Thursday, June 11, 2009
Odds? Not in Pittsburgh's favor
The Vegas line for the Pittsburgh Penguins winning Game Seven tomorrow night in Detroit has been edging ever slowly against them. Twenty-four hours ago, a six-sports book average had them at 37.4% to win; they're now at 36.0%.
This seems like an underestimate to me. If we use their regular season goals for and against as an estimate of their true talent (.594 Detroit; .550 Pittsburgh), Pittsburgh has a neutral-site winning percentage of 45.5%.
Of course, there is a very strong home-ice advantage in the playoffs. Since 1979-80:
Round 1 - Home Team WPCT = .576 vs Neutral-Site WPCT = .509 (Adv = .067)
Round 2 - Home Team WPCT = .548 vs Neutral-Site WPCT = .506 (Adv = .042)
Round 3 - Home Team WPCT = .546 vs Neutral-Site WPCT = .504 (Adv = .042)
Round 4 - Home Team WPCT = .563 vs Neutral-Site WPCT = .505 (Adv = .058)
Using the Round 4/Finals Home-Ice Advantage, Pittsburgh should have almost a 40% chance of winning Game 7, which means the oddsmakers are underestimating them by more than 10% - provided you don't think Pittsburgh is actually better than their GF/GA predicts. Of course, it's been 38 years since the visiting team has won Game Seven of the Stanley Cup Finals, so perhaps the home-ice advantage is larger in a deciding game than it is normally. It has only happened six times, so it's hard to know. Regardless, Pittsburgh is not the favorite to win the cup tomorrow night...
This seems like an underestimate to me. If we use their regular season goals for and against as an estimate of their true talent (.594 Detroit; .550 Pittsburgh), Pittsburgh has a neutral-site winning percentage of 45.5%.
Of course, there is a very strong home-ice advantage in the playoffs. Since 1979-80:
Round 1 - Home Team WPCT = .576 vs Neutral-Site WPCT = .509 (Adv = .067)
Round 2 - Home Team WPCT = .548 vs Neutral-Site WPCT = .506 (Adv = .042)
Round 3 - Home Team WPCT = .546 vs Neutral-Site WPCT = .504 (Adv = .042)
Round 4 - Home Team WPCT = .563 vs Neutral-Site WPCT = .505 (Adv = .058)
Using the Round 4/Finals Home-Ice Advantage, Pittsburgh should have almost a 40% chance of winning Game 7, which means the oddsmakers are underestimating them by more than 10% - provided you don't think Pittsburgh is actually better than their GF/GA predicts. Of course, it's been 38 years since the visiting team has won Game Seven of the Stanley Cup Finals, so perhaps the home-ice advantage is larger in a deciding game than it is normally. It has only happened six times, so it's hard to know. Regardless, Pittsburgh is not the favorite to win the cup tomorrow night...
Labels: playoffs
// posted by Hawerchuk @ 10:28 PM 
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