What happens a season after a perennially playoff-cursed team wins the Stanley Cup in a finals matchup against an expansion club? As we’re seeing around the NHL so far in the first two weeks of the schedule, the chaos of last year’s conclusion has extended into this season’s first month. 24 of the league’s 31 Franchises sit within two games of .500 for the year. That makes almost every matchup at this early stage of the campaign nearly a coin flip to forecast. That being said, last week’s swarm went 5-3, although the Rangers upset win over the Avalanche in a shootout marred things somewhat. Here’s how the weekly swarm of NHL fans sees tonight’s schedule.

For years, the Penguins have been one of the NHL’s most dominant franchises. Aging stars, a salary cap, and the simple gradual churn of a roster over time have knocked the franchise from a position of complete dominance to being just one of many good teams in the super-competitive Metropolitan Division. The Pens are in Edmonton tonight to face an Oilers team that is trying to shake the image of being Connor McDavid and then just a bunch of guys. The swarm likes the visitors in this contest.

The replay above shows that there’s initially some support for Edmonton in this matchup. One of the things that helps to distinguish higher confidence predictions from lower confidence calls is when behavior is observed to act in the way it does there. That Edmonton support basically melts away quickly, suggesting very little conviction on the part of those swarm participants pulling that way. In fact, on a day when the swarm didn’t feel comfortable with any high confidence predictions, it’s in this game that they may have come closest to making one.

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