Welcome to Part Three, the final episode in this three part series that compares the pre-season predictions of three very well respected hockey publications – The Official NHL Yearbook, The Hockey News Yearbook, and McKeen’s Hockey Pool Yearbook. Before continuing on to part three, you may want to check out Part One and Part Two before resuming with Part Three.
OTTAWA SENATORS
I wish our politics would be as united as the experts on the place Ottawa was destined for. After the dismal 2010-11 season the Senators appeared to many to be destined for a long-term rebuild. They had the prospects pool that showed a bright future and everyone was expecting them to spend a few years in the Eastern Conference basement. THN said, “The Senators have stars in Daniel Alfredsson and Jason Spezza, but beyond them is a team at the start of a slow, painful rebuild.” While that was true two years ago, last year we saw a supporting cast emerge to stardom level. Erik Karlsson blew the lid of the defensive point race. McKeen’s dropped a liner on the young kid – “On the road to NHL stardom”, and NHL guys asked us “Though vastly different in style and physical appearance, could Karlsson and Rundblad be the new Chara and Redden?” Well Karlsson is writing his own name in the history books and everyone really undervalued this team.
THN – 15ht NHL – 15th McKeen’s – 15th Actual – 8th
PHILADELPHIA FLYERS
“Well, that was interesting, wasn’t it?” is the opening line in the NHL Yearbook. Both NHL Yearbook and McKeen’s thought Bryzgalov could be an answer for the Flyers in net. “In Bryzgalov the Flyers may have finally solved a perpetual area of weakness,” said McKeen’s, and NHL Yearbook followed with “Signing Bryzgalov…could end the perpetual problems in goal the club has since, well, Ron Hextall retired.” But no one loved the moves that Flyers GM Paul Holmgren performed than The Hockey News guys. While all three thought the team was playoff worthy, THN gets the nod on this one as they expected the Flyers to be dominant in the East – and they were.
THN – 4th NHL – 7th McKeen’s – 8th Actual – 5th
PHOENIX COYOTES
The Coyotes tend to do this every year, right? Small market team with hardly any superstars, yet always manages to make the playoffs. So would they be doubted again? Yes, and yes. If I was a betting man, I am not one but if I was, I would never bet against Dave Tippet. This man can probably win with a team equipped with toilet plungers and watermelons for helmets. NHL Yearbook thought the odds will catch up to this desert squad – “After two years of getting more for less and making the playoffs for two consecutive seasons, the Phoenix Coyotes could find 11-12 to be the biggest challenge yet.” Oh, and my favorite quote comes from The Hockey News experts – “Goalie Ilya Bryzgalov made up for the Coyotes’ mild offense. Now he’s in Philly and the team he left behind will be much worse for it.” That will be a miss and another miss. Just like the Florida Panthers, the Coyotes manage to win a tough division title beating out the heavyweights like LA Kings, SJ Sharks, and Anaheim Ducks. The thousands (or hundreds :P) of fans in Phoenix could be heard unanimously yelling “suck it” and rightfully so.
THN – 14th NHL – 11th McKeen’s – 15th Actual – 3rd
PITTSBURGH PENGUINS
There were few question marks for this team heading into the regular season, none as important as “Will Sidney Crosby Play?” A rumor-filled summer told us that we might not see Sid play for a while. Malkin, the team’s second highest profile player, had his own knee issues that were under question as well. All of these doubts would not stop from most pundits declaring the Penguins to be the heavy favorites. Most experts even had them going to the Cup finals, again. McKeen’s picked James Neal as the player to watch and rightfully so as he finished with career high 40 goals and 81 points. NHL Yearbook had great concerns for the health of the teams stars and while The Hockey News guys said that “Penguins flying dangerously under the radar,” both magazines did not dare to assume the worst and ranked them to finish very high.
THN – 2nd NHL – 1St McKeen’s – 3rd Actual 4th
SAN JOSE SHARKS
“The stages that some teams must go through to become and remain an elite NHL club are interesting and unpredictable,” said NHL Yearbook. Interesting indeed. Ever since I can remember San Jose has always been good and in the playoffs, but has yet to claim the big boys’ trophy. Sharks were always the runner-up, but never the grand slam winner. With few changes in the offseason they turned some of the skeptics back into believers – “Havlat and Burns give the Sharks a different look. They’ll still dominate the west and wait for another shot to win an elusive Cup,” said THN. Everyone was back in love and “smelling blood”, but well we know it did not go as peachy as it all seemed. The Sharks struggled to win on the road going 17-17-7 and lost the division title to the Coyotes, who, I guess, ended up having a bigger bite.
