Thursday, September 10, 2009
Thursday Morning Cupcheck - A Complete Guide to the Old West
Greetings, fair-weather hockey fans! Last week, we used the latest in investigative techniques to determine, with 100% accuracy, precisely what will happen over the next nine months in the Eastern Conference; this week, we will throw all such scientifically-valid techniques out the window in favor of wild conjecture, insane ramblings and Mr. MachoToughGuy-posturing. In other words, it's once again time for my annual Western Conference Predictions!
On a more serious note: A massive comet could be heading on a collision course towards Earth this very moment, rendering everything I've predicted here a moot point, as each and every single living being on this planet is instantly incinerated in a fiery hellstorm of apocalyptic fury. On the plus side, at least the Wings won't get to win another Cup; in fact, tens of millions of years from now, when advanced alien archeologists are combing over the dusty remains of our long-forgotten civilizations, they will make strange and fantastic judgments upon our culture based on how many holding penalties go uncalled during Red Wings games. More on that later -- until then, enjoy the predictions buffet!
The human race can't rely on tiny triangles to save us forever.
100% Accurate Western Conference Standings for 2009-2010
**Central Division**
Detroit Red Wings
Key Additions: Todd Bertuzzi, Dan Cloutier
Key Subtractions: Basic human dignity, ability to stop a beachball
Core Players Average Age: 32.2
Flawless Analysis: As long as 40 is the new 25, Bertuzzi is the new Yzerman, and Franzen/Zetterberg is not the new DiPietro, these Wings should do just fine. And frankly, with their style of play the regular season should be another cakewalk for this skilled, aging bunch of Swedes. But having played some 40 or so extra games in the past two seasons -- not to mention the constant threat of osteoporosis -- expect a rash of crippling injuries to help the other Central Division teams think they have a chance. Suckers. My Prediction: 1st place, 108 points, and a hilarious re-definition of the term "dwindling skills."
Chicago Blackhawks
Key Additions: John Madden, Marian Hossa
Key Subtractions: Good Fortune, Lady Luck, 20 cents in change
Core Players Average Age: 26.2
Flawless Analysis: By the standards of 1300s Medieval Europe, this team is old. Really Old. And not getting any younger. It's do or die time for this aging crop of about-to-be-has-beens. Unfortunately, after a Golden Season of Progress the entire Blackhawks organization seems to have dedicated their off-season to turning all that good will into dog feces, replacing summer workouts in the gym with extensive walking-under-ladders practices, stepping-on-cracks routines and urinating on old Gypsy women while high-fiving each other. This does not bode well. My Prediction: 2nd place, 98 points: Despite their best efforts, the talent level on this team will refuse to go quietly into the night. At least until the first round of the playoffs, that is.
St. Louis Blues
Key Additions: Ty Conklin, Derek Armstrong
Key Subtractions: Defensive defensemen
Core Players Average Age: 29.4
The Red Wings' third line, in their younger days.
Flawless Analysis: Adding Conklin is usually all you really need to ensure a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals, but unfortunately for St. Louis, the Cup runneth empty. Or, more accurately, the Cup protecteth thine groin not: The ridiculous amount of man-games lost to injury last season does not bode well for this year's team, either. Murray's an excellent coach that squeezes enormous effort from what rosters he has, but it remains to be seen if this young, injury-prone team can learn to trust each other positionally enough to avoid MCL tears, groin pulls, and shattered femurs. My Prediction: 3rd place, 87 points, and a painful step back for last season's fluketastic Blues team, which by season's end will have re-named the franchise the St. Louis Screamos.
Columbus Blue Jackets
Key Additions: Samuel Pahlsson, Mathieu Garon
Key Subtractions: Offensive ability, willingness to score goals
Core Players Average Age: 27.3
Flawless Analysis: As Hitchcock showed last year, it's pretty easy to play defense when you coach the NHL equivalent of the Prevent Defense for three periods and the overtime. Not so easy, however, to score goals from a hundred feet away. My Prediction: 4th place, 86 points, and a step back for the most predictable team in hockey. And yes, I'm including the Minnesota Wild.
