Octopus Thrower’s Preseason Prediction Retrospective
Apr 24, 2014; Detroit, MI, USA; An octopus drops from the scoreboard before the game between the Detroit Red Wings and the Boston Bruins in game four of the first round of the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Joe Louis Arena. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports
The time is upon us to once again look seven months into the past at what us writers at Octopus Thrower predicted about the 2013-2014 Detroit Red Wings season. It’s a retrospective! If I may quote from said article of predictions:
“This year, we opted just to make our own predictions. And hey, maybe we’ll comment on them at the end of the season to see how poorly we did and tell ourselves to be smarter when next year comes around.”
Just how smart were we? We’ll do this by accuracy, from worst to best.
Jeremy’s Predictions: 1 for 4
Correct: Gustav Nyquist will score 20 goals. He had 28 on the season, and we all know how hot he was after the Olympic break. Nyquist had 48 points on the season, tied for second for points on the team with Henrik Zetterberg.
Incorrect: Jimmy Howard will start for the US in Sochi. Well… no one saw action other than Jonathan Quick.
Danny DeKeyser will garner a Norris nomination. No, he’s not yet filling that Nicklas Lidstrom void…
The Red Wings will not lose to the Bruins this season. Well, we did have a 3-1 record against them in the regular season. The playoffs were another thing entirely…
Christina’s Predictions: 1 for 4
Correct: Darren Helm will return before the halfway point of the season and rack up 15-20 points. Helm was in and out quite a bit over the course of the season, but he had twelve goals and eight assists for 20 points in 42 games!
Incorrect: Mikael Samuelsson will waive his NTC for the good of the team’s roster and be traded to any team that’s not Detroit. Nope, not even close. But he played only 26 games, so it was like he was traded!
Daniel Cleary will only miss five games total and have a 40 point season, but fans will still harp on him for something…like not having functioning knees or secretly being Frankenstein’s monster. Hey, I tried.
Pavel Datsyuk will have two hat tricks this season and fans in the Metro Detroit area will happily ingest the free Arby’s curly fries. Dangle Fries. Datsyuk didn’t have a single hat trick, but you know who did? DARREN HELM! And Johan Franzen and Gustav Nyquist.
John’s Predictions: 1.5 for 4
Correct: The Red Wings’ leader in goal scoring and points will not be Pavel Datsyuk or Zetterberg. Niklas Kronwall and Daniel Alfredsson beat Zetterberg by one point!
Half-correct: Analysts everywhere will continue to mention how Wings such as Nyquist, Andersson and Tatar should be nominated for the Calder Trophy despite the fact that none of them are eligible based on the number of games they’ve played. I can’t say I saw many analysts saying this, but the talk was going on around Twitter, so half credit.
Incorrect: Team USA will win a gold medal in the Olympics with Jimmy Howard backing every game. Again, no.
John will become the writer that everyone loves to read at Octopus Thrower, and everyone will love him and the compliments to all his articles will shower him with compliments. Okay, I don’t know how this one goes, actually, but I’ll file it under “incorrect.” Sorry, John, everything is not coming up Milhouse…
Peter’s Predictions: 2 for 4
Correct: Tomas Tatar will score 15+ goals this season. He had nineteen goals! And twenty assists.
Adam Almqvist will be the defensive call up, over Sproul and Ouellet, from Grand Rapids if a defenseman goes down due to injury. Technically they were all called up, but Almqvist was the only one with any points.
Incorrect: Justin Abdelkader will lose his spot on the 1st line to Daniel Cleary. Let’s not get started on Dan Cleary…I avoided it earlier. On a slightly similar note, I did not realize Abdelkader played 70 games this season. I thought it was more around 50.
Petr Mrazek will stay the year in Detroit and Jonas Gustavsson will be put on waivers. The Monster did quite well for the Red Wings when Howard went down with various injuries. Mrazek started six games but played in nine. His numbers were really good for going 2-4 – a 1.74 GAA and a .927 save percentage.
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Honorable mention to both Dylan and Jordan, who went 0-3 and 0-4 respectively with such fun predictions as Stephen Weiss outpoints Valtteri Filppula and Detroit will place first in the Eastern Conference this year.
Look, we all make ludicrous predictions at the start of the season. Heck, I had the Vancouver Canucks and the Nashville Predators making the playoffs with the Colorado Avalanche nowhere to be seen. Seeing this in retrospect, I’m surprised that there’s no mention of Johan Franzen. Or more outrage about youngsters not getting called up (which, again in retrospect, happened a lot. A lot.)
We’re not psychics, though we may pretend to be.
Wait, scratch that. We totally know what’s going to happen.