NHL 2024-25 prediction contest results, where playing it safe finally paid off

New York Times

a day ago

July 1 has come and gone, marking one of the most important dates on the entire NHL calendar.
Free agency? Extensions? The start of the new league year? Yeah, I guess that all matters a bit. But I'm talking about the truly big stuff: The end of the annual prediction contest.
Yes, with the first day of free agency over with, we can officially close the book on the 2024-25 contest. It was the fourth time we've run this thing, and scores have been increasing every year. In theory, you guys are getting better at this. In reality … well, we'll get to that.
Advertisement
As usual, the gimmick here is that the questions are easy, but you take a zero if you offer even one wrong answer, so the risk-reward can get tricky. If you missed out on the contest or could use a refresher on how it all works, you can find the original post here. An initial summary came a week later, in which we learned that nobody believed in Sam Reinhart. Correctly, as it turns out. I'm sure he'll be crushed once he and the rest of his teammates sober up. If they ever do.
The good news is that, unlike last year, there was no tie at the top this time. There was one winner. Was it you? Maybe! (No.) Let's go through the questions and see how this played out for the 1,200 or so entrants.
Question 1. Name up to five teams that will make the playoffs.
Right off the bat, you ran into a major problem with what, in theory, was one of the easier questions. Roughly three-quarters of you, 913 in all, had the Rangers on your list of postseason sure-things. It's hard to blame you, given they were coming off a 114-point season that saw them win the Presidents' Trophy, but their unexpected collapse meant that the vast majority of you started with a zero. All told, only 241 of you banked any points at all on Question 1, with Vancouver, Boston and Nashville also taking out dozens of entries.
Question 2. Name up to five teams that will not make the playoffs.
This one went a little better, with the top four responses (San Jose, Columbus, Chicago and Anaheim) all being correct, although the Blue Jackets sure made 1,106 of you sweat. The problem came with the fifth team, and the 680 of you who knew there was no way that the Canadiens would see the postseason. They did, taking out more than half of you. The Blues, Senators and Capitals also did some damage here.
In past years, banking the maximum 30 points across the first two questions was close to mandatory if you wanted to compete for the top spot. Needless to say, it was a rough start this time around, and we have two Original Six surprises to thank for that.
Advertisement
Question 3. Name up to five teams that will finish in the middle 16 of the regular-season standings (i.e., between 9th and 24th).
This is meant to be a low-key tricky one, but you mostly did well this year. Your four most common answers — the Wild, Islanders, Red Wings and Penguins — were all correct, although Pittsburgh needed the second tiebreaker to sneak into 24th place. The most common wrong answers were a pair of overachievers, with the Kings (534 entries) and Capitals (314) both finishing in the top eight. Other wrong answers on the good side included the Jets (232 entries) and Lightning (175), while the other side of the ledger saw some of you punished for believing in the Sabres (233), Kraken (191) and Predators (150). Man, the Sabres being bad, who could have ever seen that coming?
Shout out to Jeff P. and John B., both of whom managed to go 0-for-5 on this question. I'm not sure how the math works, but I feel like that's probably harder than going 5-for-5. Nice work, gentlemen.
Question 4. Name up to five coaches who will not be fired or otherwise leave their job before July 1, 2025, NOT including any of the 12 coaches who were hired after October 1, 2023.
Question 5. Name up to five GMs who will not be fired or otherwise leave their job before July 1, 2025, NOT including any of the 11 GMs who were hired after October 1, 2022.
As always, the coaches and GMs had to make it through not just the regular season, but the start of the offseason, too. That turned out to be important for the most common wrong answer on the coaching side, who was still employed into June. That would be Pete DeBoer, who cost 487 of you here. Other common misses included Rick Tocchet (415), Peter Laviolette (271) and Jim Montgomery (249)
All told, 971 of you tried for max points by listing five coaches, but only 84 pulled it off successfully. A further 86 managed to pick up at least a few points by going the cowardly conservative route with fewer answers.
The good news is that the GM question was basically free money, given that only three teams made changes. None of those were surprises, at least according to your entries — the most common wrong answer was Seattle's Ron Francis, whose firing took out a relatively meagre 82 entries. The Kings' Rob Blake was only mentioned 29 times, and the Islanders' Lou Lamoriello only caught 22 of you. All told, an impressive 817 of you maxed out this question, and 153 more got at least something.
Advertisement
And of course, as always, way too many of you did not bother reading the full question and tried to list recent hires. That included Dianne P. and Nik S., who both listed 10 total names across these two questions, every one of which was hired too recently to be eligible. Hey, if you're going to miss, miss big.
Question 6. Name up to five goaltenders who will start at least 50 games this season.
This is another question that's traditionally been a source of 5-for-5 points for eventual winners. This year's answers featured a clear big three of Connor Hellebuyck, Juuse Saros and Igor Shesterkin, who all appeared on at least 900 entries and were indeed correct answers. The most common misses were relatively painless, with Jacob Markstrom, Linus Ullmark and Alexandar Georgiev(!) all getting at least 150 mentions.
Also, congratulations to Mike P. and Matthew B., the only two entries out of 1,200+ to list Vezina finalist Darcy Kuemper for the goaltending question. He barely made it, recording 50 starts (and not a single relief appearance), but he counted.
Question 7. Name up to five rookies who will finish in the top 10 of Calder balloting.
This one has been an entry-wrecker for the last few years, which scared most of you off — only 335 of you listed the maximum five players here. But that turned out to be a mistake this year, as the most common answers were all the correct ones. We didn't get to any wrong answers until Rutger McGroarty and Josh Doan, who appeared on just 51 and 46 entries, respectively.
