Elsewhere in the world of sports during the 4 Nations Face-Off final last night, the Boston Celtics defeated the Philadelphia 76ers on the road by a score of 124-104. This win upon the return from the NBA’s All-Star break improved Boston’s record on the season to this point to 40-16. By having achieved 40 wins before 20 losses on the season (making them the third team this year to do so after the Oklahoma City Thunder and Cleveland Cavaliers), the Celtics have already presented a case for having a legitimate shot at going back-to-back. This proclamation does not come out of thin air. Legendary coach Phil Jackson asserts that the “40-20 rule” is the standard that must be met to be considered a legitimate championship contender in the NBA. The data mostly backs up this claim: Accounting for the 2023–2024 Boston Celtics, 38 of the last 45 NBA champions hit 40 wins before 20 losses. Prior to the 2021 Milwaukee Bucks, the most recent exception in a season with sufficient games played was the 2006 Miami Heat. Therefore, it is not a completely infallible assertion, but the phenomenon occurs frequently enough (84.44% of the time) to be considered a reliable benchmark, particularly considering three of those seven exceptions were from inapplicable seasons. When removing those, the frequency becomes 90.47%.

There was a considerable amount of scrutiny about whether or not the Celtics would hit this mark this season, which they ultimately did after going on a strong 8-1 run to cement the deal after a close, frustrating loss to the Houston Rockets. Amongst this dialogue, my mind drifted back to the sport that I cover, and I contemplated what the closest approximate equivalent to the 40/20 mark was in the contemporary NHL. I decided during the 4 Nations break to pursue an answer to this thought. My framework would be slightly less intensive, however, as it would not be about consistent form over the course of nearly half a century. I decided to keep it somewhat simple and look at what the season-end numbers looked like for the Stanley Cup winners across every 82 game season in the NHL, with the first having occurred in 1995–96 after the lockout which truncated the 1994–95 campaign. This therefore excludes the 2004–05 (completely eliminated due to lockout), 2012–13 (truncated due to lockout), 2019–20, and 2020–21 (affected/truncated by COVID-19 lockdown protocols/policies) seasons. This gives us 25 seasons to work with, so enough to make some inferences. It will not be gospel considering changes to league dynamics such as different CBAs and expansion, but maybe there will be consistent trends that might tell us something. We commence with the data set from every Stanley Cup champion in the applicable seasons:

1995–96 COL – 104

1996–97 DET – 94

1997–98 DET – 103

1998–99 DAL – 114 (also won Presidents’ Trophy)

1999–00 NJD – 103

2000–01 COL – 118 (Pres.)

2001–02 DET – 116 (Pres.)

2002–03 NJD – 108

2003–04 TBL – 106

2005–06 CAR – 112

2006–07 ANA – 110

2007–08 DET – 115 (Pres.)

2008–09 PIT – 99

2009–10 CHI – 112

2010–11 BOS – 103

2011–12 LAK – 95

2013–14 LAK – 100

2014–15 CHI – 102

2015–16 PIT – 104

2016–17 PIT – 111

2017–18 WSH – 105

2018–19 STL – 99

2021–22 COL – 119

2022–23 VGK – 111

2023–24 FLA – 110

Mean: 106.92

Median: 106

Mode: 103 (three times)

Range: 25

I thought there might be something here, but I wasn’t fully satisfied yet, so I wanted to launch some further inquiry. What did the data look like from the runners-up? How would that change my line of thinking?

Here they all are:

1995–96 FLA – 92

1996–97 PHI – 103

1997–98 WSH – 92

1998–99 BUF – 91

1999–00 DAL – 102

2000–01 NJD – 111

2001–02 CAR – 91

2002–03 ANA – 95

2003–04 CGY – 94

2005–06 EDM – 95

2006–07 OTT – 105

2007–08 PIT – 102

2008–09 DET – 112

2009–10 PHI – 88

2010–11 VAN – 117 (Pres.)

2011–12 NJD – 102

2013–14 NYR – 96

2014–15 TBL – 108

2015–16 SJS – 98

2016–17 NSH – 94

2017–18 VGK – 109

2018–19 BOS – 107

2021–22 TBL – 110

2022–23 FLA – 92

2023–24 EDM – 104

Mean: 100.4

Median: 102

Mode: 92, 102 (3x each)

Range: 29 (remarkably manifesting itself in consecutive seasons between 2009–10 and 2010–11)

This set does serve as something of a reminder that getting there is not always a statement about prowess. Many sub-100 point seasons show up in this group, including amongst 5 of the last 12 applicable finalists. However, I did feel like this helped me shape up the overall picture somewhat nevertheless, and found that there was enough consistency in this for me to incorporate it in my overall findings. The time had come to incorporate both the winners and runners-up data together and see what I took away from it.

Mean: 103.66

Median: 103.5

Mode: 102, 103 (4x each)

Range: 31

103 seemed to be popping up a lot, and when not doing so, it was not far away. I decided then that it was worth pursuing what its prevalence was as a minimum threshold. 19/25 champions had at least 103 points, a 76% strike rate. Taking the 103s away dropped that percentage to 64%, a slightly less telling number, so setting this as the minimum bar seemed to make sense. Across losing finalists, this was only a 10/25 clip, accounting for only 40%. Cumulatively across all finalists, 29/50 accounts for a 58% strike rate. Ergo, it is not a guarantee that 103 points will even get you there, but a team with at least 103 points that makes it that far has a pretty good chance at claiming the coveted trophy. When looking at it in a matchups sense, teams with 103 points or more have faced teams with fewer than 103 points in the Stanley Cup Final 17 times and gone 13-4. That definitely points towards it generating some favorability. Maybe there is something to my gut sense in this respect. While I will not go as far to tell you that a team with 103 points will definitely or even likely be gunning for it, especially in light of the last three champions having 110 points or more, it may be worth seriously considering a team’s chances if they are at least at that point. I will definitely be looking closely at teams’ point counters in this final stretch after the break, the coming trade deadline, and the regular season’s end. It might tell us something meaningful, if history is any indication.