NHL 2021 STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS / POOL PREDICTION THREAD ~ KENTONA'S REDEMPTION ~

Despite being a rapid hockey fan and a constant participant in the last five NHL Stanley Cup Playoff Pools / Prediction Threads, it’s almost nearly astonishing that this amazing mind hasn’t been able to taste from the cup of glory yet throughout all of these years, finishing - at best - two years in a row in second place before completely crashing down to Earth in the last couple of years, even finishing in last place…twice. (O-Oof…)

- But this year seems a lot different for a number of reasons: not just renewed hope in such long playoff droughts finally ending for once, long time struggling Canadian teams (like Edmonton and Toronto), but a feeling of a sense of normalcy returning to both the land of the north and the land of south as that pesky virus thing seems to be starting to feel like a thing of the past as now the condensed 56 game NHL schedule has finally come to a close (except for the Canucks and the Flames, lol) and the beginning of the Stanley Cup Playoffs is FINALLY among us - and this time, with no gimmicks…! (Well…one gimmick, I suppose.)

- So who will be this year!?!?!? (Why are you asking me?) Can the Tampa Bay Lightning, last year’s Stanley Cup Champions, manage to repeat once again??? Will the Colorado Avalanche, this year’s off-season’s darlings and President’s Trophy winners manage to stay true to form and happen to take it all??? What about any of the Canadian teams, such as the Edmonton Oilers and the Toronto Maple Leafs??? Perhaps this is the year that the cup finally comes north for a change... Oh, and we can’t forget about those pesky Boston Bruins. (You can never count out those pesky Boston Bruins...)

Either way, there’s 16 teams and 15 of them have to go, sadly. So why we’re waiting for all of that to unfold, just like in years past, we’re going to be holding our annual playoff pool / predictions in this thread where you can earn the chance to earn yourself an achievo if you happen to have the mind of a coked-out chimp going through it all on his birthday… Even if you’ve never seen a bunch of guys touch a piece of wood before - even YOU still have to chance to pad that makerscore (…a bit).

The Bracket:

The Rules:
Starting with the 1st Round at the beginning, and then eventually over time with the other rounds at a much later date, you must pick the winner of each playoff series (listed in the bracket above) and how many games it will take for that team to win their best-of-seven series: 4, 5, 6 or 7. You also have to pick a Stanley Cup Champion as well; the team who you think is going to win the Stanley Cup at the end of this year’s playoffs. (Easy peasy right?)

Remember: You only need to pick the teams who you think are going to win in the 1st Round first! After the 1st Round has been fully completed and we know who’s playing who in the 2nd Round, then you will pick who you think will win each match-up in that round, and then in the Conference Finals, and then in the Stanley Cup Finals. This way, it gives participants a chance to potentially mound a comeback if they happen to bust their brackets out early. (Plus it makes things more fun!)

- Whomever has the most amount of points at the end of this year’s playoffs will be announced the winner! If there’s a tie, then both participants will be announced the winners! Same goes with the loser(s) with the fewest amount points.

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

• Your Stanley Cup Champion Pick will be locked into place and cannot be changed or altered throughout the Playoffs once the deadline for the 1st Round has passed, which is on Wednesday, May 19th @ 3:30 P.S.T. / 6:30 E.S.T.. Once your Stanley Cup Champion Pick has been officially eliminated, then it’s officially eliminated for good!

• In order to compete for the Ashamed Fan Award, which goes to the participant(s) that finished in the pool in dead last, you basically have to fully participate and make your picks regardless of what you do from the 1st Round all the way until the end of the Playoffs in order to qualify for this achievement. You cannot do something like join in later on in the Playoffs and earn a zero and hope to earn the reward that way; you MUST participate from the start of the playoffs all the way until the end. There are some exceptions though, like if it’s Stanley Cup Finals and you have a massive lead (or, in this case, in a massive hole over the next particpant(s) below you) and it won’t ultimately change anything in the standings, then that’s okay, I'll allow it.

• Despite all that, newcomers can still join in the pool even during the later rounds if they wish. Although they are barred from winning the Ashamed Fan Award, Crystal Clairvoyant and the Brackcellent award and cannot pick a Stanley Cup Champion to earn the 2x bonus multiplier, they can still participate and earn some points.

The Scoring System:
Scoring in this game is super easy: If you happen to predict both the winning team and the correct number of games that the series ultimately went to, then you’ll score yourself 4 Points in the standings. Otherwise, if you happen to just pick the correct winning team but not the correct number of games, you’ll then just earn yourself only 2 Points in the standings. But if you happen to successfully predict the correct number of games and the opposite of the team that you happened to pick happens to win, then you’ll still earn yourself A Single Point in the standings for getting the correct number of games right. Oh, and if you managed to incorrectly guess both things wrong then you’ll earn yourself 0 Points. (You don't want that.)