Nashville Predators
Key Additions: Marcel Goc
Key Subtractions: Boots Del Baggio
Core Players Average Age: 28.4
Flawless Analysis: The team lost some key defensive players in the off-season, and added ... uhh ... well, let's hope they have a good farm system out there and not just a bunch of hicks chewing on Tennessee Toothpicks. Any team captained by the rock-solid Jason Arnott is going to start out of the gate strong, fade down the stretch (a Jason Arnott Stretch begins around mid-December), and fail to make the playoffs. You can time your Kenny Chesney commemorative/homoerotic alarm clocks to it. My Prediction: 5th place, 78 points, and a mad dash to hockey obscurity not seen since the days of Valerie Bure.
**Northwest Division**
Minnesota Wild
Key Additions: Martin Havlat, Greg Zanon, Shane Hnidy, Wade Dubielewicz
Key Subtractions: The Trap, boredom
Core Players Average Age: 28.8
Flawless Analysis: With the trap a distant, painful memory and the additions of Havlat and Zanon -- not to mention the addition-by-subtraction of Martin "Just Got Taken To" Skoula and Marian "Golden Groin" Gaborik -- this should actually be a team to be reckoned with. They've always been fast, physical, and aggressive, and now that the five-goalie system is no longer in effect, the Wild might actually resemble something akin to a Real Team. My Prediction: 1st place, 104 points, and a collective pants-wetting in opposing training rooms across the Western Conference.
Calgary Flames
Key Additions: Jay Bouwmeester, Brian McGrattan
Key Subtractions: Salary cap lebensraum, unfettered coaching genius
Core Players Average Age: 29.5
Flawless Analysis: With an entire season of Ollie "Total" Jokinen, you wouldn't expect this team to make the playoffs -- but a mid-season salary cap-inspired move should allow the Flames some much-needed relief from the Finnish Flush and his cherry-picking ways. As an added bonus, they have perennially underrated d-man Phaneuf, as well as post-season phenom Jay-Bo manning the--wait, what's that? Phaneuf skates like he's taking his girlfriend shoe-shopping at Payless, and Bouwmeester has never once helped his team into playoff contention? Uh-oh. My Prediction: 2nd place, 101 points, including a 15-point bump in the standings due exclusively to the loss of Mike "Lead Vocals" Keenan.
Vancouver Canucks
Key Additions: Mikael Samuelsson, Andrew Raycroft, Brad Lukowich, Christian Ehrhoff, Mathieu Schneider
Key Subtractions: Defense, superstar effort
Core Players Average Age: 30.3
Flawless Analysis: With the additions of Raycroft, Errorhoff, and Schneider and the long-term signings of the Sedins and Luongo, it was extremely tempting to put this Canucks team in fourth place in the Northwest. But there's simply too much young talent on this team to let a couple of bad defensive eggs -- and fat and lazy superstars -- torpedo this season Canadiens-style. My Prediction: 3rd place, 94 points: In the NW division, pretty much all you need to do to get into the playoffs is send five guys back, get the charity point from the shootout and cruise to artificially-inflated regular season success. This season will be no different, other than a more noticeable-than-usual mid-season slump from Luongo and some stellar short-handed giveaways from their brand-new "powerplay quarterback."
Admiral Akbar was unavailable for comment regarding the new and improved Minnesota Wild.
Edmonton Oilers
Key Additions: Jason Strudwick, Nikolai Khabibulin
Key Subtractions: Youth movement, size at forward
Core Players Average Age: 28.5
Flawless Analysis: Looking at Edmonton's forwards, defensemen, and goalies, one might easily mistake the Oilers' roster for a homo sapiens evolutionary chart. Banking on the Bulin Wall to play more than 42 games was probably a mistake, but on the other hand ... at least he'll single-handedly win about 3 or 4 of those with his stellar netminding. My Prediction: 4th place, 78 points, and come January, a host of Canadian pundits clamoring to be the first to tab the Oilers as Kings North.
