NEXT YEAR IN ZION

As of tonight the playoffs are pretty much set (with the seven and eight spots in the West coming down to the final two games). Some teams deserved a spot but couldn’t find one, some teams couldn’t fight through the rough patches, and some teams apparently were brought into the league from the ECHL without any of our knowledge. The year is over for 14 teams, but that doesn’t mean those teams should be out of our minds. Let’s see what non-playoff teams have in store for the off-season leading into next season.

NY Islanders:

The Islanders are a team mired in mediocrity. It’s sad that a team that dominated the late seventies/early eighties is now the laughing stock of the league. What with a 15 year contract for DiPietro (how’s that going Mr. Wang?), along with years of teams consisting of youngsters without mentors, there’s not much to look forward to. If GM Garth Snow is smart he’ll forego the siren song of Tavares and go for big defensemen Hedman who they need more. With Kyle Okposo, Bill Guerin, and Mark Streit leading the scoring department, Richard Park leading the heart department, and Viktor Hedman leading the defense they sure to finish better then last next year.

Tampa Bay:

They had a hickup this year. This team is much better then it’s record. What they really need is defense. They may be better off trading their early pick for a load of big NHL ready defensemen. If they can shore up their back end then they’ll be back in the playoffs next year.

Colorado:

Everything in Colorado depends on what Sakic decides to do this off-season. It’s my belief that he wants one more full year and won’t let this year be his last. Still, a year lost to injury could convince an older player that it’s time to hang ‘em up. Even with Sakic back, there’s not much Colorado can do to make it back to the post-season next year, unless there’s a cave in the Rockies where a goalie and a defense is hiding.

Atlanta:

Like Colorado, there’s not much they can do in Atlanta to make it to the post-season next year. This is a team that requires a couple of years of building before it gets back into the playoffs. It all starts at the draft where they need to be smart, not popular. They need a Rick Nash or Shea Webber like player, not another Kovalchyuk.

Los Angeles:

This    team    is    so   good. Too bad there are at least seven teams in the West who will still be better next year, so it will still be a battle for them to make it into the playoffs. Still, you gotta think they’ll fight for Anaheim for that spot all year with Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown, and Jonathan Quick.

Phoenix:

Like LA, Phoenix is a very good team. They have a very strong defense, they’ll have an older Kyle Turris, and hopefully they’ll still have Shane Doan. I’m not sure what happened to Bryzgalov this year, but he could get it back next year. I think they’ll be fighting for the eighth spot.

Toronto:

It’s another rebuilding year in TO. Unfortunately they have nothing to build with., especially since they traded almost all of their tradeable players before the deadline this year and really only managed to replace their second round pick. We’ll see if Brian Burke can prove he didn’t just inherit a champion team in Anaheim.

Dallas:

Things are looking old in Dallas. They need to get young and they need to get young fast. I expect them to be amongst the busiest traders come draft day. Will Modano stay another year? Will Turco flop again next year? They’ll need to improve a lot to make it back to the post-season, I expect a couple of years of rebuilding.

Ottawa:

Ottawa is a weird one cause they can score a metric butt-load of goals, but somehow they couldn’t score more then the opposition. They need goaltending and a puck moving defensemen. They can probably get both through trades alone. With those two things in place they should be able to squeeze into one of the bottom three spots in the East.

Edmonton:

For years now Edmonton has been the whipping boy of the Northwest Division, and that’s not likely to change. Their number one goaltender ends this season at 39 years of age, their young players aren’t playing well enough, and their defense is error prone. What they really need in the off-season is a Michael Peca-type leader, the kind you used to have in Ryan Smyth. If they can address that need (instead of trying to poach some untested RFA again) then they have a good chance to improve in the standings.

Minnesota:

One of the teams that may still make it into the post-season, Minny doesn’t stand a chance. In the off-season they will lose their most gifted offensive talent in Marian Gaborik, not that he ever could reach his potential because of injuries. That leaves them with talented, but not nearly talented enough Mikko Koivu. The Wild do not have the firepower to get back into the post-season, nor will they be able to find it in one off-season. I see in their future, the NY Islanders.

