AWS Uses Constraint Programming to Determine NHL Playoff Scenarios
AWS ML Blog · rss · 2026-08-08
The AWS Generative AI Innovation Center detailed a mathematical optimization practice: using Constraint Programming (CP) and custom tree search to automatically and rigorously calculate NHL playoff clinching scenarios.
Technical Approach
- 0-day Solver: Formulates "has a team clinched" as a feasibility problem. Using Google OR-Tools' CP-SAT solver, it checks if any combination of remaining game outcomes could eliminate the team, factoring in complex tie-breaking rules.
- n-day Lookahead: Uses a custom tree search to predict clinching scenarios based on upcoming games. Preprocessing, pruning strategies, and node-ordering heuristics keep the combinatorial search space tractable.
Results
Validated across four recent NHL seasons, the system's outputs exactly matched official NHL scenarios. It delivers provably correct results with a median runtime of just minutes, saving significant manual effort. The framework is extensible to other sports leagues and complex routing/scheduling problems.
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