So a professor at the U of A has pegged the chances the Oilers make the playoffs at 1%. Well, we went to the U of A, and let us tell you: the professors there give everybody 1%.

Joanne Ireland has a bit in her pre-game analysis this morning that, “the odds don’t even look good on paper, but University of Alberta business professor Armann Ingolfsson has taken matters one step further. Following the Edmonton Oilers’ 4-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday night, he launched his computer program, plugged in some numbers, and pegged the club’s chances of making the playoffs at one per cent.”

Well that’s just great. How dare someone take the time to waste valuable computer time to calculate something as evident as the 100% chance the Oilers are going to win the cup? And what kind of Mexican Super Computer calculates such a variant in odds? Who on earth is Professor Armann Ingolfsson and how dare he arrive at such false conclusions?
Hmmm.

According to his site, Armann Ingolfsson “enjoys trying to apply Management Science to interesting questions about sport, for example at what point a team has clinched a playoff spot.”

Crap. Well we don’t need fancy “computers” or to understand “basic math” to tell you that the Oilers are going to make the playoffs. We dusted off the OilersNation Super Playoff Predicting Compumatrix™ and have run the following numbers, calculating our own odds of making the playoffs:

Oilers wins this season: 22
+ The number of goals the Oilers have scored so far this season: 136
– The number of letters in “Edmonton”: 8
– Doug Weight’s old number: 39
+ Tom Gilbert’s points per game average: 0.34
x Dwayne Roloson’s Save Percentage: 0.898

= Oilers playoff chances: 99.98%

As in, there is a 99.98% chance the Oilers make the playoffs. Now we aren’t “university professors.” Just a few guys who like drinking beer, and don’t take no for an answer. But what we do know is Oilers Hockey—and we do know the chance they make the playoffs is high.

So take that, Professor!