Buffalo:

They really shouldn’t be on this list, but they are going to be playing golf this Spring instead of hockey so here they are. All they need is a full season from Tomas Vanek and Ryan Miller and they are good to go.

Florida:

Like Buffalo, they didn’t necessarily belong on this list. They will, however, next season if they can’t replace Jeremy Bouwmeester. This was their year and they just couldn’t pull it off. They’re going to need to get some tough defenders and some flashy forwards in the off-season.

There will be one more team to miss the playoffs, but at this point there are three tied at 88. Each of those teams has what it takes, for the most part, to make it. And all of those teams, for the most part, are primed to improve next season. Nashville found a great starting goaltender in Pekka Rinne. St Louis has an incredibly potent offense. And Anaheim… well if Niedermayer doesn’t retire and they keep Pronger there’s no reason to doubt they won’t be right back in the thick of things come 2010. The biggest question is who is in this year that will get left behind next year. Look out Montreal, at the end of the season all but ten of your contracts run out, and you barely squeezed in this year.

LOOKING BACKWARDS

This weekend a illness floored your friendly neighborhood Yankee Hockey. It wasn’t too bad to keep me from watching the games, but my brains ability to function has been severely hampered. So today is going to be an easy one, I’m going to take a look at my early season predictions and see just how well I did (cause there is nothing like patting yourself on the back). With the season not exactly finished, some of the results may change, but I think I got it covered.

Western Conference

(preseason):

1. Detroit

2. San Jose

3. Calgary

4. Anaheim

5. Vancouver

6. St. Louis

7. Chicago

8. Edmonton

9. Los Angeles

10. Dallas

11. Columbus

12. Minnesota

13. Phoenix

14. Colorado

15. Nashville

(actual)

1. San Jose

2. Detroit

This particular battle has been going on all season long with Detroit and San Jose jockeying for position. I’m going to call this a win because, really, they’re like 1A/1B.

3. Calgary

This looks like it’s gonna stick, even though Vancouver made it super interesting (including beating them 4-1 last night to remain in the running for the third spot), but with two games left Calgary would have to lose more then Vancouver won and I’m not sure they will blow their last two games.

4. Chicago

I underestimated the goaltenders here. I knew the team was good, but I didn’t think Christobel Huet would play as good as he has, and I certainly never believed Khabibulin would return to form. They even threatened Detroit for a moment before falling back to earth.

5. Vancouver

Spot on!

6. Columbus

Good for Columbus. I’m glad they proved me wrong here. They can thank Steve Mason for that one, I think if they had stuck with Denis they may not have made it.

7. Anaheim

I’m actually a little surprised they’re even this high up after the season they have had. I guess when you have two Niedermayers, a Pronger, and a Selanne you can kind of tip-toe your way into the playoffs.

8. St Louis

Well, I was wrong about their position, and the play of Manny Legace, but I was right about their powerful offense.

9. Nashville

Look, I’d never heard of Pekka Rinne. Give me a break please.

10. Minnesota

You heard it here first folks. I’m the one who jumped off the Minnesota bandwagon this year while others put them as high as third in the conference. Of course Gaborik is going to get hurt, of course they aren’t going to score goals, so of course they are outta here!

11. Edmonton

Edmonton almost proved me right as the season wore down, but then they had to go and self destruct as they always do. They’re like the Mets of the NHL.

12. Dallas

You heard it here first again! Some “experts” even picked Dallas to win the cup this year. Thanks in part to Sean Avery, and in second part to Turco’s off year, Dallas will be playing golf this Spring.

13. Los Angeles

I really thought LA would be fighting for a spot at this time of the season. Still, they showed a lot of spunk and I look forward to putting them at number nine again next year. (Actually, this Jonathan Quick guy may move them up to eight).

14. Phoenix

15. Colorado

Phoenix almost made things interesting just after the All-Star break, but returned spiritual balance to the NHL again by falling down the standings like a comet. Colorado probably would have done much better had Stastny and Sakic not been out almost the entire year, but Budaij would have made sure they weren’t higher then 11 I’m sure.

