Making predictions in any sport is a challenge–otherwise by now we’d all have bled the Vegas sports books dry and be jetting across North America to attend NHL playoff games. Oh, and I’d purchase a home in St. Lucia for the off-season (got to keep Mrs. OC happy).
We’ve discussed the frequent futility of preseason predictions before; yet, as you’ll see below, some more recent entries are similarly apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate. Yet, whether by stroke of luck or true insight, a few Nostradamuses (Nostramii?) hit the mark well enough to think that maybe, just maybe, there’s more to the prognostication game than a bits-and-bytes version of pin the tail on the donkey.
So now, a look back at Capitals-related predictions worthy of praise, as well as those that the authors wish were forgotten.
USA Today’s preseason NHL predictions were predictably awful. Nine of their panel of 10 “experts” awarded the Hart Trophy to Sidney Crosby; the lone trend-bucker picked Roberto Luongo. 10 of 10 were wrong on the Points Leader guess: 7 for Crosby, 3 for Joe Thornton.
None chose Washington to win the Southeast. Granted, the four Carolina picks were reasonable — after all, it was pretty darned close to correct — but not one of the analysts thought the Caps had it in them? Three supposed experts chose Atlanta, two Tampa, and one Florida. All wrong.
Lest we dwell too much on the negative, the Caps were dark-horse favorites for some. The Hockey News’ Adam Proteau was impressively prophetic, picking the Caps as his “worst-to-first division champ.” Proteau’s crystal ball was particularly translucent when he wrote:
Now, coach Glen Hanlon may not survive the season if Washington stumbles out of the gate as it tries to make all the new faces (including potential Calder Trophy candidate Nicklas Backstrom) fit in. Call it a hunch, but I bet they’ll jell into one of the league’s swiftest, most offensively dangerous teams . . . and drop many a jaw in the process.
John Buccigross of ESPN is now firmly aboard the Ovechkin bandwagon. Yet his preseason thoughts, as well as his revised predictions in January, showed little faith in the Capitals, predicting a 14th-place finish in both lists. “Eighty points should be the Capitals’ goal; they had 70 last season and at least they could go into next season knowing they improved.”
Terri Frei, also of ESPN, picked Sidney Crosby, Jaromir Jagr, and Eric Staal as his top three Eastern contenders for the Hart Trophy. Continuing with ESPN analysts but on the plus side of the ledger, Scott Burnside said on September 30, “The Capitals will finish third in the Southeast Division and eighth in the Eastern Conference.” Nice call, Scott.
I hesitate to bring up Hockeybuzz.com, the “entertainment” Web site, since Eklund and company constantly make wild predictions of all kinds with little regard for accountability (unless they get one right, of course). But it is worth noting that, in March, Eklund’s Eastern Conference predictions were still way off. He even used the old trick of making über-exact predictions to imply importance–which, by the way, apparently works when setting the sale price of your home as well.
Yet not one of Eklund’s predicted playoff ranks were correct, despite making the selections with only a month left in the season.
1. NEW JERSEY….108 2. MONTREAL…….107 3. CAROLINA……..101 4. PITTSBURGH….105 5. OTTAWA………..101 (46 WINS) 6. NY RANGERS….101 (43 WINS) 7. BOSTON…………94 8. PHILADELPHIA…88 9. FLORIDA…………85 10. WASHINGTON…84 11. BUFFALO………..83 12. TORONTO……….74 13. NY ISLANDERS..73 14. ATLANTA………..72 15.TAMPA BAY………62
Finally, we end with Sports Illustrated’s Allan Muir, who managed to be dead wrong and absolutely right in sequential paragraphs:
The player who’ll generate more highlight reel moments than anyone not named Crosby: Vincent Lecavalier (Lightning)
Look for the reigning Rocket Richard Trophy-winner to not only improve on last season’s totals — 55 goals sounds about right — but lead the league in those oh-so-close moments that force first-star performances out of opposing goaltenders.
Um . . . no. Lecavalier had a good year, but Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin surpassed not only Lecavalier but Crosby as well, to the surprise of no one who’d actually watched them play.
Might want to keep a bag packed: Cristobal Huet (Canadiens)
The Habs are young and very promising, but this season will be about building towards that promise, not delivering on it. With Carey Price and Jaroslav Halak set to man the pipes for the next decade, Huet is a luxury with which the Habs can afford to part. His veteran services are likely to be in high demand after Christmas, at which point GM Bob Gainey can cash him in for a few more pieces of the puzzle.
Right on the money about Huet — except GM George McPhee took Gainey to the cleaners, so the return for Huet was less of a puzzle piece and more of an afterthought. And the #1 seed Canadiens may have something to say about “building . . . not delivering” on their promise this year.
12 Comments
Well Well Well The Caps have finally made the PLAYOFFS after all these years.
Well starting off IF and thats a IF they make it past the FTRST round lets hope they DON,T END UP PLAYING CROSBYS TEAM !!!
Then they will all be PLAYING GOLF SOONER THAN THEY THINK !!
I hope they do good in the first few rounds they deserve it after all these years.
Eklund?!
FEFHIHSA.
Has there been any discussion about Don Cherry’s take on GMGM considering BB an interim coach until he could find a permanent one? I think he (Cherry) felt BB was overlooked for years as an NHL-caliber coach, and GMGM only made him the permanent when the Caps started winning again.
Despite the fact that it’s only common sense to keep the coach that’s winning, I’m inclined to agree with Cherry that, initially, GMGM was flipping a coin with BB and had every intention to hire a seasoned NHL head coach. I’m curious to know to what degree GMGM was surprised at how well BB took to coaching the Caps.
If Sid had not been injured, there would certainly have been a different turn of events. Injuries are something that can never be predicted and changes the course of anyone’s chances. Ovie should count himself lucky that he only sustained tooth loss this year and not a high ankle sprain…
Mike, I think as OC pointed out, everyone thought the Caps would be playing golf now. This is all gravy from now on.
Rucki, you know that ESPN couldn’t get Hockey predictions correct. Hell they don’t even cover it do they? I can’t find it past the steroid, spygate,and player arrests “news” from the other sports.
I agree with HotDog. BB was a fill-in coach. GMGM had to fire Hanlon, and probably had nobody else lined up, so BB made logical sense. Im guessing that the thought was that the season was shot, so let BB coach it out and see how he does. If they improve, maybe you bring him back. If they stink, then you find a new coach in the summer.
Thankfully, it worked out better than anybody expected. While ALL coaches/managers are hired to be fired, I hope the Caps brass signs BB to a long-term deal in the summer. You know other teams would love to get their hands on him.
@ HotDog:
Interesting point . . . and GMGM’s initial assessment of Boudreau could itself be considered a prediction for the purposes of this post as well.
I think the Interim tag was a reasonable trial period indicator, and a way to hedge against another Butch Cassidy debacle. Giving BB his shot in the bigs, and the chance to earn the Head Coach (sans Interim) title, seems pretty similar to most real-world jobs.
So one could say GMGM was cautiously predicting success for BB (otherwise why offer the job in the first place) but that BB’s performance likely exceeded expectations.
@ pens:
Absolutely, injuries are unpredictable. Ovie sustained injuries like a broken nose, multiple stitches, and a dental rearrangement that, while painful, didn’t keep him off the ice — and for that Caps fans are grateful (knock wood).
All teams are fighting injuries of varying degrees this time of year. I’d posit that if the Caps hadn’t played most of the year without captain Chris Clark, #1 center Michael Nylander, and top defenseman Brian Pothier, they wouldn’t have had to fight down to the wire for their playoff spot. But that’s just a guess; the important thing is they’re in now, and it should be a helluva ride.
It’s always amazing how other fans from other sites want to show just how jealous they are of OVie…The first round is going to be tough but I for one hope we can get to Crosby….We want crosby..we want crosby…I cant wait to make hi cry!!! Go CAPS
Given their track record vs. Maggie the Monkey, I don’t like this one bit.
“McKenzie, Milbury, Pang and Duthie all chose Alex Ovechkin and the Capitals to move on to the second round. Only Maggie chose the Flyers to come out on top.”
http://tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=233782&lid=headline&lpos=topStory_nhl
OK those Hart trophy predictions weren’t that far off. Take away Crosby’s injuries and him and Ovechkin are exactly tied for points this year. (.01 difference in PPG.)
So who knows what would of been if Crosby didn’t go down. I wouldn’t call it a BAD prediction.
@ james:
Sure, Crosby was a likely Hart candidate pre-season . . . the problem was that 9/10 of the experts (or should I say lemmings) fell victim to group-think.
Everyone picking Crosby smacks of laziness, and frankly it’s embarrassing that not a single expert thought Ovechkin (or Malkin, or Iginla) could possibly surpass The Next One. Crosby’s really good, but c’mon folks: do your jobs and analyze the possibilities (including injuries), and maybe *gasp* make a pick based on more than perceived perfection.
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