THN – 2nd NHL – 4th McKeen’s – 4th Actual 7th
ST. LOUIS BLUES
While no one expected the Blues to be terrible, no one expected them to be that good, not even you…Blues fans. The 6 wins and 7 loses start to the season was enough to get Davis Payne fired and Ken Hitchcock hired. Whether it was Hitchcock (it was) or just the move in general, either way it sparked the team and the goalies to go on an incredible run. They doubled the wins total in that month alone and continued on to grab a Central Division title away from Chicago, Detroit, and the Predators. While most experts knew good things were coming for this club, no one expected them to come this quick and this good. The Hockey News said, “Adding veterans Arnott and Langenbrunner gives the Blues needed depth and experience. They’ve got speed to spare and will improve.” The NHL Yearbook said, “This might be the year for the St. Louis Blues,” while McKeen’s was singing a similar tune as well – “Look for St. Louis to be a possible bubble team to make the playoffs at worst – and make a possible leap up the standings.”
THN – 7th NHL – 9th McKeen’s – 7th Actual – 2nd
TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING
The Lightning were a bit of a shock in the playoffs in 2010-11 forcing a game seven with the eventual Stanley Cup winners – Boston Bruins. The jolt of energy stayed long with the experts and they expected lots of good for the “supposedly” better of the two Florida-based clubs. In an almost ironic fashion, THN said, “Some sneered to think Tampa Bay could be a playoff team last season, but nobody’s sneering anymore. The Lightning are for real.” Most of the experts praised the offensive talent the team could ice every night, but few warned of the doom to come in net. McKeen’s had a feeling, however – “Should be better in goal but Roloson’s health and age are the main potential worries.” Even with the highly defensive style Tampa Bay scored more goals than half the league, but they gave up the most too – by a lot. With a goals for / goals against differential of -46 it was too rough to sneak into the playoffs.
THN – 6th NHL – 5th McKeen’s – 6th Actual 10th
TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS
While the butt-end of jokes lately in the hockey community (well, for a few decades anyway), this franchise has a long and proud history. Right now, every Leaf fan would love to reach back into the glory days for a taste of some sweet, sweet playoff hockey. “…GM Brian Burke’s…steady drip of progression seen in recent months likely means that the Toronto Maple leafs can finally look forward to playing playoff hockey in the near future,” said NHL Yearbook. While that seems promising, not everyone agreed. The Hockey News gurus had a slightly different opinion – “Toronto’s bumpy rebuild has gotten it close to the playoffs without actually making it. Expect that pattern to continue this year.” McKeen’s was also not so optimistic – “A sophomore slump by Reimer and Toronto’s playoff drought probably hits a seventh season.” Truth be told, truth be told. While not everyone agreed that Reimer was the answer, everyone did agree that goaltending would be the – break it or make it – for the struggling original-six club.
THN – 10th NHL – 8th McKeen’s – 9th Actual – 13th
VANCOUVER CANUCKS
The Vancuver Conucks are starting to turn into the San Jose Sharks. Their President trophy collection builds, but the Stanley Cup rings are nowhere to be found. There is zero chance anyone would predict anything else but a division title and a playoff spot for this team. The trick here is to find out if they can win it all. “Killer instinct? Regular season is no issue. It’s the playoffs that worry.” A rather fitting quote from The Hockey News. NHL Yearbook asks a simple question, “What could have been?” That question probably ran through Canuck players’ minds all summer. Maybe a dip or a dive in the standings? Not really. The Canucks captured another Presidents Trophy and saw another playoff exit without the big hardware. McKeen’s was exact on one thing though – “Cody Hodgson: A prime trade commodity likely to be dealt at some point as he doesn’t seem a proper fit here.” So Cody did eventually get traded to the Buffalo Sabres for depth pieces that did squat to prevent an early exit against the LA Kings.
THN – 1st NHL – 1st McKeen’s – 2nd Actual 1st.
WASHINGTON CAPITALS
“There are times in the growth of a franchise when a team has almost everything required to be considered an outstanding hockey club: great talent, respected coach-management team, supportive ownership and an array of prospects coming through the system. And, in the case of the Capitals, the most explosive player in the world and a rejuvenated, rabid fan base,” opened NHL Yearbook. Ah, the dream team, right? The goaltending problem was solved with Vokoun, on what everyone thought to be a steal of the century. Healthy Mike Green was going to have a Mike Green year, and Semin should be good for 40 goals since it is his contract year. A highly motivated Ovechkin, and now you can even buy a sausage on a stick wrapped in a chocolate chip pancake. Not everything is as good as it looks on paper. It might have been the perfect storm, really, and most had them pegged to be a Cup favorite. McKeen’s expected better – “Making the postseason is basically a given at this point,” and The Hockey News picked the Capitals to win it all. “The old saying goes something like this: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Or, if you are George W. Bush, something like this: Fool me once, shame on…shame on you…you fool me, can’t get fooled again! This brings us, quite fittingly, to the Washington Capitals. Even though they’ve fooled us three times, we are picking them to win the Stanley Cup. Ice cream for everybody. You may call the regular season a struggle for the Capitals but they did show some good hockey in the playoffs. It will be very interesting what the experts have to say about the Capitals this year. NHL Yearbook gets the nod, barely.
THN – 1st NHL – 2nd McKeen’s – 1st Actual – 7th
WINNIPEG JETS
While it is good to see the Jets move back to Winnipeg, it would have been that much sweeter to have them make the playoffs. This of course did not happen and no one really expected this young team to do anyway. While the Jets did not perform as poorly as most experts thought, the playoffs are still a few seasons away. The Hockey News said, “The Jets will benefit from playing before an energized full house, but that wont be enough to make up for the serious roster holes.” The energy thing it must have been something because the Jets were abysmal on the road (14-22-5) and an elite playoff squad at home (23-13-5). Now if only Winnipeg could fly all of their fans to a few away games. Obviously the young talent is slowly churning into W’s, but what is more important is that the team is finding solid franchise pieces to build around. Evander Kane, Tobias Enstrom, Ron Hainsey, and Ondrej Pavelec all are solid players that can help create a solid core to build around. With additions of Dustin Byfuglien and Andrew Ladd for strong leadership, we could have had a possible playoff team. Although, few injuries and poor road record spoiled the playoff dreams, but did not stop from the MTS Centre from rocking every home game. Keep it up!
THN – 13th NHL – 13th McKeen’s – 14th actual – 11th
That’s that. We have looked at all 30 teams and all 30 predictions (Part One and Part Two). The results?
McKeen’s got one prediction dead on and almost crowned the Kings as Cup winners 9 months before the Kings won the cup. The other predictions were not as good, but they did have a few near misses. Overall, the magazine was closest on the final standings with 13 predictions that were the same or better than the other two magazines. McKeen’s quality goes well beyond their standings prediction though, which is only a small part of their magazine. Their scouting reports for the major players and prospects of every NHL team are excellent, and the magazine offers tons of insight on individual teams. The 3rd place finish might be a disappointment for the fans of the magazine, but we all know that the predictions game is a fickle one at best, and it really doesn’t reflect the quality of their work, which fellow writer Ben Kerr personally recommends as his favorite.
The Hockey News finishes with 16 predictions that were as good or better as the other two magazines. With two predictions that hit the nail on the head this magazine was batting above .500. If it was not for the few teams that had what appear to be completely unpredicatable collapses and the few that emerged as sweetheart surprises this magazine could have had 17 or even 19 predictions under its belt. The big prediction of Washington Capitals winning the cup did not come true, but the overall insight into the players and teams was great. The Hockey News remains one of my favorites.
The NHL Yearbook comes out as the most accurate yearbook from last year. With 17 predictions that were the same or better than the other two and having predicted two exact finishes. However the overall performance and quality of the magazine can’t be measured with numbers. The reviews offer a lot more than just the standings predictions, but these guys did a better job of seeding the teams and estimating their performance. The Official NHL Yearbook staff clearly did their homework well and as always with predictions got a bit of luck along the way as well. Overall an excellent job and I will be buying one again this year.
Overall these three magazines offer tons of insight and knowledge that we hockey fans crave. We need it and we buy it. By no means is this the be all and end all of which magazine is the best buy. The fact is that while they did not get all 30 teams predicted correctly, this would be impossible task due to how tough NHL seasons are, and how much parity there is in the league. Comparing their predictions was a fun exercise but it has little standing on the value of the magazines. Predictions are a fun game that we all play and these magazines offer so much more than that. We do hope that all of the magazines will attempt to do a better job next year, now that we are counting!
I am looking forward to making our own predictions for the upcoming season and hope to reflect on them next year.
Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter – @LastWordOnNHL, and feel free to leave your comments below.
Which magazine do you buy, and how much stock do you put into their prediction?
