The Ol' Adage

It’s NHL playoff time, and wisdom abounds. One such adage I’ve already heard a dozen times is “You’re never in trouble until you lose at home.” Just last year, three teams won their series after dropping the first two on the road: Minnesota over Colorado, Chicago over St. Louis, and Los Angeles over San Jose. However, last season was an exception, and even so, the other three teams who went down 2-0 on the road eventually lost the series.

If we look further back, teams that lost the first two games on the road have won 30 out of 256 series, or 11.7%. Ooof. Even if we restrict ourselves to the Conference Quarterfinals (which have come about in an era with greater parity), it doesn’t look much better, at 11 series victories out of 77 or 14.3%.

Fourteen percent isn’t exactly a longshot, but I think it’s fair to characterize it as ‘trouble’. That’s roughly the chance that you’ll find two people with the same people in a group of 11 people.