{"id":685736,"date":"2026-06-05T10:01:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T10:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/685736\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T10:01:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T10:01:13","slug":"an-nhl-playoff-contest-update-where-over-850-entered-and-just-2-are-left-standing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/685736\/","title":{"rendered":"An NHL playoff contest update, where over 850 entered and just 2 are left standing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Athletic has live coverage of Golden Knights vs. Hurricanes in Game 2<\/a> of the 2026 Stanley Cup Final.<\/a><\/p>\n

Two months ago, we started with a full field of championship hopefuls. Some knew they were facing long odds, but were willing to dream big dreams. Others were bathed in the soothing safety of favorite status. But they all had one thing in common: The abiding belief that this could be their year.<\/p>\n

Then the playoffs started, and it all went downhill.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m referring, of course, to our annual playoff contest, in which I ask one simple question and almost all of you get it wrong. It launched a few days before the playoffs started<\/a>, and over 850 of you entered.<\/p>\n

How many of those entries are still alive and in the running for the title? Um \u2026 two.<\/p>\n

Yes, we\u2019ve got ourselves a Stanley Cup Final showdown. We\u2019ll get to that in a second. But first, a quick refresher for those who missed the contest post.<\/p>\n

The contest features just one question: List as many or as few playoff teams as you\u2019d like, in order of how many games you think they\u2019ll win during the postseason, from most to fewest. That\u2019s it. The correct answer featuring the most teams wins; the tie-breaker is total games won by all of an entry\u2019s teams. Nice and easy, but with some obvious strategic considerations to navigate. How confident are you? How risky are you willing to get?<\/p>\n

The contest debuted in 2024, when the winning entry featured eight teams and was submitted by Sean M., who tragically was not me. Last year, the magic number was eight teams yet again, with Guarav A. narrowly beating out Tony D. based on the Stanley Cup Final result.<\/p>\n

After two straight wins, could an eight-team entry be the optimal strategy once again? Spoiler: Nope. Much like the Panthers, the eight-teamers didn\u2019t come all that close to pulling off the threepeat.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll get to that. Let\u2019s dive into the details and see how everyone did.<\/p>\n

The numbers<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll start with the basics. There were 854 entries in this year\u2019s contest. With 14 series down and one still to go, here\u2019s how you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n

Playoff contest results (so far)<\/p>\n

RightStill in playWrongTotal<\/p>\n

Entries<\/p>\n

26<\/p>\n

5<\/p>\n

823<\/p>\n

854<\/p>\n

That\u2019s \u2026 not great!<\/p>\n

Which, of course, is the point. The contest is designed to be simple to enter, but almost impossible to nail. And with the playoffs still in progress, we\u2019re already looking at a failure rate north of 96 percent.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s actually worse than it looks. Of the 26 entries that are already locked into a correct answer, well over half \u2014 17 in all \u2014 got there by picking just one team. Yes, these are the readers who went looking for a cheat code, trying to run an end-around on the strategic considerations and steal a cheap win. It\u2019s actually a pretty reasonable strategy \u2014 bank a guaranteed \u201ccorrect\u201d answer, hope that a chaotic spring takes everyone else out, and try to coast home on the total wins tie-breaker. People try it every year. It never works, but I can see the vision.<\/p>\n

Among the only slightly braver, four more correct entries listed two teams. Two more had three, and two more had four. In other words, 24 of the 26 correct answers so far were either cowardly or at least coward-adjacent.<\/p>\n

That leaves us with two entries worth highlighting. Michelle B. listed five teams: Colorado, Tampa Bay, Edmonton, Dallas and Boston. Only one of those teams made it out of the first round, but because ties count as correct, Michelle nailed her order. She\u2019s home and cooled out with a correct five-team entry, just one back of Jacob B. and his similar six-teamer of Colorado, Tampa Bay, Edmonton, Pittsburgh, Dallas and Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Congrats to both Michelle and Jacob. Neither of you is going to win, as we\u2019ll see in a bit. But you\u2019re among the 3 percent or so of entrants who\u2019ll be able to say you weren\u2019t wrong. And you didn\u2019t have to resort to the coward\u2019s gambit to do it.<\/p>\n

Speaking of which, there\u2019s one more \u201ccorrect\u201d entry we have to single out. Jesse O. submitted an entry that listed just two teams: Ottawa and Toronto. You can see what\u2019s going on here \u2014 presumably, Jesse is a Senators fan who was having a bit of fun with his provincial rivals. We could have disqualified him for listing a team that didn\u2019t make the playoffs, but instead, we just counted it as a one-team entry. And since Jesse\u2019s one team got swept in the first round, that means he becomes the first entry in the history of the contest to ever score a zero in the \u201ctotal wins\u201d column. Congratulations on the playoff goose egg, Jesse.\u00a0Your<\/a>\u00a0captain would be proud<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The consensus<\/p>\n

