Back in early October, I fielded predictions for how many points each of the Rangers' forwards would accumulate over the season. Those predictions can be found here. Below are the results, posted, to the best of my ability from Excel. If anyone notices an error, please let me know.

The results show the 12 Ranger forwards projected to start the season. Below each player is their 2010-2011 point total, their 2011-2012 point total, and each Banterite's prediction for the 2011-2012 season. Next to each prediction is the absolute value of the difference between predicted and actual point total. The final column is the sum of each entries differences.

I would've liked to highlight the closest guesses for each player, but alas, I don't care to learn how to do it in a Fan Post. Instead I'll have to write them out. For Anisimov (point total: 36), the closest guess was Zesta with 45. For Boyle, yours truly correctly predicted 26 points. Two participants, George E. Smurf and babscher called Cally's 54 points. rsk329 won the Dubi award (34), and to think, he was only 23 points off. Moving along, babscher correctly called Feds (20), MyFavBanterite aced Gabby (76), and Njblueshirt and Zesta were both one off on Prust (17). I nailed Richards (his point total, that is) with 66 and am part of a 4-way (tie, that is) on Rupp along with RichietoGabby, MyFav, and Zesta; we all guessed 12 points to Rupp's 5 (but wasn't that Winter Classic awesome?). Finally (ready your face palms), rsk wins the dubious Wolski category (3) with a guess of 30 and MyFav the Zucc (3) with a guess of 34.

The ultimate winner is MyFavoriteBaseballSquadron, whose total difference was 153 (remember, the lower the score the better, like golf or cholesterol tests). He's followed by Zesta02 with 157 and Njblueshirt with 159. The rest of us lose.

Final thoughts: Ah the wonders of group-think and the anchoring bias and unbridled optimism. Our guesses were annoyingly homogenous and in most instances, predictions didn't stray far from last season's point total. Predictions were also understandably optimistic for a group of Ranger fanatics. For six out of the twelve forwards, every entered predictions that ended up exceeding the actual total. For another two, no one entered a guess lower than actual total. Only Stepan was able to exceed our group expectations; all but two participants underestimated Step's point total. It's funny to think that in a year when the Rangers as a team exceeded everyone's expectations, they failed to meet our expectations for individual production. Stupid successful defensive hockey, we want Harlem Globetrotter-esque scoring. You can take your 1-seed and shove it, Rangers.