What’s PDO? Why Canucks fans are arguing about “luck”
If you’ve spent any time on social media during this record-setting start to the Vancouver Canucks’ season, you’ve probably seen a bevy of hockey analysts warning fans against being too optimistic.
The main piece of evidence used to discredit this hot start is the Canucks’ PDO. For those who are not familiar with the statistic, PDO is the sum of a team’s shooting percentage and save percentage at five-on-five.
PDO was invented by Brian King, who first started discussing the stat on a now-defunct blog called Irreverent Oilers Fans. The acronym actually doesn’t stand for anything but has been used in hockey circles for more than a decade.
The stat is often used as a measure of a team’s puck luck or how many bounces are going their way. The premise behind the stat is that a lot of shooting and goalie performance over a small sample size — a game, a month, or even a season — is heavily influenced by luck and randomness.
Traditionally, 100 is set as the baseline for PDO. It stands as the predicted average of a team’s shooting percentages and save percentages combined. Historically, most teams finish close to the benchmark.
Therefore, a PDO significantly higher than 100 represents a team benefiting from some luck, while a PDO significantly lower than 100 represents a team struggling to get bounces to go their way.
The Canucks currently have the highest PDO ever recorded through 13 games, per hockey analytics account @JFreshHockey on X. That is because the Canucks lead the league by a large margin in five-on-five shooting percentage — they’re at 14.2% while the second-place Minnesota Wild are at 11.74% — and they also lead the league in five-on-five save percentage.
This is the basis of why you’ll find lots of hockey analysts refusing to believe in Vancouver’s hot start.
The 2023-24 Canucks currently have a 109.8 PDO, the highest (by far) at this point in the season since the stat has been tracked.
Here's how they stack up against other teams from the past 10 seasons who have started with similarly high percentages. #Canucks pic.twitter.com/MwSXBrZXUY
— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) November 10, 2023
We can see from the post above that other teams who have had similarly hot starts have cooled off as the season progressed. The 2018-19 New York Islanders are the only team from the list above to win a playoff series, and they were then swept in the second round.
Will the Canucks cool off at some point this season? The answer is almost definitely yes. It would be unprecedented for a team to run this hot for the entire season. However, the fall back down to earth may not be as severe as some are predicting.
Individual skater and goalie talent can play a role in a team’s PDO. The Tampa Bay Lightning have finished with a PDO above 100 since the 2017-18 season. The Canucks do have an exceptional goalie, as well as some great shooters, which could mean that their benchmark sits slightly above 100.
When asked if he expected teams with elite players to post a higher PDO, King, the creator of the stat, had the following to say.
“Absolutely, but more so with an elite goalie. Elite forwards are only on the ice for 20 minutes at the most, whereas an elite goalie can be on the ice for 80% of the time a team plays (ignoring the games the backup goalie is in obviously),” he said in an interview with TheSportsDaily in 2016.
Thatcher Demko, when healthy, is certainly an elite goalie and should help the Canucks finish with a relatively high PDO, even without considering luck.
The Canucks have also been leading games for the majority of this season. This can sometimes mean sitting back and capitalizing on opponents’ mistakes, resulting in fewer shots but stronger scoring chances, artificially inflating the shooting percentage.
The Canucks will almost certainly regress back to the mean, especially when it comes to their five-on-five shooting percentage. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the team is going to collapse.
They’ve already earned a large portion of the points needed to make the playoffs, which means they can withstand a possible slump. The Canucks have done a good job at converting this run of good fortune into points in the standings and are now set up nicely to make the postseason for the first time since 2015.
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