EA Sports’ playoff simulator has picked the Montreal Canadiens to win the Stanley Cup, and it did it in a way that made the bracket look almost improbable. The simulation had Montreal surviving three separate Game 7s before beating the Minnesota Wild in six games in the final.
The prediction lands with a particular jolt because Canada has not had a Stanley Cup champion since the Canadiens last won in 1993, a drought now stretching 33 years. Only three Canadian teams were in the playoffs this year, and Montreal carried the lowest betting odds of the group at +2200 on FanDuel, behind Minnesota at +1500.
That gap between simulation and betting market is part of what makes the result stand out. EA Sports also projected the Dallas Stars would lose to the Wild in the opening round, the Philadelphia Flyers would beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, and Minnesota would knock off the Colorado Avalanche in six games in the second round. The company has made annual Stanley Cup predictions before, and last year it correctly called the Toronto Maple Leafs to make a deep run by forcing the eventual champion Florida Panthers to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semi-Final.
For Montreal, the headline is not just that the simulator likes the Canadiens. It is that the game engine is asking them to clear one pressure-packed round after another before it will even hand them a shot at the trophy. That is a long way from a betting board, and an even longer way from 1993.
If the simulation is any guide, Montreal would have to keep winning the kind of games that turn into season-defining tests. If it is wrong, it will only add one more entry to the long list of spring predictions that do not survive the bracket.
