EA Sports loves to brag about how close to real-life their games are. As they've told us for years, "If it's in the game, it's in the game." They are so confident of the accuracy of their sports simulators that they are now using each game to attempt to predict a particular sport's champion for a given year. Since 2004, Madden Football has been used to predict the Super Bowl winner, with a pretty high degree of accuracy. This year, they've decided to up the ante, using NHL 09, 2008's Best Ever Sports Game, to predict the winner of this year's Stanley Cup.

According to EA, the Boston Bruins will defeat the Chicago Blackhawks in six games to hoist Lord Stanley's chalice over their collective heads. If this prediction comes true, it will mark the first time in 37 years that Boston has won hockey's premier trophy. Further, the precogs over at EA have determined that the winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy for playoff MVP will be right winger Phil Kessel, who will score 14 goals in the playoffs, with five coming in the Finals.

Now, it's impressive that Madden has picked the Super Bowl winner five out of six times. However, those predictions were all made after the playoffs had happened, when we already knew which teams would be playing. For this particular prediction, EA is attempting to guess the entirety of the playoffs. A bit more risky, sure, but in the long-run, if they're right, they'll seem like geniuses.

Any Boston fans out there excited by the news? Any hockey fans out there want to take issue with this prediction?

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