It’s easy to look like a genius when predicting the NHL season. Just focus on the obvious, lay out everything you know will happen, and trust in your unwavering wisdom. And then – and this is the important part – don’t leave a public record anywhere so that in a few months no one can look back and see how wrong you actually were.
This is where this competition comes into play. A few years ago, I got tired of everyone telling me how predictable the NHL was. Something would happen that I would have thought was unexpected, like the Vegas Golden Knights being good in their first year, the San Jose Sharks collapsing, or Barry Despite getting the Islanders to the playoffs. I expressed my surprise and inevitably heard from all sorts of fans scoffing. It was clear all along, that’s what they told me. And anyone with half a brain knew it.
OK, I finally said, prove it. And after a little tinkering, my annual typing competition was born. The premise was simple: Since the league is so easy to predict, I would ask you some of the most basic questions imaginable. Nothing special or particularly 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 were as easy as everyone says, you would destroy it.
Dear readers, you didn’t break it.
In three years the competition has grown from 800 entries to 1,600 and last year to 2,100. And no one has even come close to achieving a particularly good result. Only a small handful even managed to get a passing grade. Here you can see last year’s results, when it turned out that you didn’t believe in the Kraken, but in Darryl Sutter, and literally no one thought old Erik Karlsson was a Norris candidate. As I said, not that easy… at least if someone keeps track.
This year, all the old classic questions return, plus a brand new question that puts the spotlight on the middle of the pack. And yes, the dreaded bonus question is back too. As always, the winner will receive a signed copy of my book and the (increasingly more valuable) bragging rights that you are actually in charge.
Good luck. History says you will need it.
How it works
Please read these rules carefully, even if you are a competition veteran.
• The competition includes 10 questions and an all-or-nothing bonus. You can give at least one answer to each of the 10 regular questions and a maximum of five.
• For each of the regular questions, you can receive one point for the correct answer, two points for the second correct answer (for a total of three), etc., up to a maximum of 15 points if you go through the table with five correct answers.
• HOWEVER, An incorrect answer results in a zero for the entire question. Competing 1 against 1 and getting a point is better than 4 against 5 and getting nothing. So how safe do you want to be?
• The bonus question is optional and you can leave it blank. If you choose an answer, you only give one answer and get 15 bonus points if you are right. But if you’re wrong, You will receive a zero for your entire entry. Not just this question – your entire entry will be deleted. As I said, all or nothing.
• The winner is the entry that achieves the most total points. Note that this does not necessarily mean that you have to get points for every answer. You can have a “perfect” entry that has no wrong answers but doesn’t earn enough points. Note that the competition was won every year by entries that received at least a few zeros.
• Please read and follow the formatting rules below. Any entry that fails to do this may be disqualified. It takes a lot of work to collect and store all the information, and if you make life difficult for us, we reserve the right to simply skip your entry.
• New this year: We count invalid answers as incorrect instead of simply skipping them. This will undoubtedly have an impact on the coaching and GM questions, where people still won’t be paying attention to the deadlines even after three years. You have been warned.
• Deadline for entries is October 10th at 5:30 p.m. ET.
The questions
1. Name up to five teams that will make the playoffs.
2. Name up to five teams that will not make the playoffs.
3. Name up to five teams that finish in the middle 16 of the regular season standings (i.e. between 9th and 23rd).
4. Name up to five coaches who will not be fired or otherwise leave their jobs before July 1, 2024, NOT including a coach who has been in their current job for less than a year.
5. Name up to five GMs who will not be fired or otherwise leave their job before July 1, 2024, NOT including any GMs who have been in their current job for less than two years.
6. Name up to five goalkeepers who will start at least 50 games this season.
7. Name up to five newcomers who will make it into the top 10 of the Calder poll.
8. Name up to five defenders who will make it into the top 10 of the Norris poll.
9. Name up to five players who will make the top 15 in the Hart Trophy voting.
10. Name up to five players currently on an NHL roster who will change teams between opening night puck drop and the end of the first day of free agency in 2024. That means they must be added to a new roster via trade, free agency, waivers, or whatever, but does not include retiring, leaving the league entirely, or being an unsigned free agent.
Optional bonus question:
11. For 15 bonus points, nominate a single player to finish with at least 100 points this season who is not an Edmonton Oiler. Remember that you don’t have to answer the bonus if you don’t want to. An incorrect answer will delete your entire entry.
Here’s how to enter
Please read this section before entering the competition. If you do not follow these rules, your entry may be excluded from data collection.
• Participate by listing your answers in the comments section below.
• DO NOT cut and paste the questions into your entry. Just list your answers.
• DO NOT list every name in your entry on a new line. One line per question please.
• Important: Please note cases where people have the same or similar last name. There are two GMs with the last name Armstrong, several good players with names like Hughes and Tkachuk, etc. We’ll do our best to figure out who you mean in obvious cases – if you list Elias Pettersson for the Hart question, we’ll become ours Do your best to find out who you mean. We’ll assume you mean the highest-scoring forward and not the blueline prospect – but if we’re not sure, take a zero for this answer.
• Please double check that you have the correct answers for the correct question number. (You’d be amazed at how many people screw this up and end up listing Connor McDavid as a Norris candidate or swapping coaches and GMs.)
• Finally, this is not a rule, but a suggestion: write your replies down somewhere, because this comments section will be very large and it may be difficult to find your entry when you come back in a few months and wonder how you did .
That’s it. Ten simple questions, give or take a bonus you may or may not have the courage for. You’ll know all the right answers were obvious in a few months, but how many do you know now? The comments are open, so let’s see what you have.
(Photo of Jack Eichel winning the Stanley Cup: Christian Petersen / Getty Images)