Determining Stanley Cup Contenders From Regular Season Lineups

July 4, 2025

Can a team's overall regular season lineup performance help predict playoff success more than the standings? In this post, I introduce a contender scoring system I built from 17 seasons of NHL data to evaluate which teams had the strongest lineup entering the playoffs. The results show that by looking beyond just the standings, we can uncover stronger indicators of postseason performance and identify teams that are truly built for a Cup run.