2021 NHL Season Prediction Thread

[StiffStick33 185]

Leafs fans just stroking themselves watching their star prospect in playing the other day. Would love to see Hogs up against Robertson at some point. Both with 1st round talent, somehow end up getting picked up in the 2nd

[Cocolocci 165]

Canadian Divison

Playoffs:
#1 Toronto Maple Leafs vs. #4 Winnipeg Jets (Leafs in 6)
#2 Vancouver Canucks vs. #3 Calgary Flames (Canucks in 6)
Round 2:
#1 Toronto Maple Leafs vs. #2 Vancouver Canucks (Canucks in 7)

West Division

Playoffs:
#1 Colorado Avalanche vs. #4 Minnesota Wild (Avalanche in 5)
#2 St. Louis Blues vs. #3 Vegas Golden Knights (Golden Knights in 7)
Round 2:
#1 Colorado Avalanche vs. #3 Vegas Golden Knights (Avalanche in 6)

Central Divison

Playoffs:
#1 Carolina Hurricanes vs. #4 Dallas Stars (Hurricanes in 6)
#2 Tampa Bay Lightning vs. #3 Columbus Blue Jackets (Lightning in 6)
Round 2:
#1 Carolina Hurricanes vs. #2 Tampa Bay Lightning (Lightning in 7)

East Division
Playoffs:
#1 Philadelphia Flyers vs. #4 Boston Bruins (Flyers in 6)
#2 Washington Capitals vs. #3 New York Islanders (Capitals in 6)
Round 2:
#1 Philadelphia Flyers vs. #2 Washington Capitals (Flyers in 7)

Conference Finals:
Colorado Avalanche vs. Vancouver Canucks (Avalanche in 7)
Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Philadelphia Flyers (Lightning in 6)

Stanley Cup Finals:
Colorado Avalanche vs. Tampa Bay Lightning (Avalanche in 7)

 

Top 5 FWDs

1) Pettersson  26G 41A 67P

2) Horvat         28G 27A 55P

3) Miller           27G 24A 51P

4) Boeser       31G  18A 49P

5) Hoglander  17G  20A 37P

 

Top 5 Ds

1) Hughes         9G 37A 46P

2) Schmidt         8G 35A 43P

3) Edler             7G 25A 32P

4) Myers            4G 19A 23P

4) Juolevi           2G 21A 23P

 

Demko   32GP 2,16 92,1%

Holtby    22GP 2,29 91,8%

DiPietro   2GP 2,68 91,2%

 

• Walter (Babe) Pratt Trophy - "Best Defenceman": Quinn Hughes 

• Daniel & Henrik Sedin Award - "Community Leadership": Bo Horvat

• Fred J. Hume Award - "Unsung Hero": Tyler Motte

• Cyrus H. McLean Trophy - "Leading Scorer": Elias Pettersson

• Pavel Bure Award - "Most Exciting Player": Elias Pettersson 

• Cyclone Taylor Trophy - "Most Valuable Player": Elias Pettersson

• Three Star Award - "Most Three Stars Selections": Elias Pettersson

 

Players w/ most games this season (Line-Up)

Miller - Pettersson - Boeser

Pearson - Horvat - Hoglander

Motte - Gaudette - Virtanen

Roussel - Beagle - MacEwen

Eriksson/ Hawrlyuk - Sutter - Lind

 

Hughes - Schmidt

Edler - Myers

Juolevi - Hamonic

Rathbone - Rafferty/ Chatfield

 

Demko

Holtby

DiPietro

 

 

[rychicken 5,746]

key highlights

•  
• Canucks make the playoffs, knocked out in round 2
• Edler has a year that many will refer to as "his best year in the past few years", and "he has found a second wind" 
• Demko has a few rough starts, but overall most will consider him a #1 goalie
• I put 47% of the board on ignore and get one temporary ban 
• Horvat gains more attention from media around the league, HNIC, etc 

[Azzy 555]

Goalies

Holtby: 19 wins, .918%, 2.45 GAA

Demko: 8 wins, .903%, 2.96 GAA

 

- Holtby starts more games than Demko, who struggles to recapture his playoff form.

