Kind of like the East, the top 5 in the West seem consistent, with minor shuffling based on whether Detroit or Chicago wins the Central and Calgary or Vancouver wins the Northwest (with everyone agreeing that the Sharks win the Pacific). Then there is Anaheim, which seems to be the West’s version of New Jersey – some have them as high as 5th, while others have them out of the playoffs entirely. And again, aside from the two abysses – Colorado and Phoenix – every other team enters the season with a plausible chance at the playoffs.
You have to give Sharks GM Doug Wilson credit for completely blowing things up this summer. Even if they were thoroughly embarrassed in the playoffs, this is still the President’s Trophy winner. They already had a ridiculous level of offensive talent and depth and then they added 50 goal scorer Dany Heatley. Thornton setting up Heatley and Boyle on the powerplay? Jesus. Aside from the Heatley blockbuster, Wilson only made minor moves for role players. Nabakov seems to be on the downside of his career and their defense isn’t exactly lockdown, but it shouldn’t matter with the unbelievable group of veteran and up-and-coming scorers. Playing in the easiest division, they should be able to cruise through the regular season again.
This is the season for Calgary to show that they are still legitimate contenders with Iginla and Kiprusoff. Brent Sutter is a better coach than Mike Keenan, as he continually had the Devils playing better than they were. Now with Jay Bouwmeester, Dion Phaneuf can try to get back to worrying about his defensive play, which fans have started to negatively notice. They should benefit from Olli Jokinen playing for a contract, which should help to soften the loss of Mike Cammalleri. Kiprusoff has progressively looked worse over the past few years, so they will need Phaneuf, Bouwmeester and Reegher to help him out. I think they’ll disproportionately benefit from the Olympics, since they threw a major wrench into Vancouver’s schedule.
I’m going with Detroit in the Central, simply because Chicago won’t have Hossa until at least December. They lost major scoring from Hossa and some secondary scoring in Mikael Samuelsson and Jiri Hudler, but it will simply allow new prospects, like Justin Abdelkater and Ville Leino, to step in. Their defense has some question marks *cough, Brad Stuart, cough* and Chris Osgood is most crapped-on Stanley Cup winning goalie ever (side-note: why do “technically proficient” butterfly goalies get a free pass for giving up tons of soft goals, but any “unorthodox” goalie like an Osgood or Tim Thomas is perpetually deemed an illegitimate starter?) Thy just have too much experience, too much depth and too much unbelievable talent on their top D pair and top line.
There’s just too much crap surrounding Chicago heading into the season to feel good about them running away with a tough division. As much as I crap on Hossa, he is an elite scorer coming to team full of young, rapidly improving offensive stars. My concern is that after shoulder surgery, a sniper will need time to find his shot again, so it could be January before he is scoring at his normal clip. After the gaffe in tendering offer to their RFA’s, there might be some hostility towards the organization from this group of six (Versteeg, Brouwer, Barker, Fraser, Eager and Johnson), which may result in a drop in their game. After battling injuries and losing his job in the playoffs, it’s a little scary to think that they are going to ride Cristobal Huet as their goalie, with no legitimate backup behind him. If the offense is playing at its best, it will take a lot of the pressure off him though.
As I mentioned above, the Canucks were pretty thoroughly screwed by the Olympics being held in Vancouver. Their schedule puts them on a ridiculous 14 game road trip in the middle of the season. Plus, Luongo will likely play significantly for Team Canada. They bolstered their defense with Christian Ehrhoff and Matthieu Schneider, which can’t hurt when Andrew Raycroft is your backup and your starter will need extra time off. I think they need a strong start, so they can try to pull-back for that middle portion from late January until early March. Depending on how they come out of that stretch, they could then make a strong push in the playoffs. I like their group of forwards – the Sedins, Shirokov, Kessler and Burrows – and they are likely one more top 6 player away from being a serious contender.
I absolutely love the Blues and for some reason, a lot of people have them missing the playoffs. They had absolutely no scoring from the blue-line last year, a shit ton of injuries and still made the playoffs. Now you add back Erik Johnson, Eric Brewer, Andy McDonald and Paul Kariya (and Chris Mason opens the season as the starter, skipping over the whole Manny LeGace era) and this team should be poised for improvement. How Andy Murray didn’t win the Adams Trophy remains a complete mystery to me. Add in a year of growth and experience for T.J. Oshie, David Perron and Patrick Berglund and this team looks like a force, even if they play in the ridiculously deep Central.
And sticking with the Central, I am enthralled with the Blue Jackets too. More than anything else, this team gets an edge because of Ken Hitchcock’s great defensive system. Short of injuries to one of their major players – like Nash or Mason – they should be able to eke into one of these final three spots. While most goalies experience a drop-off in their second season, I think Hitchcock’s system is perfect to allow a young goalie develop confidence. I loved the pick-up of Antoine Vermette at last year’s trade deadline and he looked great centering Nash and Huselias. Keep an eye on Nikita Filatov as a Calder Trophy candidate. If they can improve their abysmal powerplay, they could be a scary team in the playoffs.
