A Pythagorean win expectation-based Monte Carlo simulator to determine the odds of NHL teams making the playoffs. Inspired by sportsclubstats.com.
Using Pythagorean win expectation and the log5 mathematical formula, this program simulates individual seasons of the 2022-2023 NHL season and keeps track of how many times teams make the playoffs. Instead of determining every possible combination, a technique called the Monte Carlo method is used to extrapolate random results to meaningful conclusions. The more trials are run, the more accurate the results.
Pre-ran simulations from 2023-01-04 can be found in the Results folder if you do not want to run an intesive 100,000+ trial simulation yourself. The number of trials for each run is indicated in the filename.
Performance varies by CPU and has been vastly improved since 2023-10-13. I was able to run at ~263 seasons/sec on my laptop with an i7-1260P. Generally, selecting simulation sizes < 20,000 should run fairly quickly.
Trial size can be changed upon starting the program and defaults to 1,000 seasons if no input is received.
Data is acquired from Sports Reference.