But there is a caveat to all of this: If your Stanley Cup Champion Pick is involved in a series and manages to earn any points out of the outcome, even in the loss, you’ll receive double the points for a maximum of 8 points if your Stanley Cup Champion Pick can not only win the series, but you also happen to guess the correct number of games right. That’s a huuuggge game-changer and that’s why it’s so vitally important to pick the team who you believe is going to go the farthest in these 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 instead 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 winning participant(s) who manages to score the most amount of points at the end of this year’s playoffs will earn themselves the limited edition Connor McDavid Award which is worth 10 Makerscore and the title as champion… You even get yourself a little virtual banner that will hang above the rafters of RMN Place with all the other greats for ALL of eternity.


- But we can’t have all winners this year, as the participant(s) who finishes in dead last this year will earn themselves the Ashamed Fan Award worth A Single Makerscore Point as you basically earn how your teams did this year: not-so-great.


Also, if you happen to successfully predict this year’s eventual Stanley Cup Champion, you’ll earn yourself the Crystal Clairvoyant which is an award worth 5 Makerscore to commemorate your special ability to see into the future. (~ Oooo…!)


And the final award is the prestigious Brackcellent award which is given to the participant(s) that managed to score a perfect bracket throughout the entire Playoffs which is worth 25 Makerscore, an impressive feet indeed!

The Leaderboard:

T-1st	Addit	28 Pts
T-1st	Kentona	28 Pts
3rd	Kory_Toombs	24 Pts
4th	UPRC	23 Pts

The Players:
Addit's Picks:


Kentona's Picks:


Kory_Toombs' Picks:


UPRC's Picks:

author=kory_toombs
Okay, need to update my profile to match the current meta.

You can try and stop me, but your attempts at stopping me from repeating as champion WILL fail…! (Plus you picked the Toronto Maple Leafs to win the Stanley Cup. I mean… Actually...that’s not as crazy it would sound in other years past... But still - this IS the Toronto Maple Leafs we’re talking about. You know, the team that hasn’t won a playoff series since 2004 lol!)

I’m actually a little bit surprised that you didn’t go off the board and pick nothing but upsets, like that one year when you picked Columbus to go far in the playoffs and they ACTUALLY did. Hmm…

author=UPRC
Maple Leafs over Canadiens in 5

B-But…you’re a Canadiens fan! You can’t be a Canadiens fan and vote for the LEAFS in a series against them! (Unless you’re just covering all of your bases.)

I do want Toronto to choke again and laugh at them for losing to the Canadiens. But this year they actually look…good… (bleh.)

Well they surprised me, including everybody else last year when they managed to beat the Penguins and managed to take the Flyers to a Game 6. Nobody expected them to do anything last year and they FAR overachieved... Maybe they can do it again?

And I much prefer Montreal’s goaltending duo, with Price and Allen, than Campbell and Anderson. Campbell’s played pretty well in front of the Leafs this season but he’s never played in a playoff series before, so I’m not sure how that’s going to go… Of course they have Anderson, but he’s been shaky throughout his entire playoff tenure there - so who knows!

author=UPRC
There were a lot of games that Toffoli even won for the team because he's been a scoring monster. The Habs would probably have 4-5 more losses if Toffoli didn't find the net so many times.

(...God damn it, Benning... You just HAAADDD to keep underachievers like Jake Virtanen, Loui Erkisson, or even Brandon Sutter around who's always injured over a guy like this... Could have been useful!)

author=UPRC
Drouin is out indefinitely due to mental stress caused by the toxic Habs fans/media getting to him

Really, seriously!?!?!?

(Lol, aren't fans the greatest?)

I don’t know if it has something to do with everybody migrating to Discord as of late, Twitter, or maybe because of Covid and the shortened, later start to the season that most of the other hockey fans on this site, like GreatRedSpirit and Shinan, aren’t fully aware of what’s going on and don’t really visit the forums that much anymore to know about it, I dunno…but it seems like the numbers for this sort of thing are starting to dwindle to just a few of us nowadays… But whatever, I guess that means that the chance of us earning at least one achievement in this thing is a now a 50/50 chance and that’s fine with me! More achievements equal more makerscore! If people wanna miss out on this golden opportunity then...whatever.

I did add in a new rule this year that newcomers can still join in the later rounds and still participate and pick up points like the rest of us, but they’re barred from winning the Ashamed Fan Award (for last place), the Crystal Clairvoyant (because it would be WAAAYYY too easy to pick a Stanley Cup Champion when there’s like, two teams left in the entire thing, lol; it’s like what my dad used to do in our own family sports pools back in the day) and the Brackcellent award (because…again, too easy).

Maybe participation might change for next year when the NHL schedule goes back to normal, everybody’s back in their own divisions again, and fans are allowed to come back into the arenas. So I’m not ready to toss in the towel on this whole thing just yet! *checks watch* …And there’s still another hour-and-a-half left to go before the sign-up’s officially close. So there’s still time!!!

God damn it, Nashville! You can't win if you don't score!

EDIT: And holy shit, the Jets just pounded the Oilers in the 3rd period even without Dubois and Ehlers in the lineup. Even McDavid and Draisaitl didn't manage to score a point in this one either!

Hmmm...