Our Stanley Cup probabilities are live again, fueled by Gelo, our NHL model. You can read more on that page about what Gelo is and how it works, but I’d highlight two things:
- It reacts very quickly.
- It’s performed well against futures markets the last two years.
Two years is a small sample, and Gelo performed poorly against futures markets in 2022, but the conventional wisdom says teams get hot and cold in the playoffs, and logic says that a two-month postseason is long enough for teams to get better and worse, and futures markets say…the Hurricanes are fine and the Stars are great and the Leafs are going to blow this like they always do.
Maybe futures markets are right. To place a few takes, I’d say the Canes probably are fine, but that the Stars aren’t great and that the Leafs will probably lose in the second round and be seen as blowing it despite being less than 50% likely to make the Conference Finals anyway. More? The Jets’ reliance on Connor Hellebuyck comes with a big downside, as markets reflect, but I think they fail to capture the upside. A perfect performance from a goalie makes a hockey team unbeatable. It doesn’t sound right to say “The Jets have the highest ceiling,” but I think it’s true. Gelo does care about margin of victory, by the way. It cares a lot. Which would imply that a team with limited scoring and a great goaltender might be underrated in our simulations.
A few more takeaways:
- Nobody is more than 70% likely to win their first round series. Per Gelo.
- The Avalanche are already the third-best team in the NHL even without Gabriel Landeskog. They’re close enough to Winnipeg and Toronto that they could catch both in as few as two or three games. Realistically, it would take longer, and the likeliest thing is that it doesn’t happen. But that’s where they stand at the end of 82 games.
- Five of the six worst playoff teams are in the Eastern Conference, which is part of why Gelo’s so bullish on the Leafs. Their path isn’t ideal—Gelo says the Lightning and Senators are second and third in that conference right now—but that’s better than what the Jets or Avs will deal with, or even the Kings or Knights.
- With Gelo being so based on recency, it should come as no surprise that it has the Devils as the worst team here. It’s the Wild and the Senators, though, who are the biggest first-round underdogs. Gelo really is not impressed with playoff teams from the Metropolitan Division.
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