How Important Was the First Month of the NHL Season...Let's Look at the Numbers
Revisiting "How Important Is a Strong Start in the NHL?"
In mid-October, I had the idea to examine how important the first month of an NHL season is to a team’s playoff chances (read that here). The opening month only accounts for around 10-15% of a campaign, so it can’t be that impactful, right?
What I found, however, is that performance in the first month of the season is a big indicator of how that club will do the rest of the way. There are exceptions to this rule, but it is still crucial to start off hot.
The data I collected was from 2014-15 through 2023-24, or the last 10 seasons of complete information that we have. But how is the philosophy that the first month is so important holding up now? Are there clubs defying the odds, or are most of them aligning with the trends?
Revisiting the Data
As a refresher, let’s look below. Shown in black are the teams that finished the first month in the top 10 for points percentage during each season. As you can see, those clubs are finishing with around 100 points per 82 games—79% of them made the playoffs.
On the other hand, you have the teams that started off cold and in the bottom 10 for points percentage, pictured in orange. They’re constantly around that 80-point total, which is a ways below the playoff line. Only 28% of these teams made it to the dance.
Now, a lot of people remember the Edmonton Oilers’ turnaround in 2023-24 and can use them to point out that not all teams are created equal. That’s true. They went into the season as a contender, struggled early, then flipped the switch. When all was said and done, they were just one win away from a Stanley Cup—I considered that.
Of the 100 teams that finished the first month as one of the 10 worst clubs in points percentage, 14 of them were projected to be top 10 in the standings during the preseason (per Hockey Reference’s over/unders). In other words, there were 14 supposedly good teams that started off bad. The 2023-24 Oilers were one.
Seven of those 14 turned it around and made the playoffs anyway, good for 50%. That’s quite a bit better than the cumulative odds of 28%.
On the other hand, what about teams in the top 10 that were expected to be one of the 10 worst in the league? I looked at that, too. There were 18 such cases out of the 100 that went on a tear in the first month, and nine of them made it to the postseason—that’s also 50%. Conversely, that’s noticeably worse than the 79% odds they’re usually assessed.
How Are Teams Doing This Season?
So, this begs the question: how are teams doing this season? Let’s take a look.
In October 2024, below were the top 10 teams based on points percentage, from best to worst:
