The next big thing on ice: Forecasting this season's top teams

— -- This story appears in ESPN The Magazine's October 17 Great Debates Issue. Subscribe today!

LOOKING FOR A Stanley Cup winner? Start with the regular season. For that we turn to Hockey Prospectus VUKOTA, a system that uses past performance to project a team's goal differential. Barry Melrose and I faced off on the predictions -- and give our Cup picks.