The NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs begin on Wednesday night, as sixteen teams will battle it out for the ultimate prize in ice hockey. With the defending champions of 2014 – the LA Kings, failing to make the playoffs, we are guaranteed to crown a new Stanley Cup champion in 2015. With this in mind, I set myself the task of simulating the entire playoff tournament, through EA’s latest incarnation of video game hockey.

How We Simulated Our NHL 15 Predictions

Inspired by GameSided’s 2015 MLB season simulation on MLB 15: The Show, I ran this simulation using a copy of NHL 15 for the Xbox One. Utilizing the game’s in-built Playoff Mode, I set each game to a standard five minutes per-period, using simulation settings. All current playoff rules were also chosen, and the latest rosters available (March 27th, 2015) were implemented, with slight alternations to bring the last few weeks of the season up to date. I chose to simulate every game. Due to limitations of viewing certain stats within Playoff Mode on NHL 15, some statistics have been left out of the report.

So, without further ado, click the button below to see which team were crowned champions of Gamesided’s Official 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs Simulation!