theathleticuk
Now that were a few days into July, its time to answer two equally important questions: Which cap-flush teams handed out the most outrageously expensive contracts to mid-level players, and howd everyone do in the annual prediction contest? If youre new to all of this, lets get you caught up.
Every year, right before the season starts, we run a reader contest in which youre invited to make predictions about what will and wont happen in the coming season.
The questions are simple, but this league sure isnt, and most years everyone does terribly.
We track the contest all year long, and at the end, we all point and laugh at each other for thinking we knew anything.
Advertisement That day has come, with July 1 representing the end of the league year and the official finish line for the contest.
Pencils down, everyone, its time to turn in your papers.
If you missed them, the original contest post is here, a first look at the entries was here and our midseason check-in came here.
The basic idea is there are ten main questions, for which you can submit as many or as few answers as youd like, up to five.
You get more points for more answers, but getting even one wrong zeroes your score for that question, so theres a real risk/reward balance that forces you to figure out just how confident you are.
Most of you were very confident.
Most of you were very wrong for that.
As always, a huge thanks goes out to Mike M., who scrapes your answers, mashes them into something workable, and maintains the contests backend site all season long.
If you enjoy the contest, drop a thanks to Mike in the comments.
Lets walk through the questions and see how you did.
We had over 1,100 entries, so surely somebody nailed this thing.
1.
Name up to five teams that will make the playoffs.
Just about everyone got off to a good start here, with each of your six most mentioned teams making it.
That list includes the Dallas Stars, Carolina Hurricanes, Vegas Golden Knights, Edmonton Oilers, Colorado Avalanche and Tampa Bay Lightning, and while the two Pacific teams took a bit longer than expected, everyone eventually wrapped up their spot.
After six straight right answers, you then reeled off five in a row that were wrong, with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Florida Panthers, Winnipeg Jets, New Jersey Devils and Washington Capitals coming next.
But those teams were all well below the big six, meaning there were plenty of five-for-five starts here.
This contest is easy! 2.
Name up to five teams that will not make the playoffs.
Oops! Advertisement The good news here is that the two teams that were on almost everyones list, the Chicago Blackhawks and San Jose Sharks, did miss, although the Sharks kept it interesting.
But the third-most-mentioned team, appearing on over 800 entries, was the Pittsburgh Penguins.
And if you dodged that trap, theres a good chance you were tripped up by the Philadelphia Flyers (who appeared on the 5th-most entries), Buffalo Sabres (7th), Boston Bruins (8th) or Anaheim Ducks (10th).
In other words, fully half of the 10 teams you were most confident would miss the playoffs ended up making it.
Needless to say, most of you ended up with a zero here.
If you managed to bank any points at all, you were already ahead of the pack.
3.
Name up to five teams that will finish in the middle 16 of the regular-season standings (i.e., between 9th and 24th).
In theory, this question shouldnt be any harder than the previous two, since youre being asked to pick teams to fill 16 slots.
But for me at least, this one always feels tougher than the others, in part because there arent any sure things to fall back on.
Sure enough, there wasnt much consensus here, with the Utah Mammoths 562 entries finishing just ahead of the St.
Louis Blues 548 as the most common, well below the first two questions.
Utah and St.
Louis both counted as right answers, but four of your next six did not the Montreal Canadiens, Minnesota Wild, Vancouver Canucks and Calgary Flames.
The Canucks are an interesting team to highlight here.
They finished dead last in the league, and it wasnt close.
In hindsight, that wasnt a big surprise, because the Canucks were bad.
Surely we all saw this coming.
Except we didnt.
You were reasonably confident that theyd be a middle-of-the-pack team, something in hindsight they could have only dreamed of.
And only 10 of you less than 1 percent of the total entries picked them as a team to miss the playoffs, which they ended up doing by 32 points.
And those 10 entries were barely more than the two that picked the Canucks to make the playoffs.
Advertisement The lesson, as always: None of us know anything.
Even when, in hindsight, it was completely obvious.
4.
Name up to five coaches who will not be fired or otherwise leave their jobs before July 1, 2026, not including any of the 11 coaches who were hired after October 1, 2024.
