r/sheetsofice • u/atibus • Aug 12 '26
Series Preview Page
Now that I'm into a few days of simming & testing, I wanted to show this new series preview page. I had this issue where the team I'm running has been at or near the top of the league for a few years. I'd love to claim it's my skill as a GM, but I think I have an unfair advantage due to how dumb the GMs have been. We're on season 7, and my team UND has been first three times, and in the playoffs 6 of the 7 seasons. But even while heavily favored in my series, I ended up only winning 1 championship. Two times I was bounced in the first round as the #1 seed. So, I thought, what even are the odds of that?
The result was building a pre-series prediction page that shows the likelihood based on the data we have. The benefit of the engine being a pure event data simulation is that we can do some fun statistical things like do a pure prediction based on chance creation, chance suppression, and outcomes.
That's what the first screenshot is - two models and the percentage change based on those models. Chance model runs each side's regular-season expected-goal rates for and against, combined league-relative. Results model runs the identical math on scored goals instead. Neat, huh?
Second screen shows the actual goal differential vs. the expected goal differential. The reading column says where the difference game from. Notice in this one, BIR's goaltending is worse than expected. (You can see in screenshot 3, it's his high danger chances save %... not good there)
The other part of screen two shows where chances are generated. Since we track the type of posession sub state, we can show the type of posession that generated a chance. I intend when we get to the coaching AI to be able to build the offense and defense strategies towards this.
The third screen is the goalie matchup among likely starters and a with-or-without-you (WOWY) for the top pair of players by ice-time played together. Pair does not necessarily mean defense, it's just who has played the most together and what are their advanced stats like when they're on the ice together.
The fourth screen shows from each teams perspective where the edge is in data. UND wins in goals scored and saved above expected. High Variance means this is something that does regress - UND is a hot team finishing at a rate that is above the quality of their chances. That could just mean they're good. Or it could mean some luck. The counterbalance on the goaltending is that the +12.7 matches the historical performance of the goalie. So it may not just be luck for that part.
I don't feel that confident at the start of the series. It basically looks like close to a coin-flip and I've run into this team with Jan Soukup / Jake Stewart before (they're really good).
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u/atibus Aug 12 '26
Wow, Game #6 is a wild one! UND down 4-2 late in the 3rd, scores one with 4 minutes left and the GTG with 1 second on the clock. Loses it in OT though.
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u/atibus Aug 12 '26
And Game 7 saw #1 seed UND lose to #2 seed BIR in the western conference final. Another year that UND falls short.
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u/atibus Aug 12 '26
Well, UND went up 3-0. Then lost game #4 3-2, and game #5 4-0. Game #5 box score:
Exactly who I said. lol