Playoff chances

Another one of the things I like to do around here one or more times a year is a look at each team's chances of making the playoffs at a given point in the season. Since we know approximately how many points it takes to make the playoffs in the WHL, we can see what kind of performance each team will need for the rest of the season to get to the minimum point requirement to finish 8th in their conference.

Over the last five years, it has taken an average of 73.2 points to make the playoffs in the Eastern Conference (let's call that 73 points) and in the West, an average of 60.4 (we'll call it 60). Obviously this number fluctuates every year - for example, at current paces it will take 78 in the East this year and 69 in the West. But since this year's paces will change as the season progresses, for the sake of our analysis here we'll use the 5-year averages of 73 and 60.

So, the current Eastern conference standings:

	GP	PTS	Win%
Medicine Hat Tigers	24	35	0.729
Swift Current Broncos	28	33	0.589
Prince Albert Raiders	24	30	0.625
Edmonton Oil Kings	23	29	0.620
Calgary Hitmen	22	28	0.636
Kootenay Ice	26	28	0.538
Brandon Wheat Kings	25	27	0.540
Regina Pats	24	26	0.542
Red Deer Rebels	24	23	0.479
Saskatoon Blades	26	21	0.404
Moose Jaw Warriors	27	18	0.333
Lethbridge Hurricanes	25	10	0.200

And current Western conference standings:

	GP	PTS	Win%
Everett Silvertips	25	38	0.760
Portland Winterhawks	24	36	0.750
Kelowna Rockets	21	34	0.810
Spokane Chiefs	24	33	0.688
Victoria Royals	26	31	0.596
Tri-City Americans	26	30	0.577
Seattle Thunderbirds	24	28	0.583
Vancouver Giants	26	25	0.481
Prince George Cougars	26	22	0.423
Kamloops Blazers	24	15	0.312

And now the points (and records) required to make the playoffs in the East, assuming 73 points are needed:

	Points	Record	Win %
Medicine Hat Tigers	39	19-28-1	0.406
Swift Current Broncos	41	20-23-1	0.466
Prince Albert Raiders	44	22-26-0	0.458
Edmonton Oil Kings	45	22-26-1	0.459
Calgary Hitmen	46	23-27-0	0.460
Kootenay Ice	46	23-23-0	0.500
Brandon Wheat Kings	47	23-23-1	0.500
Regina Pats	48	24-24-0	0.500
Red Deer Rebels	51	25-22-1	0.531
Saskatoon Blades	53	26-19-1	0.576
Moose Jaw Warriors	56	28-17-0	0.622
Lethbridge Hurricanes	64	32-15-0	0.681

And in the West, assuming 60 points are needed:

	Points	Record	Win %
Everett Silvertips	23	11-35-1	0.245
Portland Winterhawks	25	12-35-1	0.260
Kelowna Rockets	27	13-37-1	0.265
Spokane Chiefs	28	14-34-0	0.292
Victoria Royals	30	15-31-0	0.326
Tri-City Americans	31	15-30-1	0.337
Seattle Thunderbirds	33	16-31-1	0.344
Vancouver Giants	36	18-28-0	0.391
Prince George Cougars	39	19-26-1	0.424
Kamloops Blazers	46	23-25-0	0.479

The most obvious thing that stands out here is that, given the low number of points required to make the playoffs in the West, doing this for the West so early in the season is kind of useless. Pretty much every team in the conference is still quite plausibly capable of attaining 60 points without needing a drastic turnaround. Kamloops may be a .312 team right now but they only need to get to .479 (not even above .500!) to get 60 points. 

The East though, that's another story. It's already fair to say that the playoff hopes of the Hurricanes and Warriors may be over, only 1/3 of the way into the season. The Hurricanes, currently at .200, need to play at a .681 pace the rest of the season to get to 73 points. That kind of turnaround seems unlikely in the extreme. Same goes for the .333 Warriors, who would need to improve to .622 for the rest of the season.

Saskatoon, at .404 currently, needs to get to .576 and that, while a tall order, remains do-able if things turn around for them a bit sometime soon.

So, it's still early in the year but two teams may have already firmly established themselves as trade deadline sellers (Nick Walters? Josh Derko? Travis Brown? Jesse Forsberg?).