The NHL Olympic Hangover Theory: Fact or Fiction?
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Frank Doyle
The worst hangovers creep up on you and leave your head spinning long after the final champagne cork was popped, especially if you’re coming off a marathon shift at work.
So, just imagine what last season’s NHL Conference finalists feel like this year.
Every four years the National Hockey League takes its regular 82-game schedule and cuts corners so that the world’s best players can participate in the Winter Olympics. Teams pile up air miles, and play weekly back-to-backs as coaches try to manage minutes and ice time. Roadtrips are extended and days off are few and far between.
Think of it this way: the NHL regular season is marathon at the best of times before the league needs to jam an extra three weeks of games into essentially the same timeframe. We got to thinking that had to have an effect on teams, especially those teams that played into June.
That’s why we tracked each of the NHL Conference Finalists in Olympic seasons and then compared those numbers to the following season.
In short, if history holds true, it doesn’t look good for the Los Angeles Kings, New York Rangers, Chicago Blackhawks or Montreal Canadiens.
Since the 1998 Nagano Olympics, the first Games to feature NHL players, just one NHL Conference finalist bounced back to have a better season than it did in the Olympic year. Seven of those eight teams regressed, earning and average of 14.38 fewer points in post-Olympic seasons.
Stanley Cup champs in Olympic years can expect to drop an average of 13.75 points the next year, where the league average for Cup champs was just -6.69 points.
The results were even worse for teams that scratched and clawed all the way to the Stanley Cup finals only to lose. Those teams had an average of 15 fewer points in seasons immediately following an Olympic year whereas the league average for runners-up was just -7.81.
The only bright spot might be for teams that lost in the Conference finals during Olympic years. Those squads actually improved an average of 3.25 points the following year. The 2010-2011 Philadelphia Flyers which lost in the Conference finals were the only team to improve after the Olympics, earning 18 more points in the following season.
However, it’s much more likely that these elite teams have the wheels fall off after an Olympic season. Since 1997-1998, just six Stanley Cup finalists failed to make the playoffs the following season – four of those six teams missed out on the big dance after an Olympic season.
Will the Olympic hangover hit the Kings, Rangers, Habs and Blackhawks hard as the season goes on?