Division-Adjusted NHL Standings

Ever wonder how much playing in a strong/weak division has affected your team in the standings? Well here's what the Western conference standings would have looked like last year if you ignore divisional play (taking only the 50 non-division games each team played and expanding the rate at wich they gained points in those 50 games into a full 82 game schedule). Sorry, my excel/word are currently messed up, so I couldn't put these into a graph.

Team Actual Points Division Adjusted Points Difference
Detroit..........113.......103....-10
Nashville.......110......107.....-3
Anaheim.......110.......110......0
San Jose........107.......115.....+8
Dallas.............107.......95.....-12
Vancouver....105.......115.....+10
Minnesota.....104......102....-2
Calgary..........96..........97....+1
Colorado........95..........92....-3
St Louis.........81..........87...+6
Columbus......73..........77....+4
Edmonton.....71..........80....+9
Chicago.........71..........69....-2
Los Angeles..68.........72....+4
Phoenix.........67.........72....+5

So, if you don't like looking at that graph type thing up there, here's what the Western Conference standings would have looked like if you ignored divisional play:

1. Vancouver (115)
2. San Jose (115)
3. Anaheim (110)
4. Nashville (107)
5. Detroit (103)
6. Minnesota (102)
7. Calgary (97)
8. Dallas (95)
9. Colorado (92)
10. St. Louis (87)
11. Edmonton (80)
12. Columbus (77)
13. L. A. (72)
14. Pheonix (72)
15. Chicago (69)

As expected, Detroit benefits quite a bit from its easy division, getting roughly an extra 10 points from facing its easier division opponents. Dallas is the team most helped by its weak division (or strong divisional play, depending how you want to look at it) gaining a whopping 12 points. In contrast, Vancouver, Edmonton and San Jose are all hurt the most by their division schedule, losing 10, 9, and 8 points because of their divisional record. Despite changing teams' point totals by up to 12 points, though, division schedules did not change who made the playoffs. Every team that made the playoffs using the regular points sytem still makes it using their division-adjusted point totals.

DISCLAIMER- What I did is only meant to compare how well teams did within and outside their divisions. It is in no way meant to provide a fairer version of the standings that ignores differences in schedule (instead of playing Columbus twice as much as a regular team, Detroit doesn't play them at all in these standings, so we're not improving things just moving them to the other extreme). This is meant as a fun little exercise and nothing more.

One thing these numbers are good for, however, is figuring out what the best division in hockey was last year, basically by adding up the points that the 5 teams in each division had versus non-division opponents (adjusted for 82 games). Here are the results:

Northeast: 494
Northwest: 486
Pacific: 464
Central: 443
Atlantic: 441
Southeast: 413

It seems that the Northeast did in fact have the Northwest beat just slightly as the best division in hockey last year, although I guess you have to take into account that they play in the weaker Eastern conference.