It's a sad day for yours truly. Not only were my Rangers knocked out of the playoffs with a heartwrenching 2-1 shootout loss to the hated Flyers, but my Blackhawks lost to the Red Wings 3-2 in overtime. That not only meant that the Hawks will finish second in the conference and have to play a much tougher Nashville team instead of the Colorado Avalanche, but it also pushed my Kings down from 5th to 6th. Of the four teams at the top of the West, the ONLY team I really wanted the Kings to avoid playing was Vancouver. We'll get into the whys of that in a second, but just about everything that could go wrong today did.
The meaningful games are almost over; we're waiting on the result of a Buffalo-New Jersey game that's in progress as I type this to decide who gets 2nd in the East. The West, however, has been decided, and finally we can break down all the match-ups heading into the playoff excitement. So in search of anything to distract me from the heartbreak, let's dive right into it and make some predictions!
(1) San Jose Sharks vs. (8) Colorado Avalanche
(Sharks won season series 2-1-1)
First of all, I'm not listing anyone's regular season records, because in my opinion you can throw that out the window once we get to the playoffs. How the teams did against each other back in that regular season is at least a little bit interesting, but I wouldn't read too much into that, either. As we all know, the playoffs are a whole different animal: more tight-checking and physical than regular season hockey could ever approach.
You can't talk about the San Jose Sharks without mentioning their playoff failures, most recently as the first seed against the eighth-seeded Anaheim Ducks. However, no one in San Jose should be too worried about history repeating itself this year. Colorado is almost an exact opposite of the Ducks team that knocked out the Sharks last year: the Ducks were a veteran team who got off to a poor start and then turned it on in a major way down the stretch to get again. They were a better team then their record showed, and they proved it by nearly eliminating the Red Wings in the second round. Colorado, on the other hand, is an incredibly young team who almost backed into the playoffs. They picked up a few big wins over the last week, including over the Sharks themselves, but the teams they beat were largely playing for nothing (or at least close to it). When the chips were down and the Avalanche had to beat the Calgary Flames to hold onto their spot last Friday, they lost. Only by getting some help from other teams did they hold off the Flames for the eighth and final playoff spot.
The Avs getting into the playoffs was clearly a great story. But I don't see how they can hold off a Sharks team that is hungry and out for blood (pardon the pun). There's simply no way this San Jose team will be anything but ready to play in the first round after what happened last year. I don't think the Sharks have what it takes to make it through the rest of the playoffs, but they shouldn't have much trouble here.
Prediciton: Sharks in four.
(2) Chicago Blackhawks vs. (7) Nashville Predators
(Blackhawks won season series 4-2-0)
The Hawks are an interesting team to talk about right now. They followed the exact same pattern as last year: awful in March, really good in April. Of course, that doesn't guarantee they will have a post-season like last year's, and most fans of the Hawks will tell you that simply a trip to the conference finals won't satisfy them this year. It's Cup or bust for these Hawks, but to get there they have to get through a very tough Nashville team. Nashville is a fantastic defensive team, and one of the big problems the Hawks have had all season long is getting through the neutral zone against teams who know how to play that 1-2-2 style well. Those problems are only increased when you consider the fact that the Hawks are missing their best puck-carrying defenseman, Brian Campbell, for what will likely be this entire first-round (and perhaps the second-round as well, should they get that far). There's also the question of how rookie goaltender Antti Niemi will hold up under the playoff pressure, a valid question to be sure.
With all that said, I don't think the Predators have enough firepower to hang in there with the Hawks in a seven-game series. I've told you a lot of reasons why the Hawks might not win, but now let me tell you even more reasons why they will win: Jonathan Toews. Patrick Kane. Marian Hossa. Patrick Sharp. John Madden. Kris Versteeg. And on and on and on. This is by far the deepest group of forwards in the Western conference, and only Washington can perhaps compete with them when it comes to being able to roll four lines and always have someone who can score on the ice. Nashville is a pretty great defensive team and Pekka Rinne has been stellar for them in net, but I don't see how they can shut down all four of the Hawks' lines for an entire series. The Hawks will have some problems, maybe even send the (suddenly very sizable) fanbase into a panic by losing game 1 at home, but in the end they'll pull it out.
Prediction: Blackhawks in six.
(3) Vancouver Canucks vs. (6) Los Angeles Kings
(Vancouver won season series 3-1-0)
Like I already mentioned, of all the four opponents the Kings could have played in the opening round, this is the only one I really wanted them to avoid. With the sole exception of their recent 8-goal pummeling of the 'Nucks in LA, the Kings have almost always played horrible against Vancouver. They're probably the only team who have a line that's better on the cycle than the Kings (though their overall cycle game is still probably stronger), and considering it's largely on the strength of their cycle they got here in the first place, that would in fact be a problem. Vancouver had won a staggering seven games in a row against the Kings before LA finally snapped that streak.
Another problem for the Kings is the play of starting goalie Jonathan Quick, who has gone 0-3-3 in his last six games of the season. The Kings in general have played OK in front of him, sometimes better than others, but Quick has failed to lock it down even when the Kings were heavily outshooting their opponents. Quick's role as franchise goaltender of the future is suddenly in question with the rise of Jonathan Bernier, but unless Quick gets injured or really gets shellacked it will probably be his ball to run with (for this year, at least).