The three most common answers for safe coaches were Paul Maurice, Jon Cooper and Rod BrindAmour, and of course none of them lost their jobs.
But Kris Knoblauch did, which took out 419 of your entries.
Craig Berube cost 300 of you, while Bruce Cassidy got 244 and Dean Evason was at 139.
On the other hand, Patrick Roys firing was only a surprise to 14 of you, which trailed the 19 who picked Jim Montgomery even though he wasnt eligible.
(Neither was Adam Foote, although Kyle C.
picked him anyway, and Im not sure if that makes him right or wrong.) 5.
Name up to five GMs who will not be fired or otherwise leave their job before July 1, 2026, not including any of the eight GMs who were hired after October 1, 2023.
No big problems here, with nine of your ten most common answers turning out to be safe picks.
The one outlier was Chris MacFarland, who left the Avs to join the Nashville Predators and took 222 of your entries with him.
The other big news from MacFarlands exit is that it presumably spells the end of one of the contests longest-running recurring bits: the annual how many people dont realize Joe Sakic hasnt been the GM in Colorado since 2022? test.
This year the number dropped all the way down to four, just in time for Sakic to reclaim the job after MacFarlands exit.
We had a good run, everyone.
Among other former GMs, Brad Treliving took out 171 of you, Tom Fitzgerald got 83, Patrik Allvin had 18 and Kevyn Adams took out an insultingly low 10.
6.
Name up to five goaltenders who will start at least 50 games this season.
Connor Hellebuycks early-season injury could have wiped out just about everyone here, as he was a near-unanimous pick with 980 total entries.
But he ended up clearing the bar with room to spare, and that helped turn this question into easy points, with each of your top eight picks ending up correct.
We dont lose anyone until we get down to Sam Montembeault (141 entries) and Filip Gustavsson (128), so there will be plenty of five-for-fives here.
Advertisement 7.
Name up to five rookies who will finish in the top 10 of Calder Trophy balloting.
Ivan Demidov was basically unanimous here with 1,057 entries, because this was back when wed all basically already given him the award.
He didnt win, but he easily cleared the top-10 bar.
No such luck for your second-most-common pick, Zeev Buium, who appeared on 570 entries.
All told, there were basically five correct answers that appeared on a significant number of ballots: Demidov, Jimmy Snuggerud, Ryan Leonard, Alexander Nikishin and some kid named Matthew Schaefer, who snuck onto 252 entries.
Two of you had Jesper Wallstedt, and one had Ben Kindel.
Nobody mentioned Beckett Sennecke, Jakub Dobes or Fraser Minten, but plenty of you did have names such as Michael Misa (260 entries), Zayne Parekh (163) and Yaroslav Askarov (119).
Bottom line: Points will be tough to come by here, with only one real path to five-for-five status.
8.
Name up to five defensemen who will finish in the top 10 of Norris Trophy balloting.
The Norris question turned out to be another relatively easy one this year, with each of your top five picks all qualifying.
That includes Cale Makar, whose 1,108 mentions made him the closest thing to a unanimous pick in this years contest.
Quinn Hughes was right behind him at 1,026, while actual winner Zach Werenski was at 458.
The most common wrong answer was Adam Fox, at 207 entries, while Victor Hedman had 171 and Josh Morrissey came in at 162.
9.
Name up to five players who will finish in the top 15 of Hart Trophy voting.
Connor McDavid was another near-unanimous choice who turned out to be correct, but it doesnt take us long to find trouble here.
None of Leon Draisaitl (591 entries), Auston Matthews (395), Kirill Kaprizov (287) or Jack Eichel (215) were correct answers.
Ultimately, this will be one of the key questions that decides the contest, since there were enough right answers to go around but also plenty of traps to fall into.
A five-for-five was very possible here, and more than a few of you got there.
But there were also a ton of zeroes to be found.
Advertisement Also, shout out to the six people who correctly picked Macklin Celebrini and the three who had Rasmus Dahlin.
And a special congrats would be in order for Mark R., the only entry in the contest to successfully predict Lane Hutson would get Hart votes, except he also had Auston Matthews and therefore takes a zero here.
