Anyways, I was bored at trade school today so I was using my study time to read the archives over at Irreverent Oiler Fans; youcan take this as a sign of my commitment to Oilers hockey or my lack of friends to chat with on messenger- really, it's up to you.
So, in my reading, I came across at least a dozen different things that I could write an entry on, because the detailed analysis done over there is pretty much second to none. Agree or disagree, nobody makes a more compelling argument.
But, rather than extol the virtues of that blog, I decided to do something more in character and extol my own virtues. Regular readers, and my immediate family (are those two groups really different?) will be unsurprised, but here it goes. Browse the comments section of this post to see what your favourite Oiler commenters predicted.
My predictions were as follows:
Florida - over 84.5 points, St. Louis - over 85.5 points, Tampa Bay - under 92.5 points, Toronto - under 93.5 points, New Jersey - under 93.5 points
Finally, I predicted the Oilers would finish with 87 points, good for 10th-11th in the West.
*Note - predictions not highlighted in bold are irrelevant. Pretend you don't see them.
On the disappointments side, I was way off about St. Louis. Coaching didn't matter, goaltending didn't matter, stealing Andy MacDonald didn't matter- this team just wasn't good enough.
New Jersey was a disaster for me this season. I didn't like them to start the year, and they proved me wrong. I came around, and picked them to beat the Rangers. Lundqvist shut the door and Brodeur hosted an open house. In future, I will refrain from predicting New Jersey's future.
As for Florida, I got lucky and they finished with 85. I thought they were a better team than that, but technically my prediction was still valid, so I'll take credit for being bang-on. Yay, me! Huzzah, huzzah, huzzah!
Toronto and Tampa Bay finished as I expected. I didn't like Tampa Bay at all, especially in net, and I was bang-on. Of course, Dennis was in agreement here, so I wasn't exactly alone in this assessment.
The Oilers finished with 88 points, putting me within one. Predictions ranged from 80-98 (with everyone's favourite black dog-owning blogger predicting 164) with the optimists picking a low playoff berth. They also finished in a three-way tie for 9th-11th, so I'm happy with my prediction. Of course, things may have finished the way I predicted, but I certainly wouldn't have predicted the path. Oh well, call it correct.
I've also noticed that I was far too detailed in my predictions. Next year, I'll be more vague, which should help me with my career goal of eventually being a fortune-teller at carnivals.