Looking Back and Playoff Picks

(click here for last year's predictions and here for last year's recap)

1. Jarome Iginla’s 30-goal streak will come to an end – and he will miss 30 even if it’s pro-rated for 82 games.

Pro-rated, Iggy got 26 goals.

2. Sven Baertschi, Mikael Backlund and TJ Brodie will combine for 50 points this season.

40 points, but had they all played, say, 35 games they would've got 50.

3. They will also play at least 120 games between the three of them.

99 games. At 120 games, they would've produced 49 points.

4. Miikka Kiprusoff finishes with a .921 EVSV%.

Haha ooooh boy. .889 EVSV% for Kipper this year. That's a difference of 18 goals, or, 6 points.

5. Dennis Wideman will disappoint, contributing less than 15 points and he will get killed defensively.

22 points for Wideman. I was actually rather pleased with his play this season.

6. Curtis Glencross‘ SH% will stay above 15% for the year, because he is insane.

16.3%.

7. Jiri Hudler will score 20 points this season, but will suffer on the advanced side of things without Henrik Zetterberg.

This was kind of a gimmie.

8. The Flames‘ goal differential will be at least +10.

Heh. -32, much of which was caused by nothing more than crap goaltending.

9. The team will dominate on Saddledome ice, but will be just under .500 on the road.

They had a good home record, but the 13-gamer on the road was terrible.

10. Bob Hartley's deployment of players will actually make some sense.

Yes, actually.

11. Anton Babchuk, Roman Horak and Steve Begin will play less than 20 games combined this year.

Uh-uh. 63.

12. Jay Feaster will once again stand pat at the deadline except for one depth move.

Well, I guess if you don't include the days before the trade deadline I was right.

13. Roman Cervenka won’t be a number one centerman, but he’ll be a decent enough number two – and that’s good enough for me.

I thought Cervenka was okay this season. Apparently he's not a centerman though, so…

14. Leland Irving will have a disastrous season, finishing with a EVSV% of under .910.

Haha man he's terrible. .884, costing the team 9 goals and 3 points.

15. As a result, the team will replace him with Henrik Karlsson, who will play a couple of games and get a couple of wins.

Nope.

16. Cory Sarich will be the default #6 man, which is annoying as all hell given the $2 million he’ll be making this season.

Injuries and eventually trades made this untrue but Sarich was rarely away from the bottom pairing.

17. Mike Cammalleri will bounce back in a big way this season, putting up at least 35 points.

32 points, but he also missed 4 games.

18. This will be the last season we see Matt Stajan in a Flames uniform.

To be determined, but I'd be shocked if he wasn't back this year.

19. This will be the last season we see Kipper in a Flames uniform.

Yup.

20. The Flames will perform better than Nashville, Dallas, Columbus, Phoenix, Colorado, Detroit and Edmonton – and thus will finish 8th in the conference, making it to the 2nd round before being eliminated in Iggy and Kipper's last hurrah.

Nope.

Now, let's take a look at the playoffs. Here's my picks:

CHI over MIN in 5

DET over ANA in 6

VAN over SJ in 6

LA over STL in 6

PIT over NYI in 4

OTT over MTL in 7

WSH over NYR in 5

BOS over TOR in 4

Go Pens.

by Richard Hammond