Christopher Rottinger ’26 was already following the Philadelphia Flyers. Then he started tracking the odds.
The mathematics and statistics major from Burlington County presented a poster at this year’s Celebration of Student Achievement on the Flyers’ chances of making the playoffs. As the team’s late-season turnaround unfolded, Rottinger’s research became a real-time conversation starter.
Here, he talks about probability, sports analytics, and finding math in day-to-day life.
What made you want to calculate the Flyers’ playoff chances?
As a fan, you always have a sense of whether a team is going to be good. But I wanted to actually use numbers. I figured it would make following the season a lot more fun, and honestly it did.
How did your mathematical model work?
I used two models and combined them into one. The first was an Elo model, which gives each team a strength rating compared with the rest of the league and updates that rating after every game. The second was a Bradley-Terry model, which is less about recent games and more about how a team has performed all season.
As you watched your numbers throughout the season, what were the odds of the Flyers being in the playoffs looking like?
Not great, at first. When I started tracking, the Flyers had 12 games left and my model gave them an 8.8 percent chance to make the playoffs. A little before that, they were at 3.8 percent — which actually became part of the Flyers’ whole playoff identity. The team even put it on a T-shirt. Then they went on a run, and the number just kept climbing. With one game left in the regular season, my model had them at 100 percent.
You were presenting at COSA while the season was still playing out. What was that like?
That part was kind of wild, actually. People were asking about what the numbers said right then, after the latest game. It made the whole thing feel very current.
Did following the numbers change how you watched the games?
Yeah, definitely. I went to a couple games near the end of the season, and there’s something different about sitting in the stands when you know exactly what their probability is.
Have you looked at their Stanley Cup chances?
The full playoff picture is harder to model because the NHL doesn’t set the whole schedule in advance, but I worked out a snapshot. My model gives the Flyers about a 34 percent chance to beat the Carolina Hurricanes, a 13.26 percent chance to reach the Stanley Cup Final, and a 4.4 percent chance to win it all. Vegas has them at 3.32 percent, and other sources are around five, so my number lands right in the middle, which I’ll take.
What does a project like this say about math more broadly?
That it connects to basically everything. That’s one of the main reasons I became a math and statistics major. If you put data in the right context, it can answer almost any question you want to ask.
How did TCNJ help you develop this project?
Jana Gevertz was my advisor and also my probability professor, so I always felt comfortable walking into her office to talk through the project or anything else. One of the things I love about TCNJ is the small classes and the chance to really get to know my professors. I feel like that has prepared me for what comes next.
— Michelle Rivera