- We still expose Holtby in the Expansion Draft.

 

Defense

Hughes: 4-49-53

Hamonic: 2-12-14

Edler: 7-14-21

Myers: 3-11-14

Juolevi: 1-10-11

Schmidt: 6-29-35

 

- Hughes continues where he left off and is Top 5 in Norris voting.

- Juolevi looks solid but carries a couple of injuries that limit his minutes.

- Schmidt proves he is worth a 3rd round pick.

- Rathbone gets a few games as injury cover.

 

Forwards

Boeser: 23-21-44

Pettersson: 22-25-47

Horvat: 20-17-37

Miller: 18-19-37

Sutter: 7-6-13

Pearson: 11-11-22

Roussel: 5-6-11

Beagle: 3-2-5

Virtanen: 9-7-16

Motte: 8-6-14

Gaudette: 13-14-27

MacEwen: 9-6-15

 

- PP falters despite addition of Schmidt, forward totals fall off as a consequence

- As we've already seen with Miller missing the first few games, any players who miss time are being backfilled with players who don't contribute offensively

- Gaudette looks good all season

- Jake plays in fits and starts, again

- Benning adds a forward at the deadline again (I'm guessing Marcus Johansson)

 

Overall

The Canucks scrape the playoffs in 4th but the combination of the short season, time missed for key players, injuries at the time and Covid fatigue means we're out first round to Winnipeg, who wins the Scotiabank North Division and the Stanley Cup.

Edited January 13 by Azzy

[nuck-lifer 1,395]

• Finish 3rd in division
• beat Winter-peg in round one and and lose to Vegas round two
• Edler goes down with injury for half the season and olli steps in nicely to take over the top 4 position with Schmidt by his side
• Holtby has a bounce back year playing majority of game as Demko loses 15 games due to injury
• Hamonic makes us forget about Tequila and allows Hughes to have a Norris caliber season selected in top 3 for NHL top D 
• Hoglander gets off to quick start but fizzles by mid season and Jake finally sticks to the tops 6 for the balance of the season
• Loui is sent to Utica with Baer and decides to retire at the end of the year to head back to Sweden to play in the old timers league
• disappointment of the year is Sutter who gets injured for half the season and never gets his game back leaving Gauds to come up big in 3rd line center role
• Unsung hero of the year is Roussel enjoying his best season of his career with 35P still continuing to piss off the competition
• Brocks gets his shot velocity back and is the top scorer on the team

 

Petey- 25G 33A 58P

Brock 27G - 27P 54P

Miller 22G 30G - 52P

Huggy 9G 43P - 52P

Bo - 20G - 29A 49P

Jake- 20G 22A - 42P

[Toyotasfan 3,251]

I truly think Colorado is going to choke.

[Dumb Nuck 3,855]

I’m starting to have my doubts that this season will finish, I so hope it will, but that’s my prediction.

[Petey_BOI 306]

Top 5 scorers

Petterson 22G 38A 60P 56GP   

Hughes    11G 42A  53P   53GP  

Miller       18G 32A  50P 52GP

Horvat      23G  26A  49P 56GP

Boeser     20G   26A  46P 52GP 

 

Holtby 16W 11L 3OTL 90.9%

Demko 15W 10L 1OTL 91.0%

 

Canucks will score the third most goals

Canucks will let in the 15th least goals

Canucks PP will finish 1st

Canucks PK will finish 13th

Canucks will finish 1st in the Canadian division and 7th overall in the league

 

31W 21L 4OTL 66P

 

Canucks will have a strong playoffs and lose in the conference finals.