There's really not much else to say here. Vancouver will enter as overwhelming favorites with the best offense in the Western conference. Barring a meltdown from Luongo (who has been known to melt down in the playoffs before) and/or a complete drop-off in play from the Sedins, there's no reason to believe that the Canucks won't be able to handle the Kings with ease. Kings fans can take solace in the fact that their young team will likely be back, and the Vancouver team who will likely eliminate them is perhaps an early favorite to take the Western conference crown.
Prediction: Vancouver in five.
(4) Phoenix Coyotes vs. (5) Detroit Red Wings
(Detroit won the season series 2-0-2)
It's a shame for the Coyotes that it's come to this. Phoenix has had a fairytale season this year, turning from a team everyone had left for dead due to their off-season, off-ice woes into everyone's favorite underdog story. Their 107-point campaign was a new franchise record, including all those years in Winnipeg. But now their magical regular season, full of shootout wins and gutsy performances from guys having career years, must enter the playoffs and face reality. That reality is a Red Wings team that has lost only 1 game in regulation since the Olympic break, a Red Wings team that is healthy for the first time all year. And they are ready to pounce.
If Phoenix has any shot to win this series, they need to get out to a strong start and win both games in Phoenix. If they can really put some pressure on the Wings and their rookie goaltender Jimmy Howard, perhaps they can pull off the upset. We also don't know how this Detroit team will handle starting on the road in the playoffs for the first time in decades. But unless Phoenix has a lot more miracles left in them- and more late-period and overtime goals since there's no shootout to dominate in the playoffs- they will see their dream season come to a nightmare end. We all know how important special teams becomes in the playoffs, and Phoenix has one of the worst power plays in the NHL
Prediction: Detroit in five games.
Alright folks, that's it for the West. I'll be back later tonight breaking down all the matchups in the East, and don't forget we'll have a podcast talking it all over for you tomorrow night at 9 pm EST.
Showing posts with label western conference. Show all posts
Showing posts with label western conference. Show all posts
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Saturday, April 10, 2010
On the Road to Nowhere, Part 2: The Western Conference
Welcome back to Center Ice Addict! A few days ago we talked about all the non-playoff teams in the East, giving them all one last look before everyone completely forgets their existence (barring any GM or coach firings, of course). Many of the outlooks for the Eastern teams looked particularly grim; of the 5 teams we covered, only the Carolina Hurricanes were rated as having a High chance of returning to the post-season next year. Tampa Bay & Toronto came in with Moderate ratings, while Florida & the Islanders were rated Low. Today, as we look at the non-playoff teams in the West, we will once again see how the conference is so much better than the East. Consider this: the Dallas Stars, who are 12th in the West, would be tied for the final playoff spot in the East. The 9th place Calgary Flames would not just be in the playoffs, but would actually be in 6th! This of course speaks to the dominance of the West in intra-conference play this season. When you consider that the West has a staggering FIVE teams with at least 100 points and the East only has one, it makes it all the more impressive.
Of the teams who missed last year, almost all of them save maybe Edmonton will have a decent chance to make it back to the playoffs. That’s little consolation to the players, but they can be rest assured, next year they could be playing playoff hockey again instead of golf. Of course, you also have to wonder, of eight teams who are in this year, who is going to miss next year? The powerhouses (San Jose, Chicago, Vancouver, even Detroit who would have been higher without all the injuries) all have their franchise players locked-up for the foreseeable future. The rest of the teams are, for the most part, very young teams who are only going to get better. Of course, we all said the same things last year about St. Louis & Columbus and both of them managed to drop out, so anything can happen. Still, when you look at that top 8 and try to think who might miss next year, there’s really no one who jumps out at you, and that’s a problem for all of the teams we’ll be talking about today.
We’ll be looking at three areas for each team: first, before we can discuss their future prospects, we’ll take a look back at just went so terribly wrong this season. Then, we’ll look at what they SHOULD do to try and get things turned around in the off-season. Finally, we’ll rate their chances of making the playoffs next year as either High, Moderate, or Low.
Calgary Flames
(40-31-10, 90 points, 9th in East, 4th in Northwest, 29th in Offense, 4th in Defense)
What Went Wrong?: This team is by far the easiest when it comes to why they won’t be playing playoff hockey this year. Simply put, the Calgary Flames could not put the little, round black object into the big white net, and considering that’s the point of this sport of ours, that would in fact be a problem. Calgary’s GM Daryl Sutter made blunder after blunder, starting with trading away Matthew Lombardi and their first-round pick to Phoenix for Olli Jokinen at last year’s trade deadline. To justify his decision to trade for Jokinen and allow him to sign free-agent defenseman Jay Bouwmeester, Sutter then allowed Mike Cammalleri (he of the 39 goals) to walk right on over to Montreal for nothing in free agency. Of course, losing 39 goals is hard enough for any team to overcome, but Sutter probably assumed a full year of Jokinen and acquiring Bouwmeester (who hit the elusive 15-goal mark for a defenseman 3 times in Florida) would equal, if not surpass, Cammy’s totals. Guess what? He was wrong. Jokinen had just 12 goals before he was shipped off to the Rangers just before the Olympic break, in exchange for another forward who lost his scoring touch in Chris Higgins and the 3 million dollar-a-year-for-2-more-years Ales Kotalik. The deal was even more absurd when you realize that Kotalik had been a healthy scratch for almost 10 games in a row prior to the deal; Rangers fans rejoiced that 6 million dollars came off the books in exchange for a pending-UFA, while Flames fans groaned.
