What Are The Chances that Utah Makes The NHL Playoffs in Year One
When a new team is established in the world of pro sports, a few things take priority for the fans.
What are the colors?
What is the mascot?
Where will they play?
Who are the players?
And lastly, will they be competitive?
For the Utah Hockey Club, the newest NHL team, most of these things have been answered.
Most, means I am looking at you Mascot/Moniker category.
But the last question is always the hardest to answer.
New teams aren’t prone to and typically do not produce immediate results.
Sure, the Vegas Golden Knights made the Stanley Cup Finals in their first year, but that’s literally the exception.
The Washington Capitals went 8-67-5 in their very first year in 1974, with only 21 points on the season.
The artist currently known as the Winnipeg Jets only won 14 times when they hit the scene as the Atlanta Thrashers in 1999.
The San Jose Sharks mustered a 17-58-5 record their first season in 1991.
Tampa Bay’s first year in the early 90’s saw only 23 wins, Seattle’s debut in 2021 was a 27 win outing.
For every first year fighter are 5 inexperienced, over their head, wide eyed newbies who fail a lot more than not.
So for Utah’s sake, by definition compared to other expansion teams in their first year of NHL action, they have already been more successful than most.
Utah holds a 26-24-9 record riding a current two game win streak, winners of 5 of the last 7, and are currently sitting only 4 points out of a coveted Wild Card spot with 23 games remaining in their first season.
The goal is to bring the NHL playoff intensity to Salt Lake City in year one, a rather rare feat.
Out of 11 expansion teams since 1990, only one, the Vegas Golden Knights, have found postseason play in their first season.
Utah isn’t your typical expansion team, gifted an already assembled roster from the Arizona Coyotes.
Yet by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s standards, Utah is a separate entity from the team they moved out of the desert, making them an expansion team by definition.
And if they can capitalize on newfound health and momentum, Utah could make history by getting there.
With 61 Points on the season, Utah is behind the current #2 wild card spot held by Vancouver and their 65 points.
With those 23 games remaining it means Utah has a real chance, and thanks to the wonderful world of statistics we know just how much of a chance they have.
Most sites have their own way of calculating how a team can make the postseason or what the chances are vary on each algorithm.
So for today’s look into the hopeful future, we are using moneypuck.com, who just updated their odds today.
Per moneypuck.com, Utah is currently projected with an 18.7 % chance to make the playoffs a 26.1 % deficit behind current holder of the Wild Card’s 2nd slot, Vancouver.
If Utah overcomes those adds due some self help and a slippage from Vancouver and Calgary, they would be given a 7 % chance to advance to the 2nd round based on current probabilities.
It gets more dire the further you go with a 3.1 % chance at the semifinals and a 1.4 % shot at the finals.
Utah is currently slotted 4th in the West at 12.7 % to snag the 2nd wild card with Vancouver (22.2%), Calgary (20.9%) and Colorado (13.1%) all topping the Club.
The first Wild Card spot in the West is the Avalanche’s to lose, given a 33 % chance of securing it.
There is a chance that Colorado surpasses Minnesota for the third spot in the Central, making the Wild have a 26.1 % chance of that first wild card.
After Colorado and Minnesota only Vancouver and Calgary have a better than 10 percent shot at that first Wild Card spot.
Per their metrics, the Florida Panthers are the team to watch when it comes to keeping Lord Stanley's cup in the sunshine state.
For a full look at moneypuck.com’s metrics, check out this link below:
https://moneypuck.com/predictions.htm
It is very clear they put a lot of time and resources into what means what, making it ideal for hockey’s most hopeful.
For the Utah Hockey Club, the odds could be better, but they could be worse (looking at you Nashville, Chicago and San Jose).
We hope to continue to see the likelihood increase as the wins stack up.
To make the playoff vision come to fruition, Utah has to take care of what’s in front of them, controlling what they can, and it resumes as they host Minnesota tonight at 7:00 Utah time.
If the odds are even in their favor, future Mammoth/Outlaw/Club fans will be able to claim a success that very few expansion teams can ever say they did.
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