 

Hughes will be nominated for the Norris trophy

Hoglander will be nominated for the Calder Trophy

 

Go Canucks Go      

Edited January 13 by Petey_BOI

[iinatcc 1,257]

So I got quite a bit of heat from here some months ago in saying how the Canucks are the least improved team of the North/Canadian division. And many people here made arguments in why I was wrong.

 

I just listened to an audio clip in TSN 1040 where they said many hockey experts, analysists, and the media were polled on predicting the final standings in the North Division and which team improved the most and least.

 

Seems like the result is that the Canucks were the least improved of all the teams in the Canadian division and predict they will miss the playoffs.

 

Rey Ferraro had Vancouver as the 2nd least improved team in the division, which is already better than the consensus and the overall predictions seems to be

1. Toronto
2. Montreal
3. Calgary
4. Edmonton
5. Vancouver
6. Winnipeg
7. Ottawa  

 

So I hate to say I was right, I really don't, but I guess I was. 

 

 

Edited January 13 by iinatcc

[ba;;isticsports 803]

1 hour ago, iinatcc said:

So I got quite a bit of heat from here some months ago in saying how the Canucks are the least improved team of the North/Canadian division. And many people here made arguments in why I was wrong.

 

I just listened to an audio clip in TSN 1040 where they said many hockey experts, analysists, and the media were polled on predicting the final standings in the North Division and which team improved the most and least.

 

Seems like the result is that the Canucks were the least improved of all the teams in the Canadian division and predict they will miss the playoffs.

 

Rey Ferraro had Vancouver as the 2nd least improved team in the division, which is already better than the consensus and the overall predictions seems to be

1. Toronto
2. Montreal
3. Calgary
4. Edmonton
5. Vancouver
6. Winnipeg
7. Ottawa  

 

So I hate to say I was right, I really don't, but I guess I was. 

 

 

Only predictions are not reality

Who predicted the 82 Canucks ?

I am just glad to see some hockey and see how we will do, as long as the effort is there this year i will be ok

[gizmo2337 1,435]

Standings:
1. Calgary
2. Vancouver

3. Edmonton

4. Montreal

5. Toronto

6. Winnipeg

7. Ottawa

Toronto falls to a few bouts of injuries/illness. Overworked, tired players have them fall in the standings after a strong start (nothing new to see here - underperforming train wreck). Calgary regains some of it's former offence from 2 seasons ago and is a consistent team all year. Vancouver exceeds expectations with added offence and improved defense. Both goaltenders have a strong showing all year as 1A and 1B goalies. The biggest surprise is Toronto underperforming, not handling the media criticism well, and generally self imploding as the playoffs approach. One or more player(s) will be "more" responsible for this than others, due to unnecessary covid-19 exposures during the season - and they will get publicly shamed for it.

 Juolevi has a strong consistent breakout in his first year and becomes a staple of the penalty kill as the season progresses. With the addition of Hoglander and Podkolzin, the loss of Toffoli is forgotten, and Pearson becomes expendable. Our D corps shows a massive improvement all around. Pettersson and Hoglander compete for both the goal of the year and shootout move of the year. Schmidt becomes a new leader in the dressing room and rubs off positively on the rest of the players. 

Hopeful thinking: Gaudette improves in the faceoff circle and learns to play the PK.

[Kragar 3,219]

Not only do we finally beat the Jets this year, I say we beat them at least three times!

 

Bust that slump, bust that slump

[Lazurus 356]

The writing will be on the wall by February 15 - 21. Teams not in could be out at the end. It is just math. Under.500 in win/loss isn't in the playoffs First 12 are super important

[McIlhargey the Lesser 140]

Canucks finish first in the North.

Montreal doesn’t do nearly as well as pundits predict.

Petey scores 80 points.

 

That’s all I got.

[ForestFalcon 308]

Ok, let's get this out there.

 

Canucks finish third in the division.

Miller and Pettersson will score 30+ goals.

Hoglander will have 25+ points

Canucks win Stanley Cup with Loui Eriksson scoring the Cup winning goal as his only goal in the playoffs.