With round 2 of the playoffs wrapped up and a few days of rest penciled into the schedule, there’s no better time to check in on how the entrants in the Puck++ Playoff Prediction Challenge are doing. As a reminder on the format, each entrant provided the probability that each team would win a given series, with each entry scored using the Brier Score. Entrants who provided picks for round 1 but missed the round 2 deadline were given a default guess of 0.5 in each series to keep things interesting and to allow people to jump back in for round 3. I’ve also included a Naïve set of predictions, which were generated using the regular season results as a measure of a team’s “true talent”.
With all that said, let’s take a look at who’s sitting in the driver’s seat heading into the conference finals:
| Name | Twitter Account | Round 1 Score | Round 2 Score | Round 2 Correct | Total Score |
| @stat_sam | @stat_sam | 0.226 | 0.101 | 4 | 0.184 |
| Naïve | 0.208 | 0.166 | 3 | 0.194 | |
| Carrie | @3GoalieNight | 0.167 | 0.250 | – | 0.195 |
| Hannu Seppälä | @Hannibaali | 0.217 | 0.158 | 4 | 0.197 |
| Arik Parnass | @ArikParnass | 0.218 | 0.171 | 3 | 0.202 |
| Travis Chambers | @chambers3030 | 0.231 | 0.146 | 3 | 0.203 |
| Greg Sinclair | @theninjagreg | 0.260 | 0.090 | 3 | 0.203 |
| Nick | @npemptage | 0.219 | 0.203 | 4 | 0.213 |
| Louis Pomerantz | 0.230 | 0.183 | 3 | 0.215 | |
| Mike Lopez | @statsbylopez | 0.227 | 0.190 | 2 | 0.215 |
| Matthew Katz | @matcat1116 | 0.248 | 0.164 | 4 | 0.220 |
| Phil Curry | @phil_doha | 0.237 | 0.193 | 3 | 0.222 |
| Lucas Friesen | @lucasfriesen | 0.228 | 0.226 | 2 | 0.227 |
| Legs Feed Wolf | @cartoysch1 | 0.244 | 0.208 | 3 | 0.232 |
| Matt Cane | @Cane_Matt | 0.255 | 0.204 | 4 | 0.238 |
| Glen Jones | @jimbobray | 0.232 | 0.250 | – | 0.238 |
| Dom | @omgitsdomi | 0.277 | 0.167 | 3 | 0.240 |
| jrho | 0.238 | 0.264 | 2 | 0.246 | |
| Daniel W | @DanielT_W | 0.254 | 0.239 | 2 | 0.249 |
| Ryan Gillman | @ryangillman | 0.300 | 0.153 | 4 | 0.251 |
| Woodguy | @woodguy55 | 0.254 | 0.250 | – | 0.253 |
| Scott Elrod | @scelrod13 | 0.297 | 0.166 | 3 | 0.253 |
| LedgerSko | @LedgerSko | 0.261 | 0.250 | – | 0.257 |
| Andrew DeWitt | @andrewrdewitt | 0.263 | 0.250 | – | 0.259 |
| TsetseFly | @Tsetse_fly | 0.268 | 0.250 | – | 0.262 |
| A.C. Thomas | @acthomasca | 0.271 | 0.250 | – | 0.264 |
| Luke Coryea | @LCoryea | 0.280 | 0.250 | – | 0.270 |
| Chris Kang | @charlestreykang | 0.289 | 0.250 | – | 0.276 |
| petbugs | @petbugs13 | 0.328 | 0.174 | 3 | 0.276 |
| Arvind Shrivats | @SunkenCost | 0.330 | 0.170 | 3 | 0.277 |
| Marcus Bordage | @M_Bordage | 0.342 | 0.166 | 2 | 0.283 |
| Shane O’Donnell | @shane1342o | 0.310 | 0.250 | – | 0.290 |
| Micah Blake McCurdy | @IneffectiveMath | 0.317 | 0.250 | – | 0.295 |
| tylerisprobablywrong | @tyler_tp | 0.323 | 0.250 | – | 0.299 |
| Nilesh Shah | @nileshshah196 | 0.367 | 0.218 | 3 | 0.317 |
| PopsTwitTar | @PopsTwitTar | 0.625 | 0.163 | 3 | 0.471 |
*Note that the total score is not the sum of the round 1 and round 2 scores, but rather the total when weighting all series results equally.
Sam Ventura of War on Ice has leaped up from 5th to overtake Carrie (@3GoalieNight) who unfortunately didn’t get her picks in on time for round 2. Sam went 4 for 4 with his round 2 picks, and was bested only by Greg “@theninjagreg” Sinclair in terms of overall score for round 2. The Naïve pick set still remains in second, either a source of shame for the whole community, or a reminder that the sample size is still only 12 series and that we may not want to all throw out our models at once.*Note that the total score is not the sum of the round 1 and round 2 results, but rather the total when weighting each series equally.
Stray observations:
- The least surprising result of round 2 according to the entries: Anaheim over Calgary. But you probably could have guessed that anyways.
- The most surprising series: The Rangers over Washington. It’s worth noting, however, that this would have qualified as the 3rd least surprising result of round 1. There was a fair amount of consensus amongst most of the picks in round 2, and the results generally tended to align with most people’s picks.
- With that being said, the overall predictions did well overall in round 2: 76% of the picks submitted wound up being correct, up from 52% in round 1.
- There are now 18 entries (19, if you include the Naïve set) that are beating a “coin-flip” selection set (where each series is set to 50%). That’s up from 14 (15 with the Naïve set) in round 1. Progress!
- I’m in 15th which is not great, but I’d like to think that’s just because I’m up against such great competition (subtext: please don’t stop reading what I write).
Entries for round 3 are due by puck drop on Saturday: the form for entering can be found here. As always, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to tweet or email or leave an angrily worded tirade in the comments section.
puck++ 
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