They got in on the last day and backed in at that. I don’t care. The Wings made the postseason for the 25th straight season by being the 3rd-best team in the Atlantic. Say what you will about how close they made it or what their chances are. Again, I don’t care. If you thought they were going to miss, you were wrong.
In that vein, here are the people who said as much before the season even started.
Puck Daddy’s Jen Neale, Josh Cooper, and Darryl Dobber on October 7th
Wyshynski, Leahy, and even Lambert picked in favor of the Wings, but then you got to the other folks they tapped for opinions and things went downhill.
Neale, the Ducks fan, got us started off on the right foot with just kind of praying it happened while being pretty right on about the Bruins and Flyers (while also picking Columbus to make it)
Detroit will finally miss the playoffs after a million years. Philly is in midlife crisis mode going for a hot new coach. Boston doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing with the roster. One thing we know for sure, Babcock’s first season in Toronto is going to be painful, leaving him to wistfully stare across the Great Lakes thinking about ‘what could have been’ with Mike Green on his team.
Cooper (the guy who used to write about the Predators all the time) didn’t even mention Detroit while picking them to finish fourth in the division and out of the playoffs, but he also picked Columbus to make it. Then again, Cooper also said the Senators would fall off and the Panthers would rise, so he wasn’t all wrong.
Dobber picked the Sens to finish ahead of Detroit and had this blurb to laugh at in regards to which teams count as “elite” in this conference
I can see the Eastern Conference requiring 96 or even 97 points to get in, with the Red Wings battling to the last but in the end – the playoff streak is over. There will be a dogfight amongst the elite teams in this conference, with the Lightning, Penguins, Rangers, Capitals and Islanders within three points of each other. There is a definite separation between the elite and the very good.
Sam McCaig also picked the Senators ahead of Detroit for fourth in the Atlantic, but then explained he thought the Wings would extend their streak, despite also saying the Metropolitan would send five teams, so that’s not so much something to laugh at as it is something to cock your head sideways at.
Amanda Stein at The Guardian on October 7th
Out of the four people, Amanda was the only one gutsy enough to make this prediction:
Good work, Amanda.
SB Nation’s own cfbot in the nation’s big season preview
In fairness, cfbot is a robot who picks things entirely randomly, but screw you cfbot and your stupid picks.
Nobody else picked the Wings to finish lower than third in the Atlantic, so of course they all picked the Wings to make the playoffs (even Kyle!). You’ll notice this here and in lots of spaces, but the preseason opinions on the Canadiens were WAAAAAY wrong. Then again, I can’t really blame people for thinking the Canadiens would be better and also I’m not interested in laughing at people for being wrong about that because hahahahaahahaha Canadiens.
TSN’s Frank Seravalli on October 5th
Seravalli went with 30 bold predictions rather than just a straight-up “who’s going to make the playoffs”, so it’s even better that he decided to pick against the Red Wings.
11. The Detroit Red Wings will miss the playoffs for the first time in 25 seasons. Mike Babcock is gone. Pavel Datsyuk, Danny DeKeyser and Darren Helm are all already out to start the season. And the Wings have all sorts of questions in goal, with Jimmy Howard on the hot seat after being overtaken by Petr Mrazek in the playoffs. It’s unlikely the Atlantic gets four teams through this year, making tough sledding for Jeff Blashill
In fairness, he was right about the Atlantic not sending four teams and the questions in goal thing, but he was wrong about the important part and for that, Frank Seravalli can eat it.
Two Guys from SportsQuotient on October 6th
I’m not really familiar with this site, but hahaha to the dude who bought into the Senators magic run last year.
Taylor Baird and Erin Bolen at Stars site Defending Big D
Dallas fans don’t like us because we used to be in their conference and own them, so credit these picks to thirsty wishful thinking as much as you’d like. They were wrong and that’s what matters.
Special shout out to Wes who also thought the Sens magic would last. Though Wes had the Wings making the playoffs so his chops can go relatively un-busted.
NHL.com’s Brian Compton on Twitter
Atlantic: TBL-MTL-FLA-OTT-DET-BOS-TOR-BUF. #NHL
— Brian Compton (@BComptonNHL) October 7, 2015
At least he got us finishing ahead of Boston correct. Woo!
Gifboy and Bruins fan Pete Blackburn on October 7th
East:
1. TBL
2. WAS
3. PIT
4. MTL
5. NYI
6. NYR
7. CBJ
8. BOSWest:
1. ANA
2. CHI
3. STL
4-8: Literally anybody not named VAN or ARI— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) October 7, 2015
Hahaha the Blue Jackets. Good work, Pete.
