Dear Professor Wanye: what does it all mean?

 

We received an email from a reader this weekend:

Well Tamara, we thank you for your question. We fired up the old internet-a-matrix and went to clubstats.com which is our source for all things statistical. Our source for all things Donair-related is Queen Donair, in case you were also wondering about that, Tamara. Man, that’s good donair!

Anyway, with the little shootout victory last night the Oilers’ chances of making the playoffs jumped by 2.8 per cent to ten per cent. This is by no means a sure thing, obviously, but it’s way better than the odds on February 22nd. On that dark day the Oilers had just lost 5–2 to the Stars, and the odds of making the playoffs were a scant 1.2 per cent. So you could say that the chances of the Oilers making the playoffs are ten times greater than they were a month ago. Ten per cent! That is roughly the same chance that the zombie Cliff Fletcher locks the dressing room doors and feasts on Maple Leaf brains.

It could happen.

As for the second part of your question, the same people at clubstats.com have a computer the size of a Volkswagen bus working on this problem day and night and here is what they say:

If you’re like us, you don’t like charts, numbers or the letter “Q.” So we’ll break it down for you nice and simple. If the Oil win seven more games, they have a 79% chance of getting into the playoffs. This would ordinarily be impossible, but consider the fact that the Oil are 9–2 in their last 11 and 13–6 in their last 19 games. These are impressive stats. So if the Oil can keep up the pace they have been playing at since Feb 12 they have an 80 per cent chance of making it to the big dance.

At the trade deadline it seemed the Oilers needed a complete retooling to not be the Suckingest Team in all of Suckdom. Now, oddly enough, all they need to do is “keep it up” and they can make it happen.

Keep it up!!