In case you didn’t hear, the SBNation NHL Preview went live today. Okay, see you in a few hours. Alternatively, you can see the Sharks page if cutting to the chase is more your style.
Let’s talk about predictions. The Fear the Fin staff hasn’t made its season predictions yet (we’ll have them out early next week), but as part of the preview package a collection of SBNation writers and editors made there. I’m more interested in the aggregate than the individual picks, so let’s see who they picked as a staff.
I gave each team nine points for a first place pick, eight for second and so on and then sorted the teams by points. Pretty simple. I did not count the cfbot’s picks, since those were just for fun and chosen randomly by a literal robot.
| Ducks | 89 |
| Kings | 66 |
| Flames | 66 |
| Sharks | 63 |
| Oilers | 47 |
| Canucks | 38 |
| Coyotes | 28 |
The biggest surprise here, to me anyway, is how high the Flames are ranked. Calgary posted 97 points last season, but I would be extremely surprised if they did it again. Adam Gretz summed up the Flames best on the ole Twitter machine.
@jakesundstrom Don’t think they’re a 97-point team again but I also don’t think they’re going to be Avalanche 2.0. Somewhere in the middle?
— Adam Gretz (@AGretz) October 1, 2015
Right. I don’t think Calgary is falling to the Pacific basement, but I also certainly don’t think they’re better than the Kings (or the Sharks for that matter).
The Coyotes will be awful this year, so seeing them in the cellar is no surprise, neither is seeing the McOilers get some love in these picks. The three automatic playoff spots will almost certainly come down to the Ducks-Kings-Sharks-Flames, but I think it’ll be the Sharks and Flames fighting for that third spot this year.
What do you think of the predictions? Or our portion of the preview section?
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