The first round is over and there are no doubt plenty of pundits weighing in on the second round, giving expert analysis on who is likely to advance and why (I will be one of these fools later today). But can you really trust these people? How did their predictions fare in the first round?

I think every time someone gives their predictions they should be forced to show their all-time record, or at the very least their record that season. So in honour of full disclosure I’m showing how my predictions fared in the first round. To make myself feel smart I’m comparing them to so-called hockey experts.

It’s hard to be overly excited about the success of my predictions considering there was very little difference between pundit choices. Everyone picked the Capitals, Penguins, Sharks, and Hawks to advance. Even the Montreal newspapers were picking the Capitals to walk away with the series. I checked both the Gazette (Montreal’s English newspaper) and La Presse (one of the city’s French papers) and only one writer had the guts to pick the Canadiens – Ronald King. I don’t know anything about him; maybe he has a history of mental illness.

Well, I guess he’s smarter than all of us because thanks to Boston and Montreal he went 7-1 with his predictions.

The series that had some difference of opinion (Devils-Flyers, Sabres-Bruins, Canucks-Kings, Wings-Coyotes) were still predominantly favouring the higher seed (except in the Wings series, but most people still picked them despite being the lower seed). There were only a few deviations from the norm here and there. For the most part everyone’s predictions looked very similar and the standings below reflect this. No one did terribly and no one was perfect (from what I could find).

That being said, my predictions put me in a tie for second place. PLAYOFFS! And for the record, I didn’t just search out the various predictions that would make me look good! In fact, I actively searched out someone who picked the Canadiens. This list is a pretty wide sampling of hockey writers from various media.

Here’s how everyone fared in the first round, including myself.

Name	Affiliation	Record	Wrong Picks
Ronald King	La Presse	7-1	Devils
Matt Horner	Five Minutes For Fighting	6-2	Caps, Sabres
Paul Hunter/Kevin McGran	Toronto Star	6-2	Caps, Sabres
Pierre LeBrun	ESPN/CBC	5-3	Caps, Devils, Sabres
Barry Melrose	ESPN/Mullet	5-3	Caps, Devils, Sabres
Matthew Barnaby	ESPN	5-3	Caps, Devils, Sabres
John Buccigross	ESPN	5-3	Caps, Sabres, Kings
Scott Burnside	ESPN	5-3	Caps, Sabres, Kings
Bob McKenzie	TSN	5-3	Caps, Sabres, Kings
Eklund	Hockeybuzz.com	5-3	Caps, Sabres, Coyotes
Puck Daddy	Yahoo	5-3	Caps, Devils, Sabres
Adam Proteau	The Hockey News	5-3	Caps, Sabres, Kings
Michael Farber	Sports Illustrated	5-3	Caps, Sabres, Kings
Chris Stevenson	Toronto Sun	5-3	Caps, Devils, Coyotes
Ken Warren	Montreal Gazette	5-3	Caps, Devils, Sabres
David Shoalts/Eric Duhatschek	Globe and Mail	4-4	Caps, Devils, Sabres, Coyotes