This is where we go looking for any kind of wisdom of the crowd.<\/p>\n

To nobody\u2019s surprise, the most common number of teams picked was eight, the same total that\u2019s won each of the last contests. There were 224 of you, well ahead of the 145 who picked seven teams and the 114 who went with nine. If you\u2019re wondering, there were 78 entries that took the biggest swing possible and listed 16 teams; none of them came remotely close to being right, but I respect the attempt.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s always fun to see which teams show up the most often in different ends of readers\u2019 lists. For example, the team that was listed last most often \u2014 which is to say the team you were most confident would not win many playoff games \u2014 was the Kings. No surprise there. But the next two most hopeless teams, according to you, were the Ducks and Flyers, who each won a round.<\/p>\n

At the other end, the Avalanche ran away with the crown for showing up as the first team on the most lists. Listing a team first isn\u2019t quite the same as making them your Cup pick, but it means you think they\u2019re going to win a lot of games. Is eight games a lot? Not for a powerhouse like the Avs, unfortunately. And your second pick was the Lightning, because apparently, you all don\u2019t learn from your mistakes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By the way, the Ducks and Flyers are notable in this category as well \u2014 not a single entry listed either team first, an honor also earned by the Mammoth. How disrespectful is that? Put it this way: That puts those teams behind the Canucks, who batted leadoff in a \u201cVancouver, Colorado, Montreal, Dallas, Carolina\u201d entry by an apparently confused reader named Connor R. Good job, good effort, Connor.<\/p>\n

And finally, if we just look at which teams were mentioned at all \u2014 which is to say, which teams did people feel confident enough to include in their entry somewhere \u2014 we get the Avs on top, showing up 726 times. That was comfortably ahead of Carolina (633), Tampa (575), Edmonton (566) and Buffalo (500). The least-mentioned team, which likely means the team that confused everyone the most, was the Bruins. NHL prediction contests and not understanding the Bruins<\/a>, name a more iconic duo.<\/p>\n

OK, the numbers are fun and all, but you want to know who\u2019s going to win. The short answer: Not you. For the longer answer, we need one more section<\/p>\n

The contenders<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s talk about those five entries that are still in play.<\/p>\n

Three of them can\u2019t win because they listed fewer teams than clubhouse leader Jacob B. That includes a pair of four-team entries, from Garret E. (Carolina, Vegas, Edmonton, Los Angeles) and Aj B. (Carolina, Colorado, Buffalo, Anaheim), as well as a five-teamer from James S. (Carolina, Tampa Bay, Edmonton, Boston, Pittsburgh). Nice work, but a little too conservative. As a wise man once said, \u201cSafe\u00a0is death.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

And that brings us to our two contenders. This year\u2019s winner will be a seven-team entry. We\u2019re just not sure which one yet.<\/p>\n

Our first candidate is Karl K., whose entry looked like this: Carolina, Vegas, Montreal, Anaheim, Philadelphia, Boston and Los Angeles. That\u2019s pretty much exactly the sort of entry we\u2019re looking for in this contest \u2014 Karl nailed both the finalists, one conference finalist, two second-rounders and two first-round exits. If you look closely, you\u2019ll see that Karl doesn\u2019t even need any help from our generous \u201cties count as right answers\u201d rule \u2014 he\u2019s got some nice separation between each of his teams.<\/p>\n

Karl\u2019s problem is that he needs Carolina to beat Vegas in the final for his entry to seal the deal. If that happens, he\u2019ll win the contest, and deservedly so. But if not, Karl\u2019s entry will join the 96 percent in the smoldering pile of wrong answers. Much like the playoffs themselves, there are no points for just coming close here, even if maybe there should be<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So what happens if Vegas wins? For that answer, we turn to David R., whose seven-team entry came in like this: Carolina, Colorado, Buffalo, Edmonton, Dallas, Utah, Boston. Unlike Karl, David is letting the tie rule do some heavy lifting here, as his entry features four teams that each won exactly two games. In fact, while I can\u2019t claim to be a mind-reader, I think it\u2019s reasonably safe to infer that David was going for a Carolina\/Colorado final here, maybe one that went through Buffalo and Edmonton in the conference final.<\/p>\n

In other words, David was pretty wrong about things. But he managed to be wrong in exactly the right way, so he\u2019s still alive. And he can win it all \u2014 if the Cup ends up in Vegas, a team that wasn\u2019t even part of his entry at all.<\/p>\n

David sure seems to have been picking a Carolina championship, and now his shot at winning depends on them falling short. I\u2019ll be honest \u2026 I kind of love that. A David win would be the ultimate \u201ctask failed successfully\u201d story, which feels just about perfect for the chaos of the NHL playoffs.<\/p>\n

David wins the contest if Vegas wins the Cup. Karl is our champion if the Hurricanes get it done.<\/p>\n

And you? You tried hard and had fun. Hey, there\u2019s always next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Athletic has live coverage of Golden Knights vs. Hurricanes in Game 2 of the 2026 Stanley Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":685737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[4821,385,99,1793],"class_list":["post-685736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-carolina-hurricanes","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-vegas-golden-knights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685736","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=685736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}