NHL Preview, No Excuses

The NHL season is hard to forecast. The first and most important reason is the lack of major media coverage. There is very little made of big free agent acquisitions or trades when they happen, and the various season previews are brief if they appear at all. The other major reason is that the hockey season relies so much on chemistry and momentum, its very difficult to assess which teams have that perfect blend. Who is going to make a trade down the road? Is someone going to get hurt? Will their goaltenders carpool to a game in Calgary and get lost, never to be found again? There are so many scenarios, more so than any other sport, save, perhaps, for basketball that can affect that chemistry.
So those are my excuses. I wanted to give it a few games to assess some of that chemistry before I went prognosticating all will-nilly. Now that I have some more info, it's finally time to dive into this thing head first. Here we go.

ATLANTIC DIVISION: Right now, the Atlantic is a division in turmoil. Even though the Devils are sitting atop the division at this point, I don't suspect this will remain the same all season. The Rangers are young up and comers who look to build on what they had last year. In the spirit of New York teams, however, I also suspect they will wilt in the playoffs. Better than the Islanders, I suppose, who are looking to the Knicks for guidance. They are stocked with bad contracts and little talent. Unless some of those high priced guys, like Mike York or Alexei Zhitnik get their butts in gear, its going to be a long season at Nassau Collosseum. The teams in Pennsylvania, the Pengins and Flyers, will likely both finish ahead of the Isles, despite Pittsburgh's poor record last season and Philadelphia's abysmal start this year. (Wow... Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That state has far too many letters at it's disposal. Maybe share them with Utah, huh Pennsylvania?)

NORTHEAST DIVISION: Buffalo did all the right things this offseason. That means, of course, that they didn't do anything. They faced off with Carolina in order to make it to the Stanley Cup finals and kept the same young corps, minus the expendable J.P. Dumont, as well as retaining two top flight goalies in Ryan Miller and Martin Biron. This means that if a goalie goes down, they have a solid backup, if they find themselves lacking a scorer, or more likely a defenseman, they have the trade bait to execute a deal. I don't think it should be understated that this is a very good division either. Montreal is off to a quick start and will probably make the playoffs on the strong backs of young studs like Michael Ryder and Chris Higgins, and just like the Sabres, two strong goalies in David Aebischer and Cristobal Huet. The Ottawa Senators and their offense, currently in last, will be able to march towards the top of the division, while Toronto and Boston will lurk near the bottom. The Maple Leafs two big problems are that their best player is 35 and their goalie is Andrew Raycroft. The Bruins' is that they had Raycroft last season and took a step back in net.

SOUTHEAST DIVISION: The Southeast is an interesting division, top to bottom. The Lightning are struggling with cap space, but they still have the best 1-2 punch in the league with Vinny Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis. There is Washington who secretly has some of the best young talent in the league, better, even, than Pittsburgh in my opinion, what with Alexanders Ovechkin and Semin (insert joke here) and guys like Brian Sutherby lurking, ready to break out. Carolina is the defending champion, but lost some key players, mostly to the Rangers, or in the case of Mark Recchi and Doug Weight, to their previous team. Florida made waves this offseason, dealing Roberto Luongo for Todd Bertuzzi and others. All told, however, Atlanta has the best team and will assuredly take the Division title.

CENTRAL DIVISION: The power in the division has swung from Detroit to Nashville, and from St Louis to Chicago. This means, of course, that in this division Nashville will be unstoppable, playing all parts of the game well. Chicago will play well, as they are now after Martin Havlat's quick start, but will only be the second (or third) fiddle when the season winds down. Columbus is improving, but their supposed phenoms haven't panned out like they'd want, and they're goaltending situation has turned dire now that Marc Denis is in Tampa. St. Louis is still miserable and Detroit's age appears to finally be catching up with the Red Wings. At least they have the Tigers, right?

NORTHWEST DIVISION: While I would love to promote the Wild as the greatest team in the league, I.... oh who am I kidding. The Wild have proven thus far that they are, at the very least, the best team in the West so far. Their offseason acquisitions proved a dedication to chemistry, acquiring two talented Slovaks to pair with Marian Gaborik, and adding locker room nice guy and techniacally talented Mark Parrish to the forward line. They made up for the loss of a couple defensemen by acquiring better defensemen, in Kim Johnsson (who's PP is huge, I'm told) and Keith Carney. They have to play the Western Conference Cup representatives from the past two seasons ad nauseum, and the Flames got better, while the Oilers got worse by losing Chris Pronger. The Canucks need to get used to not having Bertuzzi or Ed Jovanovski, but they will be formadible nonetheless. If anything, the weakest team in the division may be Colorado, after their plan of signing older players is finally backfiring, but don't count the Avs out.

PACIFIC DIVISION: The Pacific will be a dogfight between San Jose and Anaheim this year. The Ducks have proven postseason netminders in J.S. Giguere and Ilya Bryzgalov, meaning that they merely need to make the playoffs to be a near lock to make it to the final four. These goalies shouldn't even have to worry, given their defense, which is the best on any team in years. The Sharks also have good goalies with Evgeni Nabokov and Vesa Toskala, but they are dependant on offensive superstars Joe Thornton and Jonathan Cheechoo. The battle of two teams who brought teal into the NHL will be phenomenal this season. The Kings are in a certafiable rebuilding mode, while the Stars will flame out around mid season. The darkhorse is Phoenix, but I don't expect that this stallion is a good wager for anything but "show".

I'm looking forward to watching the Thrashers and the Sharks in this season''s Stanley Cup Finals. At least the Cup will have a good, traditional home. - Ryan