Just when the sports world was putting the finishing touches on a year of greater normalcy than 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic struck back with a vengeance. Since Dec. 13 alone, the NHL has postponed 93 games (and counting) over the virus, while the NBA postponed 11 games and the NFL rescheduled three games. Five college […]
When we looked back last December at the state of the sports world in 2020, we could only marvel at a bizarre juxtaposition: While the COVID-19 pandemic created the strangest year of sports in anybody’s memory, the winners of the major sports were about as predictable as could be. Across the NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, […]
As we look back on the highs and lows of 2021’s sports calendar, it’s tempting to crown certain teams as the best — or worst — in all of sports, not just their sport. That’s been difficult to do across the pro sports landscape … until now. We here at FiveThirtyEight made a concerted effort […]
When the Montreal Canadiens made the Stanley Cup final last season, it marked the first time a Canadian NHL team had advanced to the brink of championship in a decade (since the Vancouver Canucks fell short in 2011) and provided a chance for Canada to win its first Cup since 1993. Although Montreal ultimately lost […]
When we launched our NHL prediction model going into this season, one of the big questions we had to answer was what to do with the expansion Seattle Kraken. While the history of expansion teams is generally ugly, littered with some of the worst performances in professional league histories, that appeared to change forever (in […]