At times last year, it looked like the Kings were starting to come together, especially late in the season. Jonathan Quick looked solid in net. Drew Doughty and Jack Johnson looked good on the blue-line. Anze Kopitar didn’t take the next step to stardom, but is a quality talent along with Dustin Brown. They overpaid for Rob Scuderi and took on Ryan Smyth’s abysmal contract, which should add some veteran grit. Surprisingly, given years of high draft picks, they are still a forward away from being able to get to the playoffs. If they add someone, I think they’re a lock, otherwise, it will require a lot of their young guys taking a big step, especially offensively.
I can’t decide on if I like Anaheim or not, but I am pretty sure that I don’t. Losing Pronger and Beauchamin hurts a lot, especially since their goalie situation is up in the air and their scoring depth drops considerably after the ridiculous Ryan-Getzlaf-Perry line. The thinking was that Jonas Hiller would be the number 1 goalie, but with the iffy defense and Giguere looking over his should, he may have a hard time establishing a rhythm in net. More than the defense, they will miss Pronger’s offense, especially on the powerplay. They are trying to shed a lot of Brian Burke’s players to become more of a finesse team, which seems like a mistake in the West, where Detroit and San Jose can be pushed around.
Edmonton was close last year and then sputtered at the end, falling out of the playoffs. They have a ton of talented forwards, but, like LA, none are superstar level talents. For whatever reason, they picked up Khabibulin, who was coming off a decent season, considering it was a contract year with a lot to prove. They really need more consistent production from the forwards or one player, but given the use of no-trade clauses to block moves to Edmonton (see: Heatley, Dany), I’m not sure who they could get. New assistant coach Tom Renney should be able to get the team to play a solid defensive structure, but I’m not sure if new head coach Patt Quinn will light a fire under the team’s offense.
I fully expected Minnesota to try to blow their team up this summer, but it didn’t happen. Promising a wide-open style, they hired Sharks assistant Todd Richards. Then, to overhaul their roster, let their Czech, flashy, oft-injured, star rightwinger go, only to turn around and sign a different Czech, flashy, oft-injured, star rightwinger. And that was about the extent of their moves. I don’t know what to expect from this team, since it was mostly built on a defense-first, trap system. They paid Niklas Backstrom big money, but his goaltending resume was built under a system designed to make a goalie look good. I think they could be contention for the playoffs, or they could even be in contention for the division title, but, honestly, I have no clue.
Nashville is always easy to write off, since they lack any flashy forwards, but do so at looking stupid when they actually make the playoffs. The problem is, they play in the Central and I am pretty sure that it is impossible for a division to get all five teams into the playoffs. Move them to any other division and they are definitely in the mix at the end of the season. Barry Trotz made the name for another goaltender – this time it was Pekka Rinne. Playing behind Shea Weber and Ryan Suter doesn’t hurt, and if either of these guys ever ended up on a more noteworthy team, they would be superstars. As good as their starters are, I just don’t see them having enough depth behind that top D pair and top line of Arnott-Sullivan-Dumont.
There is some talk of Dallas being a team to watch, which I don’t really see. They had a ton of injuries last year and once they unloaded Sean Avery, they played better. I still don’t think they were that good and Marty Turco was awful. I’m not really sure why anyone would think he’d be better or how this team could leapfrog a lot of much more talented ones. Then add-in the strange firing of Dave Tippett and hiring of Marc Crawford, who is not exactly known for motivating players.
The battle for the worst team in the league will come down to the Isles, Avs, and Coyotes. The Avs were able to draft the most well-rounded forward, Matt Duchene, who could turn out to be better than Tavares. After going through a strange coaching change – having not fired their coach, but publicly offering the job to others – their management looks really inept. Unloading Ryan Smyth’s contract mad eit clear: they are strictly looking to rebuild and are banking on another top 3 pick.
I’m glad that Jim Balsillie failed in his attempt to buy the Coyotes. I don’t care that he colluded with their a-hole, moronic owner to bankrupt them. I don’t care that he wants to move them to Hamilton, which will cause the Sabres to fail. I just can’t stand the fact that he put U2 in BlackBerry commercials and sponsored their ridiculous tour with a stage that takes 3 days to setup and 3 days to take down (do you think Bono hired workers from impoverished African countries to do that?). Is there any reason to feel good about this team? They were on the verge last year, but a lot of their young guys regressed. I think Dave Tippett is the right coach for them though and could actually rally them around the fact that they are being run by the NHL. The league’s oversight of the team, combined with its attempts to either purchase them or find a new owner is disturbing, as they have shown a propensity for dumping salary. Aside from the geographical limitation to the team succeeding (playing in an unsupportive southern market and in a far-flung arena that fans don’t want to go to), you have to wonder how much the owners of the other teams will try to create favorable outcomes for their own teams vis-a-vis the Coyotes.
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