10.
Name up to five players from the NHL who will score at least one goal in the Olympics this year.
This was a new question, replacing the traditional player transaction one, and Im not sure it really worked.
We didnt know the rosters yet, of course, but it turned out they werent that hard to predict, and there werent any shock snubs that caused problems.
In the end, basically every big name who was healthy did end up scoring, including each of your top 11 picks and 21 of your top 24.
Brayden Points injury cost 60 of you, and Matthew Tkachuks goose egg took out 46.
But this one basically ended up being free points.
And that brings us to the dreaded all-or-nothing bonus question, which gives you the chance to risk your entire entry ..
Optional bonus question: For 15 bonus points, name one and only one player who will finish this season with at least 45 goals, and who is not Auston Matthews or Leon Draisaitl.
It turns out we didnt need the qualifier here, as injuries meant that neither Matthews nor Draisaitl got to the required 45 goals.
Neither did David Pastrnak, which wiped out 127 of you, or Tage Thompson (63), William Nylander (32) or Brayden Point (28).
In the end, only seven players got to the 45-goal mark this year, including one Wyatt Johnston who didnt show up on any entries at all.
Connor McDavid was the leader here, with 191 entries, almost double Kaprizovs 96.
Nathan MacKinnon was the only other right answer to crack double digits, as he was the pick from 27 of you.
Also correct: the eight of you who had Cole Caufield, the seven with Jason Robertson, and Ryan A., who was the only one to risk his entry on Celebrini.
In all, there was an almost even split between correct answers (330 total) and incorrect (325), with 464 of you passing altogether because you are cowards it better fit your strategy.
And the winner is ..
We have a tie, with Ryan K.
and Joel F.
both finishing with 105 points.
Advertisement Both nailed the easy points on the playoff team question.
Both whiffed on the playoff misses, thanks to the Flyers and Penguins.
And both missed multiple teams on the middle 16.
They both got the full 15 points on the coach and GM questions, which was (almost) a requirement for contending this year, and both nailed the goalie question.
The split came with the Calder question, where Joel got the full 15 points while Ryan missed on Buium and Askarov.
But Ryan got right back into the mix with a max score on the Norris question, while Joel had Fox and Morrissey.
Both took zeroes on the Hart question but nailed the Olympics, and both had Kaprizov as their 45-goal scorer.
We never actually came up with an official tie-breaker, which is probably something I should put on the list for next season.
Ryan could claim victory based on having one fewer wrong answer across his entire entry.
But Im perfectly fine with recognizing both entries, because 105 is an impressive total.
(Nobody even cracked 100 last year.) As far as heartbreaking near misses, we have a few to highlight.
Brad B.
took home the bronze with 103 points, but he has to be wondering what might have been.
For one, Kaprizov only just barely worked for the bonus, thanks to having exactly 45 goals take one off the board and Joel and Ryan both get wiped out, leaving Brad (who had McDavid for the bonus) as the sole winner.
But even worse, Brad went conservative on the Calder question, listing only two players.
It was a smart strategy, since thats almost always the hardest question.
But if hed listed even one more right answer, hed have earned three extra points, pushing him to 106 and a championship.
Alas.
Another tough miss comes from John O., who ends up with 100 points on the nose and would have had 115 if Kris Knoblauch hadnt cost him points on the coaching question.
Maybe worse is Mark W., who finished with a pedestrian 90 instead of 120 because he had Craig Berube and Brad Treliving on his not fired lists.
Never believe in the Maple Leafs, Mark! And finally, we have to recognize Ben T., who fell just short with 100 points.
He was the highest-ranking entry to choose to skip the bonus question, meaning he would have won if hed given a correct answer there.
Of course, if hed been wrong, hed have taken a zero and finished last (and passing on the bonus worked last year).
But in this case at least, it was no guts, no glory.
Congrats to our two winners, as well as to our near-misses, and also everyone who ate a zero, and everyone in between.
Well be back next year in the days before opening night, so start prepping your strategy now.
And if you have any suggestions for new questions and/or a bonus, let me know in the comments.