All in all i’m rather proud of myself. Got about 30% right on, and the rest (except for a couple) were pretty close. What more could you expect from preseason predictions…. ok, expect for preseason predictions that are not paid for by a sports organization. Get off my back.

Eastern Conference

(preseason):

1. Pittsburgh

2. Montreal

3. Washington

4. NY Rangers

5. New Jersey

6. Ottawa

7. Philadelphia

8. Carolina

9. Boston

10. Tampa Bay

11. Buffalo

12. Florida

13. Toronto

14. NY Islanders

15. Atlanta

(actual)

1. Boston

Way to go Boston. Man I screwed up the East so bad.

2. Washington

I was close! You gotta give me this one at least.

3. New Jersey

I don’t know why I ever doubted New Jersey. Even with Brodeur out most of the season they still kicked everyone’s butt. Actually… now that I think about it, it was after Brodeur went down that the butt-kicking really began.

4. Philadelphia

A very well played season from Philly. They really won me over with their defensive work this year.

5. Carolina

Well, I knew they’d make it to the post season at least. Man they’ve been hot lately.

6. Pittsburgh

Damnit Pittsburgh! If you won’t be kind enough to win the conference like I thought you would, at least be decent enough to miss the playoffs. I hate these guys.

7. Montreal

So what was last year? Some kind of tease? I wouldn’t be surprised if these guys were out of the playoffs by the end of the week.

8. NY Rangers

How is it that two of my top five are struggling to even make the playoffs. The Rangers, especially backstopped by Lundqvist are just too good to be barely holding on to eighth spot.

9. Florida

I knew Florida was going to be better then people expected… but this good? They deserve a playoff spot, if only to justify not trading Bouwmeester.

10. Buffalo

Losing Miller really hurt. They were better then their record presents. Next year boys, nest year.

11. Ottawa

You know, it’s teams like Ottawa that screwed up my predictions this year. They’re getting an angry letter.

12. Toronto

One off, dang! Well, with Burke as their GM they’ll be back here again next year.

13.  Atlanta

Atlanta really benefited from the absolutely horrible play of Tampa Bay and the Islanders. Otherwise they’d be right where I put them.

14. Tampa Bay

See what happens when you fire Barry Melrose?

15. NY Islanders

They’re only here cause they are desperate for Tavares.

So my Eastern Conference predictions were a little of, but hey, my Western Conference predictions were pretty good right? It’s nice to get a little West Coast bias for once.

Come back because in the coming weeks we’ll have a ton of playoff discussion, including who I think will win it all.

THRASHED!

Is it just me, or has Atlanta managed to make a goofy team look even goofier? It’s bad enough we don’t even know what exactly a Thrasher is (and before anyone in Georgia gets insulted I know the state bird is the brown thrasher, but that bird looks more like this). Is a Thrasher a… bird-in-a-blender? Or maybe the birds head post blender?  Is a Thrasher some kind of futuristic railroad spike? You know what, maybe they’re just better with just the wordmark, less confusing that way (with thanks to icethetics for actually having an image of just the wordmark).

I’m sorry Atlanta, but it’s an ugly sweater, and this team has a history of ugly sweaters. Need proof? Well, why not just click here for their original home jersey. Or, remember the time they decided to put the city name on the sleeve? Actually, given the simple, easy to follow design, this third jersey might even be the best of the bunch. It just really doesn’t have anything going for it. Tiny wordmark, HUGE numbers (on the front no less), really busy piping and coloring under the arm, and an overly large birds head on the shoulder. I know that sounds like I was wrong when I said not a lot going for it, but all these aspects of the jersey don’t really add up to anything. The only theme is red, unless big numbers up front is also a theme, in which case it’s simply a poor theme. But that could be said about all the jerseys in this teams history, no theme. Why a bird in a cyclone? Why are industrial-art style bird like design?

The problem with this team is a lack of hockey pride. Don’t think they’re the only team to suffer from it either, so does Tampa Bay and Phoenix. These are places used to football and basketball jersey designs, they don’t understand how a good hockey logo is created. Look at Montreal, they have an amazing logo. It’s simple, a C with and H inside. It’s got a subdued color scheme, white background with blue and red stripes. It just says hockey. Look at Detroit’s logo. Red tire with wings that says “This is Detroit”. No crazy piping and shoulder logos. Red with white stripe, simple, memorable, perfect. If you want newer teams, look at Philadelphia, or pre-buffaslug Buffalo.

