A Constraint Programming Approach for n-Day Lookahead Playoff Clinching in the NHL
In professional sports, a team has clinched the playoffs if they are guaranteed a postseason spot, regardless of the outcomes of any remaining games. As the season progresses, sports fans and other stakeholders are interested in precisely when, and under what conditions, their team will clinch the playoffs. In this paper, we investigate playoff clinching in the context of the National Hockey League (NHL), where it is computationally challenging to produce clinching scenarios due, in part, to complex tie-breakers. We present an algorithm that determines under which combinations of game outcomes in the next $n$ days a team will clinch the playoffs (i.e., "$n$-day lookahead clinching"). Our ...
| Authors | Gili Rosenberg, Kyle E. C. Booth, J. Kyle Brubaker et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.AI |
| Published | 13 May 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 14 May 2026 |
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