How much does ‘peaking late’ lead to deep Stanley Cup playoff runs?

Matt Larkin
Matt Larkin(MLarkinHockey)
How much does ‘peaking late’ lead to deep Stanley Cup playoff runs?
Credit: Jordan Binnington, Brayden Schenn and Jaden Schwartz (© Brian Fluharty-USA TODAY Sports)

“They peaked at the right time.” We’ve heard that expression used to describe late-blooming Stanley Cup playoff juggernauts for years. The 2018-19 St. Louis Blues are the ultimate example: last place in early January, second-half turnaround, best record in the league over their final 10 games, eventual champions.

Like the beer-bellied, balding former starting quarterback trudging into his high-school reunion, you don’t want to peak early, right?

If you’ve followed my work long enough, you’ll know I enjoy challenging hockey adages to see if they ring true when we dig into the data. Are the 2018-19 Blues the norm or the exception? How much does it matter to play your best hockey in the stretch run of a season?

On one hand, it’s hard to compare the data from every team and every season without understanding their subjective situations. The 2014-15 Chicago Blackhawks, for instance, struggled down the stretch because their superstar Patrick Kane was out with a broken collarbone. He returned for Game 1 of the postseason and Chicago was off and running to a third Cup in a five-year stretch. Also, teams who clinch playoffs spots early often have the luxury of load-managing their top players, which can lead to a dip in team performance in meaningless games.

But I counter that notion with: the data still matter in that context, too. Whether a contending team is legitimately struggling with a full-strength roster or simply dulling its senses with games that don’t impact the standings, how either scenario translates to playoff performance is meaningful information.

So: if we look at teams that made deep playoff runs in the past 10 postseasons, how many of them performed well in the final 10 games of the regular season? I’ll define “deep” as being one of the final four teams standing in a given year.

For the sake of this exercise, I’m discounting the 2019-20 season, because teams went more than four months between playing regular season and playoff games due to the pandemic, so the connection between late-season performance and playoff fate obviously was very different. I replaced 2019-20 with 2011-12 to give us a proper 10-season sample.

Here’s how the conference finalists of the past 10 (non-bubble) seasons fared in their final 10 regular season games. To avoid falling into the “Good teams win, Captain Obvious” trap, I’ll include the team’s full-season season rank in the standings too, as we need to see if overall season performance correlates stronger to deep playoff runs than peaking late.

SeasonTeamFinal 10 gamesRankFull season
2011-12Los Angeles*.6508th13th
2011-12New Jersey.7503rd9th
2011-12Phoenix.8002nd11th
2011-12NY Rangers.60011th3rd
2012-13Chicago*.7504th1st
2012-13Boston.40024th5th
2012-13Los Angeles.60010th7th
2012-13Pittsburgh.8002nd2nd
2013-14Los Angeles*.60014th9th
2013-14NY Rangers.7006th12th
2013-14Chicago.50022nd7th
2013-14Montreal.7504th10th
2014-15Chicago*.40025th7th
2014-15Tampa Bay.6505th5th
2014-15NY Rangers.7002nd1st
2014-15Anaheim.60013th3rd
2015-16Pittsburgh*.8001st4th
2015-16San Jose.50015th11th
2015-16Tampa Bay.50015th12th
2015-16St. Louis.8001st3rd
2016-17Pittsburgh*.50016th2nd
2016-17Nashville.55013th16th
2016-17Ottawa.50016th12th
2016-17Anaheim.9001st6th
2017-18Washington*.8003rd6th
2017-18Vegas.60011th5th
2017-18Tampa Bay.55015th3rd
2017-18Winnipeg.9001st2nd
2018-19St. Louis*.8501st11th
2018-19Boston.60013th3rd
2018-19San Jose.35028th6th
2018-19Carolina.60013th12th
2019-20Tampa Bay*.35027th4th
2019-20Dallas.40025th10th
2019-20NY Islanders.40026th15th
2019-20Vegas.8003rd7th
2020-21Tampa Bay*.65011th9th
2020-21Montreal.50017th18th
2020-21NY Islanders.45020th12th
2020-21Vegas.7009th1st
2021-22Colorado*.45021st2nd
2021-22Tampa Bay.7007th7th
2021-22Edmonton.7503rd11th
2021-22NY Rangers.60012th8th

Noteworthy findings

– The average points percentage of the past 40 conference finalists over their final 10 regular season games is .634. Their average rank in the standings over their final 10 games is 11th. Their average rank in the full-season standings, however, is even higher at seventh.

– 37.5% of the conference finalists had a top-five record in the league over their final 10 games; 37.5% had a top-five full season record. 47.5% had a top-10 record over their final 10 games; 70% had a top-10 record in the full season.  

– Only 12.5% had a bottom-10 record over their final 10 games, and just five of the past 40 conference finalists were even below .500 over their final 10 games.

Conclusion

It doesn’t seem to be absolutely imperative for you to obliterate your competition like the 2018-19 Blues and be the best team in the NHL down the stretch, but the vast majority of conference finalists were at least decent teams down the stretch, with 87.5% playing at least .500 hockey. That tells us you ideally don’t want to be bad in your final games of the season. However, the correlation is clearly stronger between being a good team all season and making a deep playoff run.

So while the late-season surge is a fun narrative, it’s not as consistently as important as being a strong team wire to wire. Peaking late? We’ll call it slightly overrated but also not a bad thing to do.

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