Nashville Predators Win the Virtual Stanley Cup on NHL20 Simulation

The real life NHL regular season and playoffs may not be completed, but in virtual reality the season was completed and the Nashville Predators won it all.

With the way video games have turned into virtual reality and so realistic, it’s a pretty cool thing to witness EA Sports’ NHL20 video game simulate out the 2019-20 regular season, per The Hockey News.

They dubbed this “Simulating The Season”, and it was a great idea by that staff and publication to give fans something to chew on and follow. Also helps you wonder “what if” this actually happened?

That’s where the Nashville Predators come in and their insane fate in this exercise.

As a fan of the Nashville Predators, I was interested to see if the simulations would have the them even make the playoffs considering they were residing firmly on that playoff bubble in real life.

Without real hockey to consume, this was a worthy alternative. Even more so if you’re already a gamer, which a majority of sports fans are.

In fitting fashion, the Predators barely got into the simulated playoff field by finishing with 92 points and getting a wildcard spot, along with the Winnipeg Jets. The Minneosta wild came just behind with 90 points.

Seems like pretty accurate finish to the regular season if you ask me.

Get your brooms out

Many Predators fans will never forget when the team swept the Chicago Blackhawks in 2017 en route to their first appearance in the Stanley Cup Final. It’s forever etched in our collective memories.

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The simulations saw an encore first-round sweep for the Nashville Predators. This time the victim was the St.Louis Blues.

If this actually happened in reality, it would rival the same shock and upset level to 2017 and the sweep of the Blackhawks. Not quite as big however, because the Predators did in reality sweep the four-game regular season series over the Blues.

This is where things get really weird, and hard to believe would have any chance of happening in real life.

The Predators would go on to sweep their next two series over the Colorado Avalanche in the second round, and the Calgary Flames in the Western Conference Finals.

As much as I would love for this to happen, I just can’t wrap my brain around it. Even if the Predators were performing at a much higher level near the top of the Western Conference standings, this is still completely unfathomable.

But it is fun to dream, I suppose. We’ll take what we can get as sports fans right now.

In all three of these simulated series where the Predators swept their opponents, Pekka Rinne stood tall and on his march to another Stanley Cup Final appearance.

Again, I find this glorious to dream about, but very hard to believe. First off, Juuse Saros would be the starter in net. Buy hey, I’ll keep dreaming because I don’t have real hockey to go off of and I like this alternate reality much better.

Preds hoist their first virtual Stanley Cup

Don’t tell me it’s virtual reality. I’m taking this to my sports bank and never forgetting it. The Predators get their sweet revenge over the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Stanley Cup Final.

This would be ratings gold for the NHL to get a rematch from the 2017 Stanley Cup Final. A series that went six games, and nearly went to seven games until Pittsburgh scored very late in the final period to clinch the Cup.

Once again, Rinne stood tall in this simulation and put forth one of the all-time best playoff performance in NHL history. A .947 save percentage and a 1.60 goals against average.

Considering how bad Rinne’s regular season was in reality of having a sub-90 save percentage and being benched multiple times for Saros, to even imagine this is difficult.

However, crazier things have happened and will continue to happen in sports. This is a hilarious outcome of Hockey News’ simulation to complete the 2019-20 season and give us diehard hockey fans something to talk about. Well done by them.

Other standouts for the Predators in the simulations were Ryan Johansen, Viktor Arvidsson, Filip Forsberg, Calle Jarnkrok and Kyle Turris. Aside from Forsberg and Jarnkrok, a group of players that you can argue fell short of expectations in real life.

Must Read. Early and Bold Predators Predictions for Next Season. light

Now we’re seeing live television simulations from Nascar on FS1. If this continues, other networks will have to start getting creative and venture into virtual reality like this. It’s not a bad idea for other to take this idea to live television.

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