Thursday, January 3, 2008

Thursday Morning Cupcheck - Tempt Not Cthlulu

By Todd Maternowski

Top of the morning, hockey fans! Last week we went over my startlingly accurate predictions concerning the pathetic Eastern Conference: this week I was going to subjugate my dualistic ying/yang, good/evil, pork/beans nature and write about my fascinating day following the Red Wings (the sheer number of firstborn infants they offer in blood sacrifice to Ba'al for each win is getting a little ridiculous), but I promised myself a treat of ice cream and Rogue Dead Guy Ale if I finished this two-part column, so here it is. Fortunately, if even the sight of the Eastern Conference teams and standings was a beating, a quick glance at the West shows that the One and True Conference is lookin' pretty good right now. Other than the paper-only success of Ottawa and Anyone Else, the Western Conference is chocked full of some amazing teams, making the East look like unclean anus by comparison.

To make sure I'm not cheating, here is my Western Conference predictions from the pre-season, along with bravely-calculated point totals and spot-on commentary.

Western Conference

Central Division

Detroit Red Wings -- What I said: 1st place, 118 points. What I meant to say: 1st place, 126 points. When they're not gut-slugging pregnant single mothers or cracking puppy skulls with iron bars, the Wings have quietly put up about the most close-to-perfect season you can without actually having to admit that you stuffed your veins full of steroids. Am I saying there's a steroids problem in hockey? No, but inside sources say that the Wings' success may or may not be tied to the unholy Temple of Set located deep beneath the 100-seats in Joe Louis Arena. Ever wonder why Wings fans have that glazed, gnawed-brain look of a zombie at all times? Do you honestly think those are octopuses they're throwing out on the ice? Try baby Cthlulus. Fortunately, the last time the Wings were this good, they got swept in the Cup Finals. Keep it up, Winglords!

Artist's rendition of Joe Louis Arena, if the Wings win another Cup

St. Louis Blues -- What I said: 2nd place, 87 points. What I meant to say: 2nd place, 93 points. The Blues have pretty much lived up to their billing and then some this half-season, even kicking the snot out of the Wings a few times. This is a ridiculously tough team to play against, and it should be a nice change of pace for the Central to put more than the Wings/Preds in the post-season for once. Even the ludicrously-overpaid Paul Kariya is starting to make his usually-invisible presence known. As long as the Blues and Blackhawks continue to provide two very different blueprints for raining death on the Wings, I find myself in support of increasing the divisional games to 16 apiece.

Nashville Predators -- What I said: 3rd place, 80 points. What I meant to say: 5th place, 82 points. Hah! After years of respectability, the team once known for its dazzling speed and hard work decided to become the whiniest little crybabies in professional sports over the past three seasons, and it's finally caught up to them. Finishing last place in the Central is like finishing fourth grade without learning how to color between the lines. As I say all-too-frequently here, "everything rises and falls on leadership" -- and when you take a lazy attention whore like Jason Arnott and make him El Jefe, you can expect the team to take most nights off, too.

Columbus Blue Jackets -- What I said:4th place, 71 points. What I meant to say: 3rd place, 86 points. The Blue Jackets are starting to resemble a Ken Hitchcock-coached team: tons of shutouts, one scoring line and a lot of slow-paced neutral zone turnover battles. While Hitchcock was never able to make the inflated egos of the Flyers get on board with playing a team game, the Blue Jackets have thrown all-in on the concept and seem to be winning more games than they're not. The team still sucks on the road, and against the Wings, but overall this is a team to watch in the next few years, as shutouts can be ten times as exciting as 6-5 scorefests.

