Sterling Predictions Revisited, Part 2: Rookies and Playoff Chances

At the beginning of each new NHL season, the Silver Seven team locks in some predictions that usually end up being completely wrong. That's just the nature of today's NHL: so much can change over the course of 82 games, and I think it's sometimes good to get the chance to look back and realize that so many of the things that seemed obvious in October just didn't end up happening after all.

Now that the season is over, we're going back and revisiting our predictions. NKB wrote up the first two predictions yesterday, and today we're looking back at our other two predictions.

Our third question was about the Sens' two most highly touted rookies:

The Senators have great expectations for this year, and a big part of whether they reach their goals will be determined by the play of their two super rookies: Shane Pinto and Jake Sanderson. Who will have the “better” season of the two? Will either finish top three in Calder voting?

Everyone expected both players to have really strong seasons, but there was a bit of disagreement when it came to which one would have the better year. Trevor, Spencer, Ary and I all said that Sanderson would have a better season, while Ross, Nada and Owen all gave the edge to Pinto, and Shaan and NKB had them both on the same level. Everyone said both would do very well.

It's worth noting that we all wrote these predictions under the assumption that both players would play in sheltered roles, with Sanderson on the second pairing behind Chabot, and Pinto on the third line. In the end, only the first part ended up being true, as a season-ending injury to Josh Norris forced Pinto into the 2C slot.

I'd say we mostly got this one right, as Sanderson jumped right into the second pairing role and Pinto had a very strong season, with 20 goals and 15 assists.

I can't comment on the part about the Calder trophy, because we don't get know who the finalists will be, but it seems highly unlikely that either one will finish in the top 3. Sanderson might have an outside shot at a top 5 finish and Pinto will probably get a few votes. That's more or less what everyone predicted, except Spencer, who said both would be in the top 3.

Our fourth and final question was the big one:

After all the off-season changes, strip away the hype: have the Ottawa Senators done enough to make the play-offs? What will their record be at the end of the season?

Unfortunately, every single one of us was too optimistic here.

Owen's points projection was the lowest, at 91 points, and Shaan predicted the highest point total of 97 points. In the end, the Sens finished the season with only 86 points.

Everyone said the Sens would be a bubble team and in the race for a playoff spot right to the end, which I guess technically ended up being true. 6 of us thought they'd get into the playoffs, so shoutout to pessimists Spencer, Ross and Ary for correctly predicting that they'd miss. The rest of us were mostly right about how many points it would take to make the playoffs: Florida took the final wildcard spot in the East with only 92 points, which is actually lower than what most of us projected the Sens to finish with.