With the puck about to drop on the 2019-20 season, our writers weigh in on their predictions for both player and team awards and accomplishments. 

Let's start with the players:


Connor McDavid’s speculated long recovery from his knee injury in April wasn’t enough to concern the panel, as he was the clear consensus projected winner of both the Art Ross Trophy and Hart Trophy.

The panel also believes in Andrei Vasilevskiy as the clear number one goalie, along with Shayne Gostisbehere as the player most likely to rebound. There was less consensus among the other picks, as you can see. 

An interesting observation: Jack Hughes was a popular choice both for the Calder Trophy and for the player most likely to disappoint. This reflects the uncertainty that many rookies have, even ones as highly regarded as Hughes.

Now the teams:


This season should be a highly competitive one with lots of teams in the mix. Only one team (Tampa Bay) was the sole winner in its division, and it wasn't unanimous by any means, with Toronto receiving plenty of votes. Tampa was also chosen to complete the task that it could not last season, which is win the Stanley Cup. The most popular pick to face them in the Stanley Cup Final is Vegas, who would already be making their second Stanley Cup Final appearance in just three NHL seasons!

Agree? Disagree? Comments?

About the panel:

Dobber launched this website in 2005 after he was the fantasy hockey columnist for The Hockey News website, The Fantasy Sports Network, and a contributor to The Forecaster. DobberHockey has since grown into the Dobber Sports Network and has work can be found across the Internet, including on Sportsnet.

Ian Gooding is the managing editor of DobberHockey and a regular writer on the daily Ramblings beat. He has also contributed to many other sites, including Sportsnet, Today’s Slapshot, Kukla’s Korner, and fantasyhockey.com.

Mike Clifford is an associate editor of DobberHockey and contributor for Rotowire and other fantasy hockey ventures.

Cam Robinson is the managing editor at DobberProspects and, along with Ian Gooding and Mike Clifford, collaborates to daily Ramblings. He is a regular guest on Vancouver sports talk radio.

Mario Prata is the manager of special projects and marketing for Dobber Sports. He is also a co-founder of the famous The Sports Forecaster magazine.

Eric Daoust manages our valued Frozen Pool section.

Tom Collins writes the weekly Top 10 column that can be found here every Monday.

Rick Roos authors the weekly Roos Let Loose column every Wednesday. He is the former Cage Match writer for Dobber Hockey.

Adam Daly-Frey checks out what's coming down the pipe with the Looking Ahead column every Friday.

Alex MacLean authors the salary cap column Capped, which can be found here every Thursday.

Brennan DeSouza writes the Eastern Edge column every Tuesday, and gives us the latest injury information every Wednesday.

Brayden Olafson pens the weekly prospect column The Journey that can be found here every Saturday. He has also contributed to Dobber Prospects.

Grant Campbell writes the Frozen Pool Forensics column on Fridays.

Chris Kane writes the weekly Wild West column every Monday.

Flip Livingstone is our Saturday game picks author and our line combinations author. He is a former NHL writer for theScore with past experience at such outlets as Postmedia, Hockey Night in Canada, and the CBC.

Ben Burnett is our new Geek of the Week author. You can find his work published every Sunday.