On Streaks and Breaks

3 articles in two days... What's gotten into me.

So after remembering the Botwinnik's quote, and after publishing the stats how the teams actually play after different breaks, a new idea came to me - check whether the teams on streaks are affected positively or negatively by breaks.

For the sake of the analysis, I assumed the following:

• A break is a period of three days at least between games.
• A streak is a sequence of at least three wins in a row, or at least seven points in four games.

So we check for the last thirty years (as far as NHL.com would let us in) if the streaking team was able to keep the streak alive, or whether the streak was broken:

SEASON	ALIVE	BROKEN
1987/1988	5	11
1988/1989	12	7
1989/1990	8	14
1990/1991	13	11
1991/1992	17	13
1992/1993	20	16
1993/1994	19	20
1994/1995	2	7
1995/1996	15	11
1996/1997	15	11
1997/1998	12	20
1998/1999	12	9
1999/2000	18	12
2000/2001	21	11
2001/2002	17	6
2002/2003	13	10
2003/2004	12	14
2005/2006	31	15
2006/2007	16	16
2007/2008	23	24
2008/2009	15	20
2009/2010	14	17
2010/2011	19	11
2011/2012	22	11
2012/2013	6	3
2013/2014	15	15
2014/2015	16	16
2015/2016	16	14
2016/2017	8	11
TOTAL	432	376

Actually, it looks like the streaks weren't affected by the break either way. 53.4% of the times the streak continued, 46.6% of the time it went dead. There is a very large discrepancy between the seasons, although I'd attribute it to lesser parity between the teams overall in these years. For the last 5 years, the probability for the streak to stay alive has been 50.8% (61 cases of extended streaks out of 120).

Now, what would change, if we define a break a little bit longer, by a single day:

SEASON	ALIVE	BROKEN
1987/1988	2	2
1988/1989	4	1
1989/1990	3	1
1990/1991	4	4
1991/1992	7	8
1992/1993	8	2
1993/1994	7	7
1994/1995	1	1
1995/1996	6	7
1996/1997	6	2
1997/1998	5	5
1998/1999	6	2
1999/2000	9	3
2000/2001	7	4
2001/2002	6	4
2002/2003	5	1
2003/2004	3	6
2005/2006	16	4
2006/2007	8	5
2007/2008	10	6
2008/2009	8	8
2009/2010	6	6
2010/2011	9	3
2011/2012	8	4
2012/2013	2	1
2013/2014	3	9
2014/2015	5	9
2015/2016	7	6
2016/2017	3	8
TOTAL	174	129

The changes are rather interesting. Now, overall, the chances of streak to continue are up to 57.4%, and only in 42.6% of the cases it came to a stop. But in the last five years - since the last lockout - and with the schedule changes so that there are at least two games between every team (increasing travel), the ratio drops from 50.8% to the humble 37.7% (20 out of 53!)

Extending the breaks to five days provides too little data to draw any conclusions.

So I am inclined to agree with Dr. Botwinnik, that extended breaks of more than three days throw teams off their pace and should be reduced to minimum. Three days are borderline alright.