EA Sports, famous for their NHL Hockey series of games, knows a lot about hockey. They harvest every last micrometer of data they can and cram it into their games until you almost expect the virtual Sedin brothers to become sentient and try to break out of your Xbox. Last year, their pick for the Stanley Cup (Chicago) was spot-on. This year, they said the Canucks would win the series. Well, technically not this year–back in October, actually, before playoffs started and when hope of playoffs success was dimmest.
Not only did EA Sports predict the Canucks would win the Cup, they also predicted that Vancouver would beat the Sharks 4-2 in the Western Conference playoffs, and that Boston would beat Tampa Bay to become Eastern Conference champs (the sim isn’t perfect, though: the Bruins won 4-3, not 4-2 as was predicted).
Here’s footage of the sim predicting Vancouver’s earlier win against the Sharks. Check out how eerily close they got to the actual series.