When 2,100 NHL fans try to predict the future, what can we learn?

Every year, right before the season starts, I run a prediction contest. There’s a list of simple questions, and you give me your easy answers, and at the end we realize that we’re all dumb. It’s fun, and this year there were 2,109 entries.

This post isn’t about the actual contest. It’s too soon to know much about how that will play out, and we’ll have plenty of time to check in on how everyone is doing down the road. But it occurred to me that I’ve got something interesting here: A detailed survey of hockey fans with a pretty decent sample size, all pointing to what we actually think is going to happen this year.

That’s the thing about the way the contest works — because the penalty for being wrong is so severe, it doesn’t have the same incentives that most predictions do. There are no bonus points for going off the board, or for being the only one to make a certain pick. You just want to be right.

In other words, you have to be honest, instead of doing what we normally all do at this time of year, which is troll for longshots and underdogs in hope of lucking into something impressive. If you think a team like the Red Wings or Senators has a slim chance to make the playoffs, you might include them in your preseason picks because you know you’ll look smarter than everyone else if they come through. But in the contest, there’s no way you’re putting your entry on the line for a team like that.

Or would you? Let’s find out, by digging into this year’s entries and seeing just how confident everyone was on questions like who would or wouldn’t make the playoffs, which coaches and GMs are safe, and which star players will live up to high expectations.

With the NHL season on the horizon, @DownGoesBrown has a prediction contest.

It so easy, it’s almost impossible not to weigh in ⤵️https://t.co/KwRvaWfx0p

— The Athletic NHL (@TheAthleticNHL) October 4, 2022

The playoff teams

The first two questions in the contest asked you to name up to five teams that would make the playoffs, and up to five more that wouldn’t. As a reminder, you get more points for each right answer, but even one wrong answer means you get a zero for the entire question, so the emphasis is on finding the easy points.

So who would that be? The most common answer among the playoff teams was Colorado, who appeared on almost every valid entry — 2,071 times in all. No big shocker there, as the reigning Cup champs and preseason favorites feel like a lock in the Central.

The next three teams weren’t a big surprise either — Carolina, Toronto and Tampa — but the gap between them and the Avalanche isn’t small with all three being in the 1,500 to 1,600 range. That’s still a solid show of support, but it seems to indicate that when it comes to absolute locks, you guys have the Avs as the only clear no-brainer.

Calgary and Edmonton finished in a dead heat, with the Flames appearing 973 times and the Oilers 971, meaning both teams made it onto…