Chicago Blackhawks -- What I said: 5th place, 58 points. What I meant to say: 4th place, 88 points. It seems all of my way-off predictions are with bottom-feeder teams that have played surprisingly mediocre, such as the Flyers, Bruins and Blackhawks. This year was supposed to be another "rebuilding" year for my beloved Hawks, yet with the natural uplift of "Dollar Bill" Wirtz's death and the rise of Chicago's streaky young scorers, the Blackhawks have turned it around amazingly quickly. Darth Zetterberg and Palpatine Datsyuk might not like it, but this young Blackhawk alliance has got the moxie to take the evil empire down. Obi-Khabibulin, you're our only hope.

Northwest Division

Vancouver Canucks -- What I said: 1st place, 103 points. What I meant to say: 1st place, 98 points. Somewhere during a 5-1 shellacking by the vastly more skilled Avs, Canucks management must have said to itself: "Why bother scoring at all? Why not just get a top-flight goalie, and put five mini-goalies around him at all times? We'll frustrate all teams that rely on skill and passing, and eventually score on a lucky bounce on a phantom-call powerplay!" And so it came to pass. The single most frustratingly awful-to-watch team in the NHL might be as appealing as waking up underneath a diarrhetic yak sphincter, but they get results. Luongo is great, yadda yadda yadda, but no other team frustrates opponents as well with their "they can't get a puck by all of us at once"--strategy. Great for Vancouver, bad for the NHL trying to sell hockey to people with eyeballs and unused adrenaline glands.

Colorado Avalanche -- What I said: 2nd place, 102 points. What I meant to say: 4th place, 92 points. We all knew going in that they would score, and then give up, a ton of goals. So what happened? 4th in the West in scoring, 4rd worst in the West in goals against. The once-feared Avs are quickly becoming the Toronto Maple Leafs of the West. Maybe they shouldn't have dumped Bob Hartley afterall. Or signed all those idiotic $10 million/year contracts. Or gotten rid of players like Hinote and Drury. Dipshits.

Calgary Flames -- What I said: 3rd place, 97 points. What I meant to say: 2nd place, 94 points. I may have gotten the point totals more or less right, but there was no way in hell I would've predicted the radical style change for the Flames: they've gone from unimaginative Canuck-style 6-goaltender hockey, to the high-flying, no-defense Avs-style in a single half-season. I must say I'm impressed with the quick change, even if the results have been less than stellar. Kiprusoff looks less than mortal out there on his island, and the Sharks probably finally feel justified in trading him for next to nothing. Only the Wings and Stars have scored more in the conference: the Flames should take this opportunity to change their lame team name from the Flames to the Oil Fires: fascinating to watch, but probably not good for you in the long run.

Minnesota Wild -- What I said: 4th place, 95 points. What I meant to say: 3rd place, 97 points. Obviously there's no tighter division in hockey than the Northwest: the division could end up in a four-way tie and no one would be all that shocked. Come playoff time, though, there's probably few teams I would rather face than the Wild, who squeak by the bad teams and get blown out by the good ones. Although they would never admit it publicly... or in private... or on a deserted volcanic island thousands of miles from civilization, but teams like the Wings and Stars would be licking their proverbial chops if they lined up a playoff patsy like the Wild. Either that or the Predators. Drawing those two teams is no different than winning a lottery ticket taking you straight to the second round of the playoffs.

Even the Predators are having their way with this year's Ducks

Edmonton Oilers -- What I said: 5th place, 68 points. What I meant to say: 5th place, 76 points. The Oilers have proven that even sucky teams can make up lots of ground by winning all of their shootouts. It's actually a good sign for future years: having just enough of a team defense to keep the score tied after 65 minutes, then slicing through enemy goaltenders with youth, speed and fearless skill is more than enough to win 3-4 years from now. People rag on the Oilers for sucking now -- verily, re-read this column in January of 2011 and tell me if the Oilers are not in or around first place in whatever messed-up division the league office has put them in by then.

