Make your picks for the 2023 NHL prediction contest that’s so easy it’s almost impossible
It’s easy to look like a genius when you predict the NHL season. Just focus on the obvious, lay out everything that you know is going to happen, and feel confident in your unshakeable wisdom. And then — and this is the important part — don’t leave a public record anywhere, so nobody can look back in a few months and see how wrong you actually were.
That’s where this contest comes in. A few years ago, I got tired of everyone telling me how predictable the NHL was. Something would happen that I thought was unexpected, like the Vegas Golden Knights being good in Year 1, the San Jose Sharks collapsing, or Barry Trotz getting the Islanders into the playoffs. I’d express my surprise, and I’d inevitably hear from all sorts of fans who’d scoff. It was obvious all along, they’d tell me. And everyone with half a brain knew it.
OK, I finally said, prove it. And after a little bit of tinkering, my annual prediction contest was born. The premise was simple: Since the league is so easy to predict, I’d ask you some of the most basic questions imaginable. Nothing fancy or especially complicated. Just which teams would be good or bad, which coaches and GMs were on safe ground, and which players would be the stars of the season. If the prediction business was as easy as everyone said, you guys would crush it.
Gentle readers, you have not crushed it.
In three years, the contest has grown from 800 entries to 1,600 to last year’s 2,100. And nobody has come close to an especially great score. Only a small handful have even managed a passing grade. You can check in on last year’s results here, when it turned out that you didn’t believe in the Kraken, you did believe in Darryl Sutter, and literally nobody thought old man Erik Karlsson was a Norris candidate. Like I said, not so simple … at least when someone is keeping track.
This year, we’ve got all the old classic questions returning, plus a brand new one that shines a spotlight on the middle of the pack. And yes, the dreaded bonus question is back too. As always, the winner gets a signed copy of my book, plus the (infinitely more valuable) bragging rights that you actually called your shots.
Good luck. History says you’re going to need it.
How it works
Please read these rules carefully, even if you’re a contest veteran.
• The contest features 10 questions plus an all-or-nothing bonus. For each of the 10 regular questions, you can give at least one answer and as many as five.
• For each of the regular questions, you can earn one point for the correct answer, two points for the second correct answer (for a total of three) and so on, all the way up to a maximum of 15 points if you run the table with five correct answers.
• HOWEVER, one wrong answer gives you a zero for the entire question. Going 1-for-1 and getting one point is better than 4-for-5 and zero, so just how confident do you want to be?
• The bonus question is optional, and you can leave it blank. If you choose to answer, you’ll give one and only one response, and earn 15 bonus points if you’re right. But if you’re wrong, you’ll receive a zero for your entire entry. Not just that question — your whole entry is wiped out. Like we said, all or nothing.
• The winner is the entry that racks up the most total points. Note that this doesn’t necessarily mean you have to get points on every answer; you can have a “perfect” entry that has no wrong answers but doesn’t rack up enough points. Note that every year of the contest has been won by entries that took at least a few zeroes.
• Please read and follow the formatting rules at the bottom; any entry that doesn’t may be disqualified. It takes a lot of work to scrape all the information and store it, and if you make life difficult then we reserve the right to just skip over your entry.
• New for this year: We’re counting invalid answers as wrong instead of just skipping them. This will no doubt affect the coach and GM questions, where even after three years people will still not pay attention to the date cutoffs. You’ve been warned.
• The deadline for entry is 5:30 p.m. ET on Oct. 10.
The questions
1. Name up to five teams that will make the playoffs.
2. Name up to five teams that will not make the playoffs.
3. Name up to five teams that will finish in the middle 16 of the regular-season standings (i.e. between 9th and 24th).
4. Name up to five coaches who will not be fired or otherwise leave their job before July 1, 2024, NOT including any coach who has held their current job for less than one year.
5. Name up to five GMs who will not be fired or otherwise leave their job before July 1, 2024, NOT including any GM who has held their current job for less than two years.
6. Name up to five goaltenders who will start at least 50 games this season.
7. Name up to five rookies who will finish in the top 10 of Calder balloting.
8. Name up to five defensemen who will finish in the top 10 of Norris balloting.
9. Name up to five players who will finish in the top 15 of Hart Trophy voting.
10. Name up to five players who are currently on an NHL roster who will change teams between puck drop on opening night and the end of the first day of 2024 free agency. This means they must be on a new roster via trade, free agency, waivers or whatever else, but does not include retirement, leaving the league entirely, or being an unsigned free agent.
Optional bonus question:
11. For 15 bonus points, name one and only one player who will finish this season with at least 100 points, and who is not an Edmonton Oiler. Remember, you don’t have to answer the bonus if you don’t want to, and a wrong answer wipes out your entire entry.
How to enter
Please read this section before you enter the contest. If you don’t follow these rules, your entry may be excluded from the collected data.
• Enter by listing your answers in the comment section below.
• DO NOT cut and paste the questions into your entry. Just list your answers.
• DO NOT list every name in your entry on a new line. One line per question please.
• Important: Please be aware of cases where people have the same or similar last names. There are two GMs with the last name Armstrong, multiple good players with names like Hughes and Tkachuk, etc. We’ll do our best to figure out who you mean in obvious cases — if you list Elias Pettersson for the Hart question, we’ll assume you mean the high-scoring forward and not the blue-line prospect — but if we’re not sure, you take a zero for that answer.
• Please double-check that you have the right answers for the right question number. (You’d be amazed at how many people screw this up and end up listing Connor McDavid as a Norris candidate or swap the coaches and GMs.)
• Finally, this isn’t a rule, but a suggestion: Write down your answers somewhere, because this comment section will get big and it might be hard to find your entry if you come back in a few months wondering how you did.
That’s it. Ten easy questions, give or take a bonus that you may or may not have the nerve for. You’re going to know all the right answers were obvious in a few months, but how many do you know right now? The comments are open, so let’s see what you’ve got.