It was not the first time Flames fans had groaned that weekend, either. Dion Phaneuf, he of the NHL 09 cover and the Norris trophy nomination at just 20 years old, was traded to Toronto. In exchange for Luke Schenn, maybe? The rights to Nazem Kadri? No, that would imply Toronto gave up something they had an intention of keeping. Instead, Calgary received the proverbial bag of pucks. For a guy who, despite a couple of so-so seasons, still carries with him the potential to be a franchise defenseman, the Flames took third-line center Matt Stajan, woefully inconsistent scorer Niklas Hagman, aging 4th liner Jamal Meyers, and a decent but undersized defenseman who was admittedly having a career year in Ian White. Of course, Calgary was so impressed with this package of free agents Burke had no intention of resigning anyway that they threw in one of their best prospects and a very useful third-to-fourth liner too. The excuse given was they wanted to finally find a center to play with Jarome Iginla; in response to this explanation, Flames fans everywhere asked “So why in God’s name did you trade for MATT FRIGGIN’ STAJAN, dipshits?” Of course, Stajan didn’t come close to playing well with Iginla, and for this abject failure he was swiftly punished with a 14-million dollar contract, only about 13.5 million more than any sane person would give to Matt Stajan.
You’ll notice that we’ve yet to mention Jay Bouwmeester since we talked about his signing. That’s because the 15-goal man currently sits at just THREE goals in his first year with the Flames, going scoreless from November to March. Calgary’s defensive system choked all of the offense right after him, and suddenly the Flames found themselves, at 6.8 million, paying him almost 2.5 million per goal! Even poor Jarome Iginla finally cracked, coming up dry in 9 straight games down the stretch.
Add all this up and you have possibly one of the most disastrous years in the history of any franchise. Yeah, 9th place is certainly respectable in a conference where the 8th place team has 94 points, but now the damage has been done. The Flames are stuck with a team that can’t score, very little room under the cap to solve the problem, and a cupboard that isn’t just bare but has spider webs hanging inside. This is a team that has all the potential to be one of the worst teams in the NHL for a good half-decade. Only by the grace of Miika Kiprusoff (who might as well be God as far as the Flames fans are concerned) and his Vezina-like season did the Flames avoid finishing much, much worse.
What should they do now?: Well, now that I’ve finished writing a small book on Calgary’s horrific season, I suppose it’s time to discuss what they should do next. First of all, they must satisfy the Flames’ passionate fanbase and their thirst for blood. GM Daryl Sutter being shown the door should be a given, but there should be a good, long look taken at letting his brother Brent go as head coach as well. While it’s true he only had a single season to work with this team and they never seemed to buy 100% into his system, the fact remains that his system is a problem to begin with. We are currently in the middle of the most wide-open era in NHL hockey since the early ‘90s; defense-first just can’t get it done anymore. If you look at the top 10 defensive teams in the NHL as far as the GAA/per game goes, most of the top 10 are there not because they play a waiting, clog-up-the-neutral-zone kind of game. Rather, almost everyone has copied Detroit. Puck possession is preached above all else, with the idea being very simple: if you’re always in their end taking it to them offensively, how are they ever going to score? Of course the argument is always there that they don’t have the personnel to play that kind of game, and it’s true to a point. But I guarantee you that if Jay Bouwmeester was given the opportunity to join the rush and make plays the way he was in Florida, he would be right back at that 15-goal range. Considering it’s generally not a good idea to sign defensemen to 6.8 million dollar deals for three goals, getting him going again should be a huge priority.
Regardless of what happens to the coach, once Daryl Sutter is fired and someone else is brought in, patience must be stressed and chance must be made. This is a team that has spent the past 5 years living off the reputation of their magical 2004 run from 8th place to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. While they’ve made the playoffs every year since then, they have also been knocked out in the first round every single one of those years. Coaches have been changed more often than some people change underwear. The fact that they finally took the next step down and missed the playoffs entirely this year should really come as no surprise, even though many pundits picked them to do more. The Phaneuf trade was a partial admission that something about that locker room just wasn’t right, but it’s clearly not enough. Considering they will go into this year’s draft without picks in the first two rounds and next year’s draft without a first-rounder as well, it is time to tear this thing down and rebuild. Without their draft picks this will have to be another Toronto-style unconventional rebuild, and they are not in the same position as Toronto to be able to sign coveted undrafted free agents. Instead, it’s time to do what was previously unfathomable and trade Jarome Iginla. Not only would you give the 32-year-old a legitimate shot at winning a Stanley Cup (something it doesn’t look like he’ll have anytime soon in