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Originally Posted by Textcritic
So, at the quarter-season pole, what predictions exactly does current goal differential make? This seems to me to be a good indicator of past performance, but I don’t see how we can extrapolate from this figure what should happen in the future.
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The predictive power of any stat is limited, since they can only assume things will continue as they are without change. To me the only thing goal differential tells me at this point is whether teams deserve to be where they are. Flash in the pan Vegas has a strong goal differential. Without digging deeper they appear legit. Calgary’s differential is poor, San Jose’s is much better - expect those two to change places. Edmonton’s is truly no good, no surprises there. Chicago is strong and will surely get a wildcard spot at least.
Drilling down to look at trends, other stats could add nuance to the analysis, but so far this tells me - if nothing changes - Calgary will be in a dogfight for the last wildcard spot. I wouldn’t put money on this (yet) nor do I expect this to be where things end up. Vegas has to be overachieving and Calgary underachieving right? The Peter Maher second quarter will paint a better picture.