Hollinger, you win again!

I was intrigued by Hollinger's claim that performance against top teams has nothing to do with playoff success, so I put it to the test. I used a linear regression in which playoff success (total playoff wins) was the dependent variable and win total from the regular season, point differential, and wins against the top three teams were loaded as independent variables. First, win total from the regular season correlated very highly with point differential, but as far as the prediction model went, win total from the regular season outperformed point differential. Lastly, performance against top teams made no difference either way, as Hollinger stated. I would be interested to see this done over a few different years so as to gain more power in the analysis and see if the Hollinger claim holds. Interesting results, but inconclusive.