{"id":369777,"date":"2025-12-25T18:31:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T18:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/369777\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T18:31:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T18:31:08","slug":"presenting-your-preseason-predictions-and-a-partridge-in-a-pear-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/369777\/","title":{"rendered":"Presenting your preseason predictions and a partridge in a pear tree"},"content":{"rendered":"

Merry Christmas, RMNB readers. It\u2019s a time of rest and reflection. I\u2019m not getting none of the first part, but let\u2019s all share in the second part.<\/p>\n

I have scrupulously scrivened your pre-season predictions<\/a> and present them now to\u00a0 you. If you recall, last year everyone was too negative<\/a>. I think you did a lot better this season, which is also to say the Caps are a little bit worse.<\/p>\n

Still\u2026<\/p>\n

The Capitals are going to make the playoffs.<\/p>\n

Ninety-nine percent of you think so, at least.<\/p>\n

The Eastern Conference has been mega-weird (technical term) this season. Every team is above .500 in points percentage. Only eight teams are going to make the playoffs, but eleven teams are on pace for 91 or more points.<\/p>\n

Moneypuck thinks the Caps have a 76.4 percent chance of making the postseason<\/a>. That number has dropped after a couple of lulls, but for now it looks like 99 percent of us will be proven right.<\/p>\n

The Capitals will be a hundred-point team.<\/p>\n

103 points, to be precise. 103.4 to be even preciser.<\/p>\n

I think of one-hundred points as the same, approximately, as being a top-ten team. The Caps aren\u2019t that right now. As of Christmas, they\u2019re on a 95-point pace, but we\u2019re also in the midst of a slump (five-on-five) and eschatological crisis (power play). With some tweaks, I think it\u2019s totally possible the Caps get into triple digits<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Capitals will make it to the conference final.<\/p>\n

Okay, now you\u2019re getting bold. On average, you predicted the Caps will win 9.1 playoff games. (I removed all the people who said they\u2019d win 69 or 420 games.)<\/p>\n

That would get the Caps into the third round of the playoffs for just the fourth time in franchise history (1990, 1998 \u2013 boo hiss, and 2018 \u2013 hell yeah, woop woop). It would also keep us at RMNB posting game coverage until late May. I\u2019d love that.<\/p>\n

Alex Ovechkin will score 37 goals.<\/p>\n

If I published this in October like I was supposed to, this prediction would have been a scandal. As of Christmas, Ovechkin is on pace for 31 goals. He\u2019s been cold for a few weeks, just as the Caps have slumped.<\/p>\n

\"Ovechkin<\/p>\n

As we discussed in the Snapshot, his shot volume is still there<\/a> \u2013 during five-on-five at least. He\u2019s on pace for a career low in power-play goals.<\/p>\n

Alex Ovechkin will not sign a new contract.<\/p>\n

62 percent of you think this is the final year of Alex Ovechkin\u2019s time as Washington Capital<\/a>. I didn\u2019t ask you if that\u2019s the same thing as him retiring altogether, but I bet it is. Can you imagine him in, like, a Vegas Golden Knights \u265e<\/a> uniform?<\/p>\n

Please don\u2019t make that a prompt in an AI image generator. That\u2019d be depressing on multiple levels.<\/p>\n

Sonny Milano will play 34 games.<\/p>\n

After being one of Washington\u2019s MVPs in 2023-24<\/a>, Milano missed all but three games in 2024-25 with an upper-body injury \u2013 assumed to be related to a concussion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Undeniably a gifted player, Milano has never been able to play more than 66 games in a full season. He\u2019s played in 23 of 37 as of today, on pace to clear your bar, but would still miss his career high by 16 games.<\/p>\n

Logan Thompson will out-perform Charlie Lindgren<\/p>\n

I wondered if 2024-25 was an uncharacteristic down year for Lindgren and a hard-to-repeat good year for Thompson, so I asked you what you thought. Ninety-five percent of you told me to shut up.<\/p>\n

Here are their goals-saved-above-expected for last season and this season so far:<\/p>\n

2024-25
\n2025-26<\/p>\n

Lindgren
\n-1.0
\n+4.2<\/p>\n

Thompson
\n+26.0
\n+22<\/p>\n

Okay, I\u2019ll shut up now.<\/p>\n

The Edmonton Oilers will win the Stanley Cup.<\/p>\n

Hahaha. Good one guys. A plurality \u2013 25 percent \u2013 of respondents said the 2025-26 Stanley Cup would belong to Connor McDavid\u2019s Edmonton Oilers \ud83d\udee2<\/a>. They\u2019re currently ranked 16th \u2013 one spot behind Washington, your next pick at 22 percent.<\/p>\n

The Oilers are enjoying the second worst goaltending in the league. Before the holiday they sent Stuart Skinner to Pittsburgh in exchange for Tristan Jarry, who immediately got injured. Still, they went 7-2-1 heading into the break, so maybe things are looking up.<\/p>\n

The Stars, Canes, and Knights rounded out the top five. The Colorado Avalanche \u2744<\/a>, who lead the league by one billion points, got six percent of votes.<\/p>\n

The San Jose Sharks \ud83e\udd88<\/a> will finish in last place.<\/p>\n

Last seasons\u2019 DFL team, the Sharks, were picked to repeat by 21 percent of you. Right now there are seven teams below them. They\u2019re ranked 32nd in shot-attempt percentage though, so I\u2019d bet they drop.<\/p>\n

They were followed by Pittsburgh, Chicago, Buffalo, and Anaheim. I\u2019m not going to hassle you about any of those except the Ducks, who are second in the Central and on a 98-point pace. Leo Carlsson has been great, but I still don\u2019t actually know how they\u2019re pulling this off.<\/p>\n

Ted Leonsis will not buy the Washington Nationals.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m gonna keep asking until he does, even if 82 percent of you tell me to stop. I will stop only when Ted Leonsis buys the Washington Nationals.<\/p>\n

Qatari investment group and private equity firm reportedly buying Laurene Powell Jobs\u2019 stake in Monumental Sports & Entertainment<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Maybe some Qatari petrodollars will help.<\/p>\n

You do not care who will win the Mark Messier Leadership Award.<\/p>\n

After Tom Wilson, the most common guess was Mark Messier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Merry Christmas, RMNB readers. It\u2019s a time of rest and reflection. I\u2019m not getting none of the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-369777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}