With the playoffs officially come to a close, so to has this year's PPP Bracket Challenge. At the start of the playoffs, a 246 members and readers submitted their brackets.

PPP user Fallen_Leafs came out on top, predicting 13/15 series' correctly before the playoffs even began, including Pittsburgh over San Jose in the Stanley Cup Final. Fallen_Leafs finished 54th in the world, and missed only on Nashville over Anaheim and New York over Florida.

Among all PPP staff members, Gunnar Carlsson finished first (sixth overall) after picking 10/15 series' correctly, including Pittsburgh over San Jose. I finished second (15th overall), with 263 points. Elseldo finished last among PPP writers, predicting just 4/15 series' correctly in his bracket, all in the first round.

Beyond the bracket challenge, some of the staff also made pre-playoffs predictions on the conference champions, Stanley Cup champion, the number of games, and the Conn Smythe winner. All of myself, Katya and Gunnar correctly predicted the Penguins would win the Stanley Cup and in six games. Only Gunnar predicted the Sharks would be their opponent though (Katya had the Kings and I had the Blues). Both myself and Gunnar also predicted Crosby would win the Conn Smythe, while Katya predicted Letang would.

In our pre-playoff poll, 30% of readers predicted the Capitals would win the Cup, while 21% predicted the Pens.

The full PPP Bracket Challenge results are available here.

Congrats to Fallen_Leafs!