rates after realignment until the pandemic (which caused temporary changes to the playoff format structure)
• Playoff repeat rates after the pandemic

One piece of the data I noticed right away was that last season was a recent high-water mark, with 13 of 16 playoff teams from the 2022-23 regular season returning to the playoffs in the following year. In the Eastern Conference, we saw the New Jersey Devils switch places with the Washington Capitals; out West, it was the Minnesota Wild and Seattle Kraken exiting, replaced by the Nashville Predators and Vancouver Canucks.

Assuming that this isn’t entirely noise and there’s some merit to the league seeing less relative parity these days, I was curious what the betting markets think about the upcoming season.

Betting markets, especially on futures, are typically looking for balanced action. But if you sort the teams by best implied probability of qualifying for the postseason, you have to get to the 16th team – the Minnesota Wild – to find a club that didn’t make it to the dance last year. (Note: the team they leapfrogged was the New York Islanders, who qualified in the East in 2023-24 with 94 points.)

This raises another important question, and one we can set aside the betting markets for: Under the assumption that only three or four teams who missed the playoff cutline last year get in this season, who will they be, and who will they displace? Minnesota may have the best odds of any single team to manage the feat, but there are several clubs who could make an argument they are positioned to surprise this year.

Later this week, we will explore which teams are best positioned to jump back into the playoff mix and which teams they might bump out in the process. Until then, enjoy the lull in the hockey world. It won’t last much longer.

Data via Hockey Reference, NHL.com, Evolving Hockey