The 1997-98 Predictions

There was another move in the summer of 1997, following in the footsteps of the Quebec Nordiques moving to Denver in the summer of 1995 and the Winnipeg Jets moving to Phoenix in the summer of 1996. That summer would see the third WHA franchise leave the comforts of the city where it was founded as the Hartford Whalers packed up their things and headed south to North Carolina where they'd called Greensboro home while their new arena was being finished in Raleigh. The Carolina Hurricanes were founded that season, and it would be the last season of moves before sweeping expansion took over the NHL. The Hockey News Yearbook that year didn't have a lot of coverage on the Whalers' move south, but the writers also went in a different direction entirely in ther predictions as well.

As you can see from the cover above, we have another Maple Leafs player on the front. Mats Sundin graced the cover for the 1997-98 Yearbook, following the covers that featured Felix Potvin and Wendel Clark, respectively. I'm not sure why THN continued to force-feed the Maple Leafs in the central Canadian region, but we got another Maple Leaf nonetheless.

As we saw yesterday, the final total in terms of accuracy of The Hockey News' predictions for the 1996-97 season jumped up to 18% from the 13% accuracy they had in 1995-96. I'll repeat this once more, but predicting standings is hard to do, so the accuracy levels will likely be low since any number of factors can contribute to teams moving up or down in the standings as the season plays out. That being said, we'll see if The Hockey News can improve upon its numbers from yesterday.

I'm generally against the idea of putting all of one's eggs in one's basket, but The Hockey News decided that they were going to go for broke this season as they eliminated all the predictions except for one. Well, make that two because they said one other thing that can be used as a prediction as well. Here's the page where they make their two claims.

You can click on the image to make it larger for better reading.

PREDICTIONS

According to The Hockey News, the Stanley Cup won't be back in Detroit and the Colorado Avalanche will be standing atop the NHL mountain. These are the only two predictions made, so let's go through these all-or-nothing scenarios.

• DETROIT WILL NOT REPEAT. Except they did, sweeping the Washington Capitals in four games in the Stanley Cup Final.
• COLORADO WILL WIN THE STANLEY CUP. They didn't since the Red Wings won. To rub a little salt in the wound, the Colorado Avalanche would lose in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs that year as the second-seeded team in the Western Conference, falling in seven games to the seventh-seeded Edmonton Oilers that included a stunning Game Seven 4-0 loss on home ice for Colorado.

Based on these two results, The Hockey News went 0/2 in this year's predictions, leaving them with an accuracy of 0.0% in their preseason prognostications.

If you're keeping score at home, that's three-straight years where The Hockey News has failed to correctly predict the Stanley Cup champion at the end of the season. They've been close, having predicted one of the two teams to be in the final correctly, but if you're laying down money in Vegas based on their predictions, "close" doesn't get you a cut of the winnings.

Obviously, this year's predictions were a little different than the previous two year's prediction scenarios, but we'll keep that running total of Stanley Cup champions rolling as we push through the coming seasons. With new teams being added annually in the next few years, we'll see how things stack up in their views as we continue to examine the preseason predictions made by The Hockey News with respect to how the actual season played out.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!