Determining playoff clinching scenarios in the NHL using constraint programming
AWS Generative AI Innovation Center built a constraint programming system to automate NHL playoff clinching scenarios
“The Minnesota Wild will clinch the playoffs if any of the following holds: they get at least one point against the Anaheim Ducks, the St. Louis Blues lose to the Utah Hockey Club in any fashion, or the Calgary Flames lose to the Vegas Golden Knights in any fashion.”
AWS Generative AI Innovation Center applied constraint programming and custom tree search to solve the combinatorial problem of determining NHL playoff clinching scenarios, validated against official NHL publications. While technically interesting as an applied optimization problem, this is primarily a sports analytics use case with minimal AI industry signal. The branding under the GenAI Innovation Center is notable but the work itself involves no generative AI.