Pacific Division

Dallas Stars -- What I said: 1st place, 110 points. What I meant to say: 1st place, 100 points. A slow start to the year and a slow finish to the calendar year knocked a good ten points off my prediction, but overall the Stars are proving the adage that teams triumph over individuals. They're also proving the adage that hungry young players are better than overpriced free agents, as their trio of talented rookie defensemen continue to produce points, hits and saves in startlingly large numbers. Anaheim may have the deepest d-corps in the NHL this very second, but if you're talking about taking a defense for the future, there's no question the Stars' Niskanen/Grossman/Fistric/Daley monster is the one to beat in the next half-decade. While Niedermayer and Schneider will be playing golf in some Samoan sex resort next spring, these four young guys will be pounding opposing forward face into glass for years to come. Advantage: Stars.

San Jose Sharks -- What I said: 2nd place, 108 points. What I meant to say: 2nd place, 103 points. Probably the most underachieving team in hockey is still arguably the second-best in the Western Conference this year, as the Sharks have decided to rely on one man for all of their scoring and one man for all of their goaltending. It's a risky proposition, considering how frequent injuries occur in hockey, but Thornton and Nabokov are carrying this team on their shoulders. Their defense is mediocre, their other forwards all severely underperforming, and every night Thornton/Nabokov are placing huge bull's eyes on their backs, but.... the Sharks are still the team to beat in the Pacific. Will they get lucky and meet up with the pathetic Preds again in the first round? Not likely. For a team that annually gets mentioned as a Cup Contender, their playoff track record is pretty unimpressive. Keep it up, Sharkies!

Anaheim Mighty Ducks -- What I said: 3rd place, 108 points. What I meant to say: 3rd place, 88 points. Nothing has made me happier than the way the Ducks have handled themselves since winning the Cup. They lost Penner, then Bryzgalov, then McDonald, signed some d-men and forwards old enough to remember when Woolly Mammoths walked the earth, then could not finagle their way into signing both Neidermayer and Selanne, despite whining like little bitches about it to the league. This team is still talented enough to win their division this year, but next year? 2009? 2010? Maybe once all these old guys croak, they'll have plenty of cap space to sign even more free agents 3 years from now. Good luck with that, Burke: in the meantime, here's a darkened corner for you to weep in, and Selanne's old helmet for you to throw up in.

Los Angeles Kings -- What I said: 4th place, 80 points. What I meant to say: 5th place, 64 points. Now this is the trainwreck of a team I was hoping for! After embarrassing the Stars in that 6-5 OT game, the Kings have suddenly decided to play rope-a-dope with every team since, giving up huge leads with the idea of crushing the opponent's will with a massive 5- or 6- goal comeback in the final minutes. Hasn't worked out so well, as the Kings have suddenly found themselves as the single worst team in hockey. I seem to recall a few national sports media outlets predicting the Kings would be Cup Contenders this season... on second thought, after a grueling four minutes of googling "nhl predictions 2007 sports illustrated espn" and not finding the delicious nugget of idiocy I was expecting, I'll give ESPN and SI a pass. But they're still dicks.

Phoenix Coyotes -- What I said: 5th place, 74 points. What I meant to say: 4th place, 84 points. This team was heading towards Kings-like suckitude, when they lucked onto another one of the Ducks' 2007 mistakes, and snatched goalie Ilya Bryzgalov off waivers for nothing. Since then, the Coyotes have had a far-better-than-decent win-loss record, and have beaten a number of good teams. Could this be the year they turn it around? No. No, it will not be that year.

That's it for this week's Look Back at the Pre-season Pontifications. Tune in next week when I run into Teemu Selanne at an Impaled Nazarene concert, and convince him to sign with the Stars for $1 million and a set of ostrich-skin iceskates.

Related stories

• Thursday Morning Cupcheck - My Day with the Detroit Red Wings (Jan. 10, 2008)

See more stories in:

• Hockey > NHL > Stars

Comments

Mike Orren Staff

Nothing wrong with your sentiment, Sonya, but watch the language. Even if you can game the profanity filter, we prefer that you rely on your usual eloquence...

9 months, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )