Two years ago, I introduced what I thought would be a fun prediction contest with a simple concept: I ask you some easy questions about the upcoming season, you give me the easy answers, and then we sit back and realize that the prediction business is ‘t all that easy after all. It ended up being a lot of fun, with roughly 800 entries and a close race down to the wire.
Last year, we doubled up to nearly 1,600 entries, added a new all-or-nothing bonus question, and saw even more chaos thanks to curveballs from Joe Sakic, Joel Quenneville, Barry Trotz and an injured Nathan MacKinnon, among others. Many of you followed the results all season long. Many more were basically eliminated by November.
It goes without saying that we’re doing this again this year, with essentially the same set of rules, plus a new question and a tweak to the bonus. As always, read the rules carefully and please Follow the formatting guidelines. Good luck, and remember, this should be easy because the NHL is super predictable.
The rules
No huge changes this year but please read the rules carefully, even if you’re a contest veteran.
- This year features 10 questions, plus the return of the all-or-nothing bonus. For each of the 10 regular questions, you can give at least one answer, as many as five, or anything in between.
- For each of those regular questions, you earn one point for your first right answer, two points for the second (for a total of three), all the way up to a maximum of 15 points if you run the table with five correct answers.
- But, and this is the key, even one wrong answer gives you a zero for the entire question. Going one-for-one is better than four-for-five, 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 yours entire entry. Not just that question — your entire entry is wiped out.
- 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; it’s possible to have a “perfect” entry that has no wrong answers but doesn’t rack up enough points. (Both years of the contest have been won by entrants that took some zeroes.)
- First prize is a signed copy of my book. Second prize is smarten up and do better next year.
- The deadline for entires is 7:00 pm ET on Tuesday, October 11. That’s before 30 teams start their season, but it does give the Predators and Sharks a head start for their weekend double-header in Prague. Use that information however you’d like.
The results for the easy prediction contest are in. There were 1,600 entries. Only *one* managed to score better than 50% correct. Was it you? (No, your entry was terrible.)https://t.co/2Db3vHP0oL pic.twitter.com/vwWjbfpk7s
— Down Goes Brown (@DownGoesBrown) July 20, 2022
The questions
These are largely the same as last year, with a new one slipped in to keep things fresh. If you’re new at this, please pay attention to dates; there’s a limit on using new coaches and GMs, and some of the questions stretch to the first day of free agency, ie into the offseason.
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 coaches that will not be fired or otherwise leave their job before the first day of 2023 free agency, NOT including any coach who was hired to their current job after October 1, 2021.
4. Name up to five GMs that will not be fired or otherwise leave their job before the first day of 2023 free agency, NOT including any GM who was hired to their current job after October 1, 2020.
5. Name up to five goaltenders who will start at least 60 percent of their team’s regular-season games.
6. Name up to five rookies who will finish in the top 10 of Calder balloting.
7. Name up to five defensemen who will finish in the top 10 of Norris voting.
8. Name up to five players who will finish in the top 15 of Hart Trophy voting.
9. Name up to five players, not counting goalies, who will play at least 40 games and go the entire season without receiving a major, match, misconduct or game misconduct penalty.
10. Name up to five players who are currently on an NHL roster that will change teams between the cutoff for entries (October 11 at 7:00 pm ET) and the end of the first day of 2023 free agency. (This means they must be on a new roster, via trade, free agency, waivers or whatever else, but does not include retirement or leaving the league entirely, or being an unsigned free agent.)
Optional bonus question: 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. Sorry, Leon. 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.
- 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. Use one numbered line per question, with each name separated by a comma. So for the first question, you could have “1. Smith, Jones, Wilson” and then a new line for question 2 and so on.
- You don’t need to include first names, but please be aware of cases where people have the same or similar last names. For example, there are two GMs with the last name Armstrong, more than one good player named Hughes, a difference between goalies named Anderson/Andersen, etc. If your entry is ambiguous, that’s on you.
Important: If you don’t follow these rules, or you decide to get creative, or you include a bunch of weird asides in your entry for some reason, we reserve the right to just skip you entirely. It can take an enormous amount of time to gather and sort through all the entries, please don’t be the person who makes us spend as much time on parsing yours as we do on 200 others combined. If your entry doesn’t get counted because you didn’t read this section, it’s your fault and not mine.
That’s it. Ten questions, maybe eleven if you’re feeling fiesty, all of them simple. How hard could it be? Let’s find out, because the comments are open and it’s time to show everyone how smart you are.
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