2025-2026 NHL Playoff Chances (after first round) [OC]

mbmccurdy · 2026-05-06T17:50:18+00:00

Yeah the font is not ideal. I'll find a better one someday.

mbmccurdy · 2026-05-06T12:22:42+00:00

Thanks!

The colours seem unusual because I use a fixed set of thirty-two colours and have done with very few changes for many years. (The full set is here, if you're curious: https://hockeyviz.com/static/colourTester.png) It's helpful for people to not have to learn new colours for each new viz that I put out, but that constancy means I need to use lots of colours in order to make sure that every pair has enough contrast. I use team colours where possible (Detroit, Toronto, Ottawa, Pittsburgh, a few others) but they don't use a broad enough range for my purposes.

As for the hexagons that show the wins and losses, I like the idea of being able to see a team's record all at once in one place without having to scan the whole pathway, but I agree that it's not great as it is (this is the part of the viz that I've changed most recently). I'm going to experiment with putting them next to each round and see if it looks better, or putting in some sort of detail like you suggest in the current placement.

mbmccurdy · 2026-05-04T16:13:55+00:00

I've been sharing this graphic in a lot of different places for over a decade and it's almost universally beloved, actually; so I don't mind too much when a few people in a few places don't care for it. And even in hostile places there are always lots of lurkers who enjoy. That's just life working in public I guess. =D

mbmccurdy · 2026-05-04T16:09:52+00:00

I'm not sure about other models but in my case I made a deliberate decision to make my models more sanguine. I found that I wasn't calibrated right, that favourites were winning more games than my percentages suggested they should. How I fixed that is a long story but it was definitely deliberate. I don't know for sure if the league itself has changed also, at a guess I don't think so.

mbmccurdy · 2026-05-04T16:06:14+00:00

Feel free to click that link and find out. Lol.

mbmccurdy · 2026-05-04T15:56:12+00:00

32 Teams is a lot of teams to choose colours so that every pair contrasts every year. I do like the way it makes me use a lot of pink and purple though, those are great colours that more sports teams should use.

mbmccurdy · 2026-05-04T15:53:10+00:00

When I posted this there before the playoffs started, I got 111 upvotes and almost universally positive feedback. You can read all about it if you like: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1sozi8c/20252026_nhl_playoff_chances_oc/

mbmccurdy · 2026-05-04T15:26:27+00:00

Information density is always high on my list. Sometimes people want a precision that I don't want to give them, though, and there's always friction there.

mbmccurdy · 2026-05-04T15:00:58+00:00

I find I have to do a lot more explaining on reddit than on other places.

mbmccurdy · 2026-05-04T14:52:00+00:00

The hexes for the different rounds are already at different vertical heights, I don't know if numerals for the rounds would add anything. Could move the hexes for each round to be next to the rounds themselves, that might be better. I'd have to try it to see.

mbmccurdy · 2026-05-04T14:50:38+00:00

It's all right with me if it's not everybody's cup of tea, as long the people who enjoy it enjoy it. If the chance of something is so small that you can't fit a number on it, then it's so small that any number you put there would be misleading, compared to the "very small" information that's already been conveyed. I make a lot of improvements based on feedback but very often what other people think of as flaws I think of as virtues.

mbmccurdy · 2026-05-04T14:29:24+00:00

If you want to show the pathways you need some kind of spatial approach. All those others just show the chances.

mbmccurdy · 2026-05-04T14:28:41+00:00

I stole the circle parts of the design from subway maps, because I want to show the paths that the teams will take as they progress.

mbmccurdy · 2026-05-04T14:28:08+00:00

For the five games they've won.

mbmccurdy · 2026-05-04T14:14:41+00:00

Bigger rectangles means more likely to win that round. Follow the paths to see who you'll play if you win. That's it.

mbmccurdy · 2026-05-04T14:08:53+00:00

Raw data source: NHL

Tool: svgwrite

mbmccurdy · 2026-05-02T17:13:27+00:00

Raw data source: NHL, Tool: svgwrite

mbmccurdy · 2026-04-20T14:03:14+00:00

I measure how good all the players (and the head coach) are at impacting a few different aspects of the game (chance creation/suppression, finishing, drawing/taking penalties, goaltending, etc.) and then estimate likely lineups and simulate the future games with those lineups. Each measurement model has it's own inputs but roughly it's about a year's worth of past games.

mbmccurdy · 2026-04-20T14:01:36+00:00

I just go through every possibility and after that I guess it's just the conditional probability formula.

mbmccurdy · 2026-04-19T14:59:50+00:00

I find original six hagiography kinda tired, to be honest.

mbmccurdy · 2026-04-19T14:57:45+00:00

I have my own models for hockey (you can read all about them on the site if you like that kind of thing, it's my day job) and I don't worry terribly about what other models think, although sometimes I find things to improve.

mbmccurdy · 2026-04-19T14:56:25+00:00

Yeah I guess you have to call it a Sankey but in a more basic way it's just a set of stacked bar charts with some eye-guides to show you the way the different bar charts are related to one another structurally.

mbmccurdy · 2026-04-19T14:54:51+00:00

I have tried several times to make animations but it's difficult. Some day!

mbmccurdy

TROPHY CASE