If they asked me (and of course, no one did), what this team should have done is gone back to the roots of hockey in Atlanta. The Atlanta Flames, though they quickly left for Calgary, had a very solid uniform. Why not create something like a throwback for a third jersey? Obviously they couldn’t just wear a Flames jersey, though a Flames vs. Flames game would have been a treat to watch.

WHAT’S GOING RIGHT:

It’s the middle of the week and we’re all waiting for the weekend to come. So to help us all focus on the positive, every Wednesday I will go over what’s going right in the NHL.

This week it’s the Phoenix Coyotes. As of today they are undefeated, and they are winning in exciting, promising ways. This is a team that reminds me a lot of the pre-lockout Penguins, or also the Blackhawks. This team has been bad for awhile, but until now it’s never seemed to pay off. Whatever changed in Phoenix, I’m happy it did. Young players like Kyle Turris, Peter Mueller, and Kyle Boedker are not just playing, they are instrumental in this years Phoenix team. I believe that Phoenix is one of only two expansion teams that have really succeeded with young players, the other being Tampa Bay. Atlanta and Florida have been bad, but they don’t elicit the same exciting play from their young talent. Yes, I know Ilya Kovalchuk is an amazing player, but he doesn’t seem motivated to win. I think a lot of it has to do with the cities they play in, these cities just don’t create enough buzz about their young players, so those players aren’t inspired to play to their full potential. I like what Phoenix has done, and I hope they can keep it up because I’d rather see some excitement down there then see their young stars get shipped out to teams because Coyotes management doesn’t care enough to keep them around.

SAD NEWS:

As I was working on this entry on Monday, I was listening to Canadian radio for hockey news, when Alexei Cherepanov’s death came in over the wire. Cherepanov was the Rangers’ first round pick in ’07, and was playing in the final year of his contract with Avangard Omsk of the KHL, after which he was planning on crossing the Atlantic to join the Rangers. He was joined there this year by his favorite player, Jaromir Jagr, who was with him on the bench when his heart stopped during the third period of a game on Wednesday. In his rookie year he broke Pavel Bure’s record for rookie scoring with 18 goals, and scored more points then Alexander Ovechkin, Ily Kolvalchuk, or Evgeni Malkin. Reports from Russia are that he suffered a heart attack, and may have had a congenital defect similar to Sergei Zholtok who died in 2004 after suffering a heart attack in Belarus during a game. There are also reports that the ambulance that is normally on stand-by during the games had already left and had to be called back, meaning it may have taken more then 20 minutes to get him to a hospital. The NHL is worse off from never having seen this young man play, he certainly would have been an exciting and dynamic player. Hopefully a world-wide lesson is learned about how to keep players safe in this sport, and further tragedies like this can be avoided.

EASTERN CONFERENCE PREDICTIONS 08-09

15. Atlanta Thrashers

This is going to feel a lot like my Nashville analysis, because like Nashville this team is so sad. Can someone please move this team to… I don’t know, Hartford. Oh wait, Quebec City! Bring back the Nordiques, I loved their sweater.

The Offense:

How much would we all love to see Ilya Kovalchuk play in a city that knows hockey? Anyone who loves this sport would. You know where he’d really bring a revitalization? Toronto. Maybe they’d finally have a player whose skill is so great they wouldn’t have to lie about it. What else is there to talk about in Atlanta’s offense… oh right, nothing.

The Defense:

Yeah, Mathieu Schneider, awesome.

The Goaltending:

Keri Lehtinen and the “Moose” Johan Hedburg. What’s the over/under on goals against here, 300?

The Fans:

So what, when the Atlanta Flames didn’t work out they thought it was just because the name and logo were too good so some guy with an MBA says “Let’s try it again. We’ll call them the Thrashers and give them a bird logo. No one will understand what the hell all that means, and the mystery will draw fans to our team.” You guys suck. Not Atlantians, you guys are fine, it’s the morons who brought an ice hockey team there to fail.