Our Gelo model and corresponding NHL Playoff Probabilities are live this morning in anticipation of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, which begin today. We haven’t made any changes to the model this year, though we’re not currently publishing Ogelo and Dgelo, wanting to alter those to better predict how high or low-scoring single games will be.
How accurate is Gelo? We haven’t backtested it in a little while, but in 2022, we lost 25% betting a Gelo-based futures portfolio, and last year, we made a 33% return doing the same thing. The takeaway from those two very small data points would be that Gelo’s accuracy is volatile, but that it can be a good predictor at times. I think that takeaway is true, even if it’s built off a small sample.
As for where it sees this year’s Stanley Cup picture…
| Team | Seed | Stanley Cup |
| Carolina Hurricanes | 3 | 16.0% |
| New York Rangers | 1 | 14.8% |
| Dallas Stars | 2 | 12.9% |
| Florida Panthers | 5 | 9.5% |
| Winnipeg Jets | 4 | 9.1% |
| Edmonton Oilers | 9 | 5.6% |
| Colorado Avalanche | 8 | 5.3% |
| Boston Bruins | 7 | 4.9% |
| Nashville Predators | 11 | 4.1% |
| Toronto Maple Leafs | 10 | 3.9% |
| Vancouver Canucks | 6 | 3.7% |
| Tampa Bay Lightning | 13 | 3.6% |
| Los Angeles Kings | 12 | 2.3% |
| Vegas Golden Knights | 14 | 1.8% |
| New York Islanders | 15 | 1.5% |
| Washington Capitals | 16 | 1.0% |
The most notable things Gelo’s seeing (and we’ll compare these to market forecasts in a minute) are:
- The Hurricanes are the favorite to win the Stanley Cup, followed by the Rangers.
- The Stars are the favorite to win the Western Conference.
- The Canucks have the biggest deviation between their regular season points total and where they stack up in postseason odds.
Comparing Gelo to betting odds (taken from the longer of BetOnline/Bovada for each team)…
| Team | Gelo “Odds” | Odds | Difference |
| Carolina Hurricanes | 643 | 650 | -1% |
| Dallas Stars | 776 | 750 | 4% |
| Florida Panthers | 1011 | 750 | 35% |
| Edmonton Oilers | 1641 | 750 | 119% |
| New York Rangers | 687 | 800 | -14% |
| Colorado Avalanche | 1734 | 850 | 104% |
| Vegas Golden Knights | 5038 | 1200 | 320% |
| Boston Bruins | 1888 | 1400 | 35% |
| Vancouver Canucks | 2455 | 1400 | 75% |
| Toronto Maple Leafs | 2340 | 1500 | 56% |
| Winnipeg Jets | 1052 | 2000 | -47% |
| Tampa Bay Lightning | 2494 | 2500 | 0% |
| Los Angeles Kings | 3946 | 2500 | 58% |
| Nashville Predators | 2215 | 4000 | -45% |
| New York Islanders | 5818 | 5000 | 16% |
| Washington Capitals | 8791 | 15000 | -41% |
We don’t see too many dramatic differences from those things above. The Hurricanes are the favorites in the market too, and while the Rangers aren’t the first team behind them, they’re not far off. The Stars are still a Western Conference favorite. Things do get different in the following two directions:
- Gelo is higher than the market on the Jets, Predators, and Capitals.
- Gelo is lower than the market on the Oilers, Avalanche, Golden Knights, Canucks, and Maple Leafs.
What’s happening here? It boils down partly to Gelo’s simplicity and partly to Gelo being somewhat biased towards recency. Gelo isn’t considering who’s coming off LTIR, or roster strength in general. By now, Gelo isn’t too worried about the first half of the season. Gelo doesn’t directly account for injuries. Is Gelo more accurate than betting markets? We wouldn’t guess so. We think it can spy opportunities involving teams who are hot, teams who are cold, and teams who are mispriced because of betting trends and recreational bettor volume, but we’d take those odds over Gelo if forced to choose a predictor. Something to watch on our side, as these next two months progress, is whether Gelo stays higher and lower than the market on those eight teams.
Happy Playoff Hockey, everybody. It’s great to have it back.