Colorado Avalanche
Key Additions: Craig Anderson, Tom Pressing, Kyle Quincey, Matt Duchene
Key Subtractions: (Somehow) even more defense, hope
Core Players Average Age: 28.9
Flawless Analysis: With no mo' Joe and perhaps the worst defense this side of Toronto, the Avs needed an upgrade at goalie to make sure their season at least aspired to mediocrity. But signing a backup goaltender from a trapping system in hockey's most pathetic division isn't going to provide anything other than the first pick in next year's draft. My Prediction: 5th place, 62 points, and an unhealthy fascination, starting in mid-October, with the top 18 year old farmboys in next year's draft class.
**Pacific Division**
Key Additions: Kent Huskins
Key Subtractions: Cynicism, regular season importance
Core Players Average Age: 28.5
Flawless Analysis: The Sharks re-signed guys they needed to re-sign, and dumped guys who were Red Wings old (Roenick, Lemeiux) and Maple Leafs suck (Ehrhoff). Unfortunately, they also lost most of their third line effectiveness, and will have a massive cloud of Wait Till the Playoffs hanging over their heads all season. My Prediction: 1st place, 110 points as this rag-tag bunch of aging misfits once again brings new meaning to the term "meaningless regular season."
Key Additions: Karlis Skrastins, Jeff Woywitka, Alex Auld
Key Subtractions: Cold-blooded Russian efficiency
Core Players Average Age: 28
The Ducks' youth movement will soon pay off
Flawless Analysis: Losing Zubov will hurt -- but then again, the Stars haven't had the guy for two seasons now, then made some vastly underrated signings in Skrastins, Woywitka, and Auld to shore up their most important areas. The two wild cards on this team are new head coach Marc Crawford and current starting goaltender Marty Turco, both of whom look good on paper (aggressive coaching, contract year) but who could quickly bring a huge heaping bucket of fail to the pristine shores of the Trinity River. My Prediction: 2nd place, 101 points, and a deep run in the Western Conference playoffs spurred on by the radical new style of play that encourages hockey players, or "guys," to skate down the ice and try to score more than twice a game.
Anaheim Ducks
Key Additions: Joffrey Lupul, Luca Sbisa, Saku Koivu, Nick Boynton, a whole season of Scott Niedermayer
Key Subtractions: Elbowrectomies, defensive certainty
Core Players Average Age: 29
Flawless Analysis: The big elephant in the room is the departure of the big elephant in the room, Chris "Mandibles" Pronger. Losing Beauchemin (and adding "Trust me, I'm not Maxim Afinogenov" Lupul) was also harsh, but on the plus side the Ducks have probably made some of the best off-season long-term moves by re-signing or acquiring Wisniewski and Sbisa. It's going to get a lot tougher to make fun of these guys from now on: The low-hanging fruit has moved on to orange-er pastures. My Prediction: 3rd place, 96 points, and a scar glimpse into the near future for this soon-to-be-Niedermayerless team.
Los Angeles Kings
Key Additions: Rob Scuderi, Ryan Smyth
Key Subtractions: The long, brutal reign at the bottom of the Western Conference
Core Players Average Age: 26.2
Flawless Analysis: Once again, this is one of the NHL's hot young teams, brimming to the rim with talent yet short on the things one needs to win games, i.e. defense and goaltending. Sortof like last season, and the season before that, and pretty much every season since the Clinton Administration. But Kings fans will have one thing to rejoice about: they play in the same division as the Hamilton Coyotes. Ka-ching! My Prediction: 4th place, 83 points, and the NHL lead in double-digit-goal games.
Phoenix Coyotes
Key Additions: Jason LaBarbera, Adrian Aucoin, Radim Vrbata
Key Subtractions: Financial solvency, checks that don't bounce
Core Players Average Age: 27.1
Flawless Analysis: This team is actually pretty stocked on its top two lines. But I'm sure Coach Gretzky will find a way to get this team another top-five pick in next year's draft. Not that they'll need the added excitment, with the inevitable relocation to Las Vegas and/or Kansas City. My Prediction: 1st place, 140 points, and a new chapter in Stanley Cup playofah, I was just seeing if you had actually read this far without me once mentioning Hamilton, Balsillie, Reinsdorf, and Bettman. 5th place, 69 points.
Well, that's it for this week's War and Peace-length Cupcheck. Tune in next week when we explore the world of the Urban Hockey Dictionary, and finally figure out what "Cold Crease Sauce" really means and why Brian Burke is so fond of it.
