Original post.
Frequently, the importance of carrying momentum over an intermission can be heard being talked about. I thought it were possible to measure this harmony with algebra, so I tried to do that. I choose to analyze a very specific question:
If the regulation of a game ends in a tie, other than 0-0, how frequently would the team that tied the game with the last regulation goal win in overtime.
We would define the team that tied the game as the one having the momentum. We would define the other team as the one trying to show resilience. For answering the question, we analyzed the outcome of games of seasons 2007/08-2016/17 (including the ongoing playoffs). We discard the games that end in a shootout, because their outcome depend truly more on the skill of the shooting players/goaltenders rather than the whatever momentum might've been accrued.
The results of the analysis are displayed in the table below, per season, per the time frame during which the last tying goal was scored: in the last two, five, or ten minutes, in the last period, or in one of the first two. The numbers show the percentage of wins by the team having the momentum and the number of games falling into that specific segment. Also we display a separate column and a separate row for playoffs game, although a finer granularity is not really possible because of the sample size (as of 5/1/17).
Season 2 5 10 20 1st/2nd total totalPO
2007 54.2/24 57.9/19 52.9/34 53.8/13 52.6/38 53.9/128 31.2/16
2008 43.5/23 48.1/27 45.2/31 53.8/13 40.0/40 44.8/134 25.0/16
2009 42.9/28 56.5/23 72.7/22 64.7/17 53.7/41 56.5/131 58.8/17
2010 48.6/37 54.2/24 47.1/34 40.7/27 56.8/44 50.0/166 59.1/22
2011 50.0/24 45.8/24 43.5/23 72.0/25 47.7/44 51.4/140 37.5/24
2012 62.5/16 33.3/15 50.0/22 50.0/14 57.9/19 51.2/86 53.8/26
2013 58.1/43 43.5/23 34.6/26 45.5/22 44.1/34 46.6/148 70.8/24
2014 51.7/29 65.2/23 55.3/38 46.7/15 60.5/43 56.8/148 57.9/19
2015 60.0/40 46.7/30 44.4/36 45.8/24 39.6/48 47.2/178 52.6/19
2016 43.6/39 50.0/28 60.5/38 48.1/27 61.8/68 54.5/200 63.2/19
totalPO 61.4/44 46.7/30 55.8/43 68.4/19 40.9/66 52.0/202 52.0/202
total 51.5/303 50.4/236 50.7/304 51.8/197 51.8/419 51.3/1459 52.0/202
We see that there is no specific "momentum" nor "resilience" capability overall, there is practically no indication on how the OT would end based on which team scored the last GTG. The only two moderate exceptions with decent sample sizes are the second and the sixth columns of the penultimate row. The GTG-scoring team is 27-17 (61.4%) in case it scored the tying goal in the last two minutes, however if the GTG was scored before the last period, as it happened in 66 games, the momentum would obviously not carry over two or more intermissions, and the tying team is 27-39 (40.9%) in these games.
Here is how it looks on a graph:
We can see all lines wobbling slightly above the 50 mark. Insufficiently above. Even if we observe the extra 1.3% chance overall (2.0% in playoffs) - wouldn't it be more related to the home/away advantage? I haven't looked at this aspect yet. Maybe another time.
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