The 1999-2000 Predictions

As we entered the new millenium in the NHL, the league got a little bigger as it moved from 27 teams to 28 teams, and there was some definite movement in the divisions as the NHL had been re-aligned into six divisions. Joining the fray in the 1999-2000 season were the Atlanta Thrashers as the NHL went back to Atlanta for the first time since the Flames moved to Calgary, and we saw the Toronto Maple Leafs move to the Eastern Conference as the NHL tried to put teams in similar regions together. The result was a 15-team Eastern Conference and a 13-team Western Conference for the 1999-2000 NHL season as we began the new millenium of hockey with all sorts of misalignment. It should also be noted that this is the first season that some guy named Gretzky wasn't in the league since the four WHA clubs were absorbed by the NHL.

The Hockey News went back to their true self in this year's edition by plastering the front cover with another Maple Leafs player. Curtis Joseph, who had been heroic in his time with the Oilers, gets the cover with a smaller image of Alexei Yashin tacked on... as if there wasn't already more than enough southern Ontario on the cover for the prairie region. Last season's cover of Doug Weight has been the only one where there wasn't a Maple Leafs player on the front since 1995-96, so apparently we're back to "go Leafs" as our mantra out here as per THN.

For the first time since the 1996-97 Yearbook, The Hockey News published their predicted standings! The first two attempts saw the overall accuracy of the predictions made by TSN affected heavily by their standings predictions, so we'll bring that back as we analyze the standings predictions they made in the 1999-2000 Yearbook once more. Predicting standings is, of course, hard to do, so the accuracy levels will likely be low once again since any number of factors can contribute to teams moving up or down in the standings as the season plays out. We'll see if they're better than the 23% in '95-96 or the nearly 32% in '96-97!

Here are the standings predictions as per The Hockey News.

As you can see, the division winners get top seedings, so we'll adjust our points availability to reflect those predictions as well.

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. There will also be one-point added for correctly predicting the division winners since that's part of the prediction. That's a potential total of 15 points for the standings, 8 points for the playoff teams, and three more for divisional winners for a total of 26 points per conference in this section.

The final Eastern Conference standings in 2000 in the NHL are listed first with The Hockey News' predicted team to finish in that same spot listed second.

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

As you can see, they were all over the map in these standings predictions, but they got Tampa Bay exactly right in the East this year at 14th-place. That's one point for the standings prediction. The prediction for playoff teams saw them predict five of the eight teams correctly in making the playoffs. That's 2.5 points (5 x 0.5) for those predictions. They went 0/3 in the division winners for no added points there, bringing the final total for their Eastern Conference standings predictions comes in at 3.5/26 points.

The Western Conference follows the same listing and scoring.

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

THN had two of the teams right in their predicted standings for a total of 2 points as Calgary and Nashville both finished where they predicted. They correctly had seven of the eight playoff teams making the cut, giving them another 3.5 points (7 x 0.5). And they correctly predicted two of three division winners to add another 2 points to the score for a final total of 7.5/24 possible points in the Western Conference.

STANLEY CUP WINNER

Running on an oh-fer-four streak in correctly predicting Stanley Cup champions, The Hockey News turned to Mike Brophy for his thoughts on the matter after Mark Brender's miss last season.

According per Mike Brophy, representing all of the The Hockey News, the Stanley Cup will head back to Detroit, so let's verify this all-or-nothing prediction once again.

• DETROIT RED WINGS WILL WIN THE STANLEY CUP. Except they didn't as the New Jersey Devils beat the Dallas Stars in the Stanley Cup Final in six games. In fact, Detroit didn't even make the conference final, losing to the Colorado Avalanche in five games in the second round of the playoffs. While all the games were close, the only game Detroit managed to win was Game Three on home ice by a 3-1 score. Peter Forsberg scored a goal in every game except Game Four, and Patrick Roy outduelled Chris Osgood in the net as Colorado eliminated the Detroit Red Wings in the second round for the second-straight year.

Brophy's words in his write-up seemed to contain the same lack of recognition that Brender's did the year before when talking about teams who, on paper, were better than the Red Wings. Brophy writes, "With all due respect to the defending Stanley Cup-champion Dallas Stars and the Avalanche - both of which graded ahead of Detroiton our THN Report Cards - no team has both the hunger to redeem itself and wherewithal to see it through as do the Red Wings."

This was the exact same trap Brender fell into one year earlier when he picked a Detroit team that was graded lower than Dallas by THN's grades - Dallas was the only team graded higher that Detroit last year - and watched as the Dallas Stars captured their first Stanley Cup. This year, Colorado eliminated Detroit only to have Dallas eliminate Colorado in the conference final as the Western Conference triumverate of Dallas, Colorado, and Detroit were ranked 1-2-3, respectively, in terms of overall NHL grades.

The final tally on this season is 11 out of 51 possible points, meaning The Hockey News was 21.6% correct in its predictions. This is the lowest score of all three seasons where standings predictions have been included, and The Hockey News is now 0-for-5 in its Stanley Cup champion predictions. It might be time to rethink your strategy if you're using THN's predictions to make bets in Las Vegas, but we still have lots of years where improvements can be made.

You may have noticed that I updated the scores from 1995-96 and 1996-97 throughout this article. I actually found a math error, and I needed to correct those errors for accuracy. I had assigned the wrong point total to each conference's scoring. I was actually dividing by the total number of points available as opposed to each total available in the respective conferences. Those updated scores from those years now reflect the correct total points for each conference's standings.

We'll see how future seasons play out with these predictions and if THN can continue improve upon their scores year after year as we move forward chronologically!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!