Nobody understands the Bruins (and other lessons from your preseason predictions)

Every now and then, somebody will ask me why I take the time to set up the annual prediction contest. Why bother, when it takes so much work to scrape all the data from our (occasionally uncooperative) comment section, massage it into some kind of working shape, and then monitor the whole thing over the course of a full season?

The first answer is that I just like seeing how wrong you all are, and how sad that makes you feel.

But the second answer is that there’s a bonus to the contest, from my perspective: By getting a few thousand readers to put their pre-season predictions in writing, I end up with a treasure trove of data on what fans are thinking. I like to think that The Athletic’s readers are reasonably bright and well-informed, and while a prediction game isn’t a random sampling, it’s still a useful way to take the pulse of the hockey world.

So today, let’s set aside the contest aspect – we’ll check in on that later in the year – and just focus on what you told me about what you do and don’t believe heading into the 2023-24 season.

This is all based on an early pass on the data, which hasn’t been cleaned up yet. (Special thanks to contest wrangler Mike, who was able to get the initial pass done in record time.) We’ll focus on broad trends rather than specific numbers, but there’s still plenty to dig into.

Such as…

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Offering up an oddly specific prediction for all 32 NHL teams this year

This is my favorite prediction column to write each year.

Like most hockey writers, I produce more than my share of predictions. There’s my annual leaguewide look, which also went live today and can be found here. I was part of The Athletic’s staff-wide award picks. I’ve been making picks on podcasts, and radio hits, and probably in my sleep. It’s part of the lead up to opening night, and it’s fun.

But once a year, I let myself go overboard by making predictions for each team that are way too specific. Anyone can predict that a player will hit a milestone or break a record; I want to also give you the exact date it will happen. Some player is going to be in the running for an award? Not good enough, you deserve to know exactly where they’ll finish. Along the way, we also dig up a few weird odds and ends from the stat book. But the key is that in these parts, we don’t use words like “around” or “approximately” or “close enough”.

We also don’t use words like “correct” very often, but that’s half the appeal. And when I do nail one of these predictions – like picking the exact game in which Joel Hanley would score his first regular season goal, or the exact night that the Kings would take their only misconduct penalty of the season – then it goes without saying that I will never shut up about it.

The offseason lasted forever and real hockey is just hours away. Let’s get oddly specific.

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Puck Soup: Predictions + who he play for

A new episode of the Puck Soup podcast has been posted:

>> Stream on the Puck Soup site
>> Listen on The Athletic
>> Subscribe on iTunes
>> Listen on Spotify

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.

From Stanley Cup contenders to bottom feeders: Predicting the NHL season

Opening night is almost here. Are you sick of predictions yet? Too bad, here comes another batch, as I’ve put together my annual attempt to sort the NHL into four divisions.

The rules, as always: I get just those four divisions, each with exactly eight teams. We’ll have the bottom-feeders, the middle-of-the-pack, the legitimate contenders, and then the teams where I just have no idea. That last one should honestly just have every team in it, but let’s not dwell on that.

Four divisions, starting with the dregs and working our way up. Will I get them all right? No. But will I nail at least a few? Not necessarily, to be honest. Let’s do this.

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Make your picks for the prediction contest that's so easy it's almost impossible

It’s easy to look like a genius when you predict the NHL season. Just focus on the obvious, lay out everything that you know is going to happen, and feel confident in your unshakeable wisdom. And then – and this is the important part – don’t leave a public record anywhere, so nobody can look back in a few months and see how wrong you actually were.

That’s where this contest comes in. A few years ago, I got tired of everyone telling me how predictable the NHL was. Something would happen that I thought was unexpected, like the Golden Knights being good in year one, or the Sharks collapsing, or Barry Trtoz getting the Islanders into the playoffs. I’d express my surprise, and I’d inevitably hear from all sorts of fans who’d scoff. It was obvious all along, they’d tell me. And everyone with half a brain knew it.

OK, I finally said – prove it. And after a little bit of tinkering, my annual prediction contest was born. The premise was simple: Since the league is so easy to predict, I’d ask you some of the most basic questions imaginable. Nothing fancy or especially complicated. Just which teams would be good or bad, which coaches and GMs were on safe ground, and which players would be the stars of the season. If the prediction business was as easy as everyone said, you guys would crush it.

Gentle readers, you have not crushed it.

In three years, the contest has grown from 800 entries to 1,600 to last year’s 2,1000. And nobody has come close to an especially great score. Only a small handful have even managed a passing grade. You can check in on last year’s results here, when it turned out that you didn’t believe in the Kraken, you did believe in Darryl Sutter, and literally nobody thought old man Erik Karlsson was a Norris candidate. Like I said, not so simple… at least when someone is keeping track.

This year, we’ve got all the old classic questions returning, plus a brand new one that shines a spotlight on the middle-of-the-pack. And yes, the dreaded bonus question is back too. As always, the winner gets a signed copy of my book, plus the (infinitely more valuable) bragging rights that you actually called your shots.

Good luck. History says you’re going to need it.

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We found playoffs in a hopeless place: The case for the NHL's 10 worst teams

We’re now just a week away from the start of the NHL season, meaning hockey fans are being flooded with season previews. That’s great for most of us, as we head into a new year clinging to optimism and best-case scenarios. But for fans of teams that rebuilding or just plain bad, preview season just means that any lingering hope gets squeezed out, as every preview seems to echo the same theme: You’re bad, and you’re screwed.

That’s where today’s column comes in. For the last few years, I’ve looked to offer some optimism to fans of the worst teams. And not just garden-variety optimism, where things might go a little better than expected. I’m talking a world where everyone is wrong, your team is actually good, and they’re going to make noise in the playoffs.

It’s, uh… not easy.

That doesn’t mean it can’t work sometimes. For example, heading into last season the consensus was that the second-year Kraken would miss the playoffs and maybe even be in the mix for last place. I made the case for why they could be better, and maybe even win a round. Then they did.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that last year, our previews only had the Kraken as the tenth worst team, and the nine teams below them all missed the playoffs by healthy margins. Sometimes bad teams are just bad, and all the hope in the world can’t trump that reality. But we can try, if only to give a few fan bases a break from all the negativity.

Here’s the optimist’s view of the ten teams with the bleakest outlook heading into the 2023-24 season, based on the previews that Dom, Sean and Shayna have been churning out. We’ll start with the best of those teams, and work our way down to the dregs.

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