The NHL post-season has officially begun, and once again, EA Sports has run a simulation to see how each of the current rounds will play out. This has become a yearly tradition, and it’s always interesting to see how closely the prediction matches the actual results. This year has a very surprising team coming out on top, because it’s a city that hasn’t hoisted the Stanley Cup since 1967. Yes, NHL 25 is predicting a victory for the Toronto Maple Leafs! According to the simulation, the Leafs will defeat the Colorado Avalanche in Game 7 to win it all.
Now, it should be noted that this is all just a simulation, and the Leafs have a few rounds to win before this has any chance of panning out. In fact, Toronto will begin their series against the Ottawa Senators later today. The NHL 25 simulation says that the Leafs will then knock out the Florida Panthers, and sweep the Montreal Canadiens, before moving on to Colorado in the finals. That would make for a pretty dramatic climb to the top, and one that the people of Toronto would be pretty happy about!
Colorado’s rise to the finals seems equally exciting, if NHL 25‘s simulation is anything to go by. In real-life, the Avs blew out the Dallas Stars 5-1 in Game 1 on Saturday, and the simulation predicts a pretty easy first round overall for the team; NHL 25 claims Dallas will win just 1 game before getting knocked out. The Avalanche will similarly make short work of Winnipeg, while squeaking past the Las Vegas Golden Knights in a 4-3 series, before losing to Toronto.
EA’s predictions can be interesting to gauge against the final results. Last year, NHL 24 predicted a win for the Vancouver Canucks. However, the actual victory went to the Florida Panthers instead, a team the simulation predicted would not make it past the first round. That obviously did not play out as predicted, but NHL 25 had better results predicting the winner of the first ever 4 Nations Face-Off. In February, the game predicted that Team Canada would defeat Team U.S.A. in a 4-3 overtime victory. The actual results were pretty close to that prediction, with Team Canada getting a 3-2 overtime win in the real-world.
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While it’s fun to look at these predictions each year, NHL fans shouldn’t put too much stock into them. The reality is, sports are very hard to predict, and an injury or 2 can drastically change a team’s trajectory in the NHL playoffs. One team can seem to have all the pieces in place at the start of the playoffs, only for things to go in a totally different direction due to unforeseen circumstances. We’ll have to wait to see how things play out for the Leafs and all the rest of the teams this year!
Do you think this is finally the year for the Toronto Maple Leafs? Which team are you rooting for in the playoffs? Share your thoughts with me directly on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!
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