Who's the Best Against the Best in the NHL?

There are a lot of fundamental differences between the playoffs and the regular season in hockey, but one of the most impactful is that in the postseason every game comes against an opponent who is at least average.

No longer can teams pile up wins against the Buffalos and Edmontons of the league. Sure, some of the first-round opponents are on the underwhelming side, but as the playoffs carry on those teams too are weeded out, and soon all that’s left in the race for the Stanley Cup are the NHL’s elite clubs.

Given that, it’s interesting to look and see which teams have done well against elite opponents.

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How does one define an elite team? I’ve used goal differential, taking the NHL’s top seven teams (Boston, St. Louis, Chicago, Anaheim, San Jose, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles) in that category as the league’s elite clubs. Some may prefer a definition that excludes Los Angeles (only 96 points) or includes Colorado (107 points), but likely most fans would agree on a group made up of roughly the same six-to-eight clubs.

The chart that follows treats overtime wins and losses as straight wins and losses (just like the playoffs) and shootout wins or losses as regulation/overtime ties (since the shootout isn’t used in the postseason, including it here would only obscure the results). Here’s how the NHL’s team stack up against elite clubs:

Rk.	Team	Wins	Losses	ROT	Win%
1	Chicago	9	3	6	66.7%
2	Colorado	11	7	3	59.5%
3	Anaheim	8	5	5	58.3%
4	Boston	6	4	3	57.7%
5	San Jose	7	8	4	47.4%
6	Philadelphia	7	8	2	47.1%
7	Dallas	8	10	4	45.5%
8	Nashville	9	11	2	45.5%
9	Toronto	7	9	1	44.1%
10	Montreal	5	7	4	43.8%
11	Detroit	5	7	3	43.3%
12	Minnesota	7	10	4	42.9%
13	Pittsburgh	5	7	1	42.3%
14	Los Angeles	7	10	2	42.1%
15	Phoenix	7	12	4	39.1%
16	New Jersey	6	10	0	37.5%
17	St. Louis	5	10	3	36.1%
18	Ottawa	5	10	1	34.4%
19	Washington	3	8	4	33.3%
20	Vancouver	6	14	3	32.6%
21	Carolina	4	10	3	32.4%
22	Calgary	6	15	2	30.4%
23	NY Islanders	4	11	2	29.4%
24	NY Rangers	4	11	2	29.4%
25	Tampa Bay	4	11	2	29.4%
26	Winnipeg	4	14	3	26.2%
27	Florida	4	13	1	25.0%
28	Buffalo	3	12	2	23.5%
29	Edmonton	4	18	1	19.6%
30	Columbus	2	15	1	13.9%

Chicago, unsurprisingly, sits at the top of this list, but teams No. 2 and No. 3 caught me by surprise. Colorado was the second-worst team in the NHL last season; this year it has excelled against the league’s top teams. Anaheim fell in the first round last season and relies a lot on the percentages to such a degree that I was hesitant to include it in this list of elite teams, but it's been very good against top opponents this year.

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Other positive surprises include Nashville and Toronto, two teams who crack the top 10 despite real problems this season.

On the negative end of the scale, the highly touted St. Louis Blues have not been an effective team against top opponents, and the Kings and Penguins have been only average.

There is, however, a big caveat to this kind of consideration.

It’s fair to wonder how predictive this kind of look is. In taking only games against elite opposition, it’s true that we’re focused on the toughest tests for each of these teams, but we’re also nixing a huge sample of work, and it isn’t clear that the things that help a hockey team beat Edmonton or Columbus are different than the things that help it beat Chicago or St. Louis.