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The conclusion of the 2010 Olympic Hockey tournament was about as suspenseful as possible. Interestingly, the level of play was also higher than in years past. Using the League Equivalency method, we can determine how difficult it is for an NHL player to score a point in the tournament relative to the NHL. In the 2006 Olympics, 12 teams competed in the opening round, resulting in an overall equivalency of 1.15 (the eight-team final round had an equivalency of 1.52.) This time, the level of play with 12 teams in the tournament was 1.34, which is roughly as good as the 2004 World Cup and the 2002 Olympics, which featured just eight teams.
Here we can see the winners of previous top international tournaments with a level of play substantially above that of the NHL:
Legend:
Level: Level of Play, determined with League Equivalency method
Teams: Number of Teams in the tournament
NHL Players: Number of NHL Players in the tournament
Year Tournament Winner 2nd 3rd Level Teams NHL Players
2010 Olympics Canada USA Finland 1.34 12 132
2006 Olympics Sweden Finland Czech 1.15/1.52 12/8 129
2004 World Cup Canada Finland Czech 1.31 8 139
2002 Olympics Canada USA Russia 1.34 8 132
1998 Olympics Czech Russia Finland 1.51 8 105
1996 World Cup USA Canada Sweden 1.51 8 117
1991 Canada Cup Canada USA Finland 1.39 6 68
1987 Canada Cup Canada USSR Sweden 1.47 6 56
1984 Canada Cup Canada USSR Sweden 1.31 6 50
1981 Canada Cup USSR Canada Czech 1.22 6 54
1976 Canada Cup Canada Czech Sweden 1.43 6 40
1972 Summit Series Canada USSR -- 1.87 2 26
Historically, there have been six consistently competitive national teams: Canada, the US, Russia, Sweden, Finland and Czechoslovakia. The dissolution of the Eastern Bloc added a seventh as the Czech Republic and Slovakia became two separate teams. Here are the records of each of these teams among themselves since 1996:
Legend:
GF: Goals For
GA: Goals Against
Pyth%: Pythagorean Winning Percentage
Team W L GF GA Pyth%
Canada 18 9 85 70 0.596
USA 12 13 87 70 0.607
Sweden 10 7 51 46 0.551
Russia 12 13 73 73 0.500
Finland 11 12 59 69 0.422
Czech 7 14 47 56 0.413
Slovakia 5 11 35 59 0.260
Pyth%, as shown in the legend above, is a team’s Pythagorean winning percentage (GF^2/[GF^2+GA^2]). Canada has overperformed its Pythagorean record by two wins, while the US has three more losses than expected, which is what happens when you blow out Finland 6-1, but lose to Canada 3-2.
None of this should take anything away from Canada’s performance in this Olympic tournament. Over the course of seven games, Canada was clearly the best team in the group of 12. I like to count what I call “close” shots – that is, shots taken below the top of the face-off circles, between the face-off dots, and on less than a 45 degree angle to the net. In this category, Canada had the highest ratio of shots for to shots against, even if we normalize the shot ratio to account for the relative strength of each team’s opponents:
Legend:
SF/60: Shots For per 60 minutes
SA/60: Shots Against per 60 minutes
RATIO: Ratio of Shots For per 60 minutes to Shots Against per 60 minutes
NORM: Normalized Shot Ratio
Team GP SF/60 SA/60 RATIO NORM
CAN 7 32.3 17.2 1.88 1.78
RUS 4 27.9 17.4 1.61 1.55
SWE 4 24.8 14.0 1.77 1.43
USA 6 25.1 20.7 1.21 1.30
CZE 5 25.8 21.2 1.21 1.25
FIN 6 23.7 19.8 1.19 1.17
SVK 7 20.8 23.2 0.90 0.95
GER 4 18.0 23.8 0.76 0.91
SUI 5 19.7 24.6 0.80 0.77
NOR 4 13.9 28.7 0.48 0.55
BLR 4 14.4 28.3 0.51 0.53
LAT 4 13.7 34.3 0.40 0.48
Any outcome is possible in a single-elimination tournament, but the most-likely outcome was Canada finishing first. People who like to put money on these things had Russia pegged for second, but the Quarter-Final “Gold Medal” game between Canada and Russia lacked the suspense of the actual final, and the silver medalist American team was also arguably the second-best team in the tournament.
Gabriel Desjardins is a contributor to Puck Prospectus and runs the statistical hockey sites Behind The Net Hockey and Behind The Net. You can contact him at: info at behindthenet.ca. | 
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