The 2008-09 Predictions

If this season's predictions go anything like last season's predictions, The Hockey News might want to close down the predictions portion of their magazine like they have in a few issues in the past. Hitting on less than 15% accurate has to be embarrassing, so we'll see how the 2008-09 Yearbook fared with the predictions. For the first time since before the lockout, all 30 NHL teams will play one another. Four teams started their seasons in Europe this year, and Chicago and Detroit would meet outdoors at Wrigley Field in the 2009 Winter Classic. The Montreal Canadiens celebrated their 100th anniversary season while the Columbus Blue Jackets would make the playoffs for the first time in their history! Clearly, lots of interesting stuff happened this season, so let's see how interesting the predictions made by The Hockey News were for the 2008-09 season!

Apparently, the only team that exists on the prairies is the Edmonton Oilers as Ales Hemsky makes the cover following Sheldon Souray the year before. While THN forcefed the Maple Leafs on the prairie region for a number of years, it seems the Oilers are now the team of choice to make the cover despite there being a handful of other Canadian teams who have yet to grace a cover more than twice in this region. Honestly, I'm starting to get sick of seeing the Oilers on the cover.

The Hockey News continues its standings predictions this year, so we'll go through these predictions as we have before. After a brutal 14.8% accuracy on their predictions one year earlier, they can't possibly do worse, can they?

Here are the standings predictions as per The Hockey News.

Click on the picture if you'd like to view it at a larger size.

STANDINGS

I'll award one point for every team correctly predicted as to their final conference standing. I'll also award one point for every correctly-predicted playoff team in the right standing, and 0.5 points for a playoff team not in the correct standings spot. I'll continue to award up to three points for the division winners as well. That's a potential total of 15 points for the standings, another 3 points for divisions winners, and 8 points for the playoff teams for a total of 26 points per conference in this section.

The final Eastern Conference standings in 2009 in the NHL are listed first with The Hockey News' predicted team to finish in that same spot listed second.

1. Boston (NHL) vs. Montreal (THN)
2. Washington vs. Pittsburgh
3. New Jersey vs. Washington
4. Pittsburgh vs. Philadelphia
5. Philadelphia vs. Ottawa
6. Carolina vs. New York Rangers
7. New York Rangers vs. New Jersey
8. Montreal vs. Carolina
9. Florida vs. Tampa Bay
10. Buffalo vs. Boston
11. Ottawa vs. Buffalo
12. Toronto vs. Florida
13. Atlanta vs. Atlanta
14. Tampa Bay vs. Toronto
15. New York Islanders vs. New York Islanders

THN figured out the playoff teams, but couldn't get them in order. They had two teams - Atlanta and the Islanders - finishing in the right spot in the standings for 2 points. They scored Washington as a division winner for a 1/3 score. They didn't have any of the seeded playoff teams in the right spot, but they did have seven of the eight teams correctly making the playoffs for 3.5 additional points (7 x 0.5). All totaled, The Hockey News scored 6.5/26 points for the Eastern Conference.

The Western Conference follows the same listing and scoring for 26 possible points.

1. San Jose (NHL) vs. Detroit (THN)
2. Detroit vs. San Jose
3. Vancouver vs. Minnesota
4. Chicago vs. Dallas
5. Calgary vs. Anaheim
6. St. Louis vs. Edmonton
7. Columbus vs. Chicago
8. Anaheim vs. Calgary
9. Minnesota vs. Nashville
10. Nashville vs. Phoenix
11. Edmonton vs. Vancouver
12. Dallas vs. Columbus
13. Phoenix vs. Los Angeles
14. Los Angeles vs. Colorado
15. Colorado vs. St. Louis

The Western Conference did little to help THN. They scored zero points for not having any team in the right spot. They had two of the three divison winners right in Detroit and San Jose for 2/3 points there. They also added 2.5 points for having five of the eight teams making the playoffs. The final total for the Western Conference was 4.5/26 in 2009.

STANLEY CUP WINNER

The Hockey News is back with a Stanley Cup champion guess, so let's verify this prediction made by Mike Brophy as the lead man for the magazine.

• DETROIT RED WINGS WILL WIN THE STANLEY CUP. Except they didn't as the 2009 Pittsburgh Penguins needed seven games to beat Detroit to win the Stanley Cup. Because this is an all-or-nothing call, THN gets nothing for Detroit making the big dance and going home empty-handed. There's no silver medal in the NHL, and there won't be any handed out here despite being oh-so-close to being right.

THN scored 0/1 in this prediction, but at least their Stanley Cup pick wasn't eliminated in the first round this year.

The Hockey News might want to start sticking with news and doing less predictions afte this season's score of 11 out of 53 possible points for a marginally-better 20.8% accuracy. With their record getting worse and worse on Stanley Cup champion predictions, your guess is as accurate as their is at this point. In fact, it might be better considering how far they've been off in some guesses.

We'll see how future seasons play out with these predictions and if THN can continue improve next season as we move forward chronologically!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!