In fact, not only did each of the seven most common entries qualify as right answers, they made up the actual top seven in Calder balloting. Nicely done by everyone, but especially the 203 of you who went 5-for-5.
Question 8. Name up to five defensemen who will finish in the top 10 of Norris balloting.
After the relatively easy points from the Calder question, this one was a bloodbath. Eventual winner Cale Makar appeared on almost every entry, and Quinn Hughes was also safe despite missing time. But those were the only two names from your collective top seven to deliver. Adam Fox took out 977 of you on his own, and if you dodged him, then you probably fell victim to Roman Josi (808 entries), Miro Heiskanen (553), Evan Bouchard (427) or Charlie McAvoy (110).
I'll pause here to applaud Alan F. and Jonathan B., the only two entries to include Norris runner-up Zach Werenski, as well as Karl Eric S., who was the only entry in the entire contest to have Thomas Harley.
Advertisement
All told, not a single entry managed a 5-for-5 on this question. In fact, nobody even managed a 4-for-4, and only 21 of you managed to get any points at all. That's a new record for futility. Let's never speak of this again.
Question 9. Name up to five players who will finish in the top 15 of Hart Trophy voting.
Welcome to life as a Leafs fan in the playoffs, because you should all be really mad at Auston Matthews. He was named on 1,106 entries, making him this year's record-holder for the most common wrong answer. Combined with the support for Jack Hughes (273 entries), Sidney Crosby (123) and Artemi Panarin (99), this was another tough one.
How tough? Of the 808 of you who listed five names on this question, a measly three escaped with max points. (Nice work Jason J., Asher S. and Logan F.) And only 43 of you got any points at all.
And that brings us to the obvious question: Did anyone manage to get points on both the Norris and Hart questions? Yes … two of you. Congratulations to Francis G., who listed Quinn Hughes for the Norris and Connor McDavid for the Hart to earn a combined total of two whole points. That's pathetic, but only one entry could beat him — Dylan B., who had Makar for the Norris and McDavid and Nathan Mackinnon for the Hart. Credit where it's due, that's five points that Dylan banked and you didn't.
Question 10. Name up to five players who are currently on an NHL roster who will change teams between October 9 and the end of the first day of 2025 free agency (scheduled to be July 1). 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.
The dreaded roster move question, which takes us right up to 11:59 p.m. on July 1. That was bad news for the 167 of you who had Nikolaj Ehlers finding a new team by then, but he was only the fourth most common miss. The top spot actually went to Frank Vatrano, who was named on 407 entries before deciding to re-up with the Ducks.
All told, only four of you went 5-for-5 here; nice job by Corey B., Sean F., Chris B. and Holden M. (Also, our friend Dylan B. listed only Timothy Liljegren here, earning him yet another point. If the contest only had another 60 or so questions, his conservative strategy would have had him in the running for top spot.)
Optional bonus question: For 15 bonus points, name one and only one player who will finish this season with at least 50 goals, but who is not Auston Matthews.
Once again, you had the option to risk your entire entry on the bonus. Once again, most of you did — 794 of you chose to answer here, while 445 decided not to chance it. That latter group may have had the right idea, as this season only served up a single 50-goal scorer in Edmonton's Leon Draisaitl.
Advertisement
The good news is that Draisaitl was the second most common answer. The bad news is that only 158 of you had him, meaning 636 of you flushed your entry away on picks such as David Pastrnak (300 entries), Connor McDavid (92), Nathan MacKinnon (73) and Kirill Kaprizov (65). The list of entry-wiping answers also included both of you who believed in Sam Reinhart. By the way, the league's second-place goal-scorer with 45 in the year, William Nylander, was not named on a single entry.
Not you. But you know that by now.
It was a tough year, with nobody cracking the 100-point mark for the first time since 2022 (when there were fewer questions). Only seven entries even managed to get to the 80-point mark, a list that included Brian W.'s 80 on the nose, as well as 81 points for Samuel F. and Daniel B. Close, but not close enough.
The silver medal will be split three ways, with Vladic K., Hugo T. and Samuel P. all finishing with 85 points. Each of them maxed out four questions for 15 points each, added a 10-spot somewhere else, and then nailed Draisaitl for the bonus. And each fell just short. All three will have plenty to think about over the offseason — Vladic can blame the Kings for missing the mushy middle by a few points, Hugo can curse Georgiev for falling three starts short of 50, and Samuel had an agonizing four different questions with just one miss: Montreal for question 2, Seattle for question 3, Matthews for question 9 and Vatrano for question 10. Not only would he have won the contest if any of those had come through, he'd also have won if he'd only left any of those answers off his entry entirely. Safe is death, as John Tortorella once said, but Samuel would be our champion if he'd only played it just a bit safer.
But he didn't, and that's good news for our winner: Congratulations to Matt A., whose 88 points were enough to top our leaderboard in a 'Jamie Benn wins the Art Ross' level performance. Matt banked the max points on each of the first three questions before getting tripped up by DeBoer and Tocchet on the coaches. He recovered with max scores on the GMs and the goalies, dodged the Calder bullet by listing only Macklin Celebrini and Lane Hutson; his fans probably booed him for playing it safe, but those three points made the difference. He banked 10 more points on the Hart question to get to 88, which was enough to overcome misses on the Norris and the transactions.
And yes, you're reading that right — for the first time, our winner is an entrant who bypassed the bonus question. I wasn't sure it could be done, but the NHL is full of surprises.
Congratulations to Matt. Thank you to everyone who played along, even if you were one of the many entries to get a zero for the year. And a huge thanks to Mike, whose work in scraping the data and maintaining the entry database is invaluable.
We'll plan to do it all again in September. Until then, take the summer to strategize. Most of you have nowhere to go but up.
(Top photo of Auston Matthews: Dan Hamilton / Imagn Images)