NHL 2020 STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS / POOL PREDICTION THREAD ~ CORONA-CHAN EDITION ~

The Lowdown:
Uh, oh. It looks like Corona-Chan here has taken over the globe and has destroyed almost everything that we used to hold, cherish and take for granted: Movies, video games, restaurants, public outings, grocery shopping…heck, even sports, like the National Hockey League, has fallen victim to this merciless succubus. (Damn her!)

But luckily, thanks to social distancing measures, face masks - and a lot more time spent staying indoors - the world that we once knew is slowly making a comeback, much to Corona-Chan’s dissatisfaction. Heck, even the wildlife is happy to see us again, roaming around outside, dumping our sweet delicious garbage for them to eat once more. And what was once thought impossible several months ago has now become a near-sighted reality today: The return of the National Hockey League and the Stanley Cup Playoffs…

…in the summertime…

…yeaaahhh…

But an unusual situation happens to call for an unusual playoffs! As this year, instead of the usual 16 teams battling it out for Lord Stanley’s giant mug, there will be 24 teams instead with 16 teams facing off against one another in a best-of-5 play-in round to see who happens to qualify for the actual Stanley Cup tournament, where it will then be the usual best-of-7 all throughout. In the meantime, the top four teams in each conference (St. Louis, Colorado, Vegas, Dallas, Boston, Tampa Bay, Washington and Philadelphia) will play against one another in a round robin type of setting to determine the seedings.

Annnddd…unfortunately, if you’re Ottawa, Detroit, New Jersey, Buffalo (poor Buffalo…), Anaheim, Los Angeles and San Jose (what the hell happened to you guys this year???), you get the luxury of watching the whole crazy thing unfold in front of hardly anybody in the stands on T.V.! Isn’t that great!?!?!?

This year - who knows what will happen...!? Everybody’s fully rested, rusty as hell, and hasn’t played a meaningful game in months. This year’s Stanley Cup Champion could be almost anybody!

But before that can possibly happen, Corona-Chan could ruin all of the fun and use her deadly Coronas Wave on as many players, coaches, and team personal as humanly possible to put a stop to this. Will she happen to succeed? Or will we have to put an asterisk besides somebody’s name and crown ourselves a champion this October.

Once again, like in other years past, we’ll be running ourselves a little playoff pool where you - yes, you - can potentially win yourselves some sweet, sweet achievos if you can happen to successfully predict who’s moving on and what not. Heck, you can even get an achievement just for showing up and picking nothing but duds! So it’s an event for everybody to have fun and participate in, even if you don't know much about the NHL.

- It’s the ultimate battle of millionaires verses virus. Who shall prevail…???

The Hub Cities:

The Bracket:

The Rules:
Beginning with the best-of-5 qualifying round first, and then the remaining best-of-7 rounds after that, you must pick the winner of each playoff series (listed above) and how many games that each series will ultimately go to. You will also have to pick who you think is going to win the Stanley Cup at the end of the playoffs as well.

You only need (for now) to pick the qualifying round series' first to start things off. After all of the qualifying round series' has been fully completed, you will then provide your picks for the 1st Round, and then the 2nd Round, Conference Finals, and then, finally, the Stanley Cup Finals at a much later date. This way, it provides participants a chance to make a comeback if they happen to bust their brackets out early.

Oh, and there's no need to make any picks for the Round Robin teams. Those teams are already guaranteed a spot into the 1st round by default, so who cares about them (...for now).

- Whomever has the most points at the end of this year’s playoffs will be announced the winner!

• You are only allowed to enter one bracket per user. You cannot submit multiple brackets under the same username.

• Once you’ve made your picks for each round and the allotted time limit has passed, you cannot change or alter your picks unless you either contact me in advance via PM or it’s been less than 24 hours from the last post that you made your picks in. If it’s past the deadline, then I'm afraid you’re simply out of luck. (Sorry.)

• Your Stanley Cup Champion Pick will be locked into place and cannot be changed or altered throughout the playoffs once the initial qualifying round deadline has passed, which is on August. 3rd @ 6 A.M. PST, 9 A.M., EST). Once your Stanley Cup Champion Pick has been officially eliminated, then it’s officially eliminated for good, there's no turning back.

• In order to compete for the Draft Lottery Winner Award, which goes to the participant(s) that finished the pool in dead last, you basically have to fully participate and make your picks, regardless of what you do, from the qualifying round all the way until the end of the playoffs in order to qualify for this award. You cannot join in later on in the playoffs and score a zero and hope to covet this award; you must participate from start until the end of the playoffs in order to receive this achievement. There are some exceptions, though, like if it’s the final round and you have a massive lead (or, in this case, a massive hole) over the next participant(s) above you and you don’t bother with your final picks, or if there’s an emergency, or you just don’t have the time to do it, then it’s okay.

The Scoring System:
4 Points : If you happen to predict both the winning team and the correct number of the games that the series ultimately went to.

2 Points : If you happen to predict the winning team in a series.

1 Point : If the team that you predict happens to lose the series but you successfully managed to predict how many games that the series ultimately went.

0 Points : You failed to predict either the winner of a series or the correct number of games. (Bupkis!)


2x Multiplier : If your Stanley Cup Champion Pick is involved in a series, you can potentially receive double the points if they happen to get you anything out of it. You can earn up to a maximum of 8 Points if you can successfully predict your Stanley Cup Champion Pick winning the series and the correct number of games that they won by. That’s why is so vitally important to pick a team that you believe is going to go far in the playoffs.

• However, if you happen to go against your Stanley Cup Champion Pick and pick the other team in a series, you’ll just receive the regular amount of points normally and receive no bonus multiplier based on the result. It might be a good idea to sometimes go against your Stanley Cup Champion Pick for strategic purposes if you think that they're not going to make it out of a series.

The Past Champions:

The Prizes:

For this year’s winner, the participant(s) who manages to score the most amount of points in this year’s pool will be rewarded with the David Ayres Award that’s worth 10

and the title of champion. You even get a little championship banner hanging above the virtual rafters of RMN Place, alongside previous champions, for all of eternity! (...Or at least until Kentona and Liberty stop paying for the lease.)


But for all of those unfortunate enough to be at rock bottom towards the end of this year’s playoffs, don’t you worry - there’s always next year - with the Draft Lottery Winner Award. You not only get a chance at the number one overall pick, but you also get a single point of

too! That will help restock the cupboards in 10 years time!


For those who have the power to see into the far future and predict this year’s Stanley Cup Champion from the start, you sir (or madam or etc.) will earn the Crystal Clairvoyant, an award that’s worth 5

and would even make Shulk from Xenoblade jealous. (And you managed to even pull it off without using the Monado - so screw him.)


It may seem rather impossible (but then again - who thought we’d ever be having this thing in the first place?), but for the incredibly divine who happen to predict a winner in EVERY single series without a single fault on their record, they will be bestowed the Brackcellent award that’s worth 25 and Mr. Trump’s personal seal of approval of you doing good.


And for the final award, if our dear heroes on skates, wielding sticks cannot lift up the holy grail in time before the final battle finishes because they couldn’t stop Corona-Chan and her third, most powerful form and they are defeated and the playoffs are cancelled, then every single participant here will earn a Corona-Chan Strikes Back award worth a single

point, as she delivers all of us the sweet, breath of death before laughing maniacally from afar.

The Leaderboard:

1st	Addit	47 Pts
2nd	UPRC	37 Pts
3rd	Kory_Toombs	34 Pts
4th	Kentona	25 Pts
5th	JDogg1717	8 Pts

The Players:
Addit's Picks:


JDogg1717's Picks:


Kentona's Picks:


Kory_Toombs' Picks:


UPRC's Picks:

Yeah, you just need to post your picks in here for who you think is going to win the Qualifying Round, we make our other selections after each round has concluded, so no need to make those right now, and your Stanley Cup Champion pick and that’s it.

Speaking of that, I better put my picks down before the Oilers and Blackhawks game is on.

Qualifying Round:
Oilers Over Blackhawks In 5
A healthy Corey Crawford should make this competitive for the Hawks. But the Oilers should end up winning this series and move on no problem.

Predators Over Coyotes In 4
On paper, the Predators look like the much better team in pretty much every aspect, so I’m going to go with them. Coyotes do manage to get one, though.

Canucks Over Wild In 5
My gut tells me Minnesota's going to win but my heart obviously wants the Canucks to win. I think this one will be REALLY close...but the Canucks should manage to just squeak by in a Game 5 Overtime.

Jets Over Flames In 3
Hey, someone’s gotta sweep at least one team in this round and I think this is the one that it’s going to happen. Connor Hellebuyck frustrates the shit out of the Flames’ offence and give them headaches.

Penguins Over Canadiens In 5
Matt Murray’s struggles in net continue as they BARELY manage to squeak out of this one alive.

Panthers Over Islanders In 5
Sergei Bobrovsky manages to wake up in Game 2 and the Panthers finally manage to get revenge on the Islanders for that first round series loss a couple of years ago. (Yay!)

Hurricanes Over Rangers In 5
The Rangers manage to win two straight games before the Hurricanes realize “oh shit” and win the next three in a row in dramatic fashion.

Leafs Over Blue Jackets In 4
John Tortorella blows a giant gasket while Kyle Dubas smiles from afar as the referee make a horrible call against the Blue Jackets in Game 4 that manages to screw them over (because Toronto).

Stanley Cup Champion:
Dallas Stars
I’ve been going back and forth between Nashville, Colorado, Washington – and even the Toronto Maple Leafs (oh god) to win the Stanley Cup. But I ultimately decided to pick Dallas because I picked them in the beginning of the year to at least make the Stanley Cup Finals so I should probably continue to stick with them like the good little solider that I am. Although strategy-wise it might make more sense to pick someone like the Predators, Leafs, or maybe even the Oilers to get as many points as possible, I just have a good feeling about Dallas this year, so I'm going to go with them. And I would pick Colorado but I haven't done too well over the last couple of years picking the safe / popular bet in these pools, so I'm going to go with a "somewhat" safe bet instead with the Stars.

Hey, don’t panic just yet - it’s still early! Everything will work out JUST fine if you simply just believe...

(Although the Oilers did play pretty badly until the latter half of the third period. I expected it to be close, but - oof - not like this.)

author=Addit
Jets Over Flames In 3
Hey, someone’s gotta sweep at least one team in this round and I think this is the one that it’s going to happen. Connor Hellebuyck frustrates the shit out of the Flames’ offence and give them headaches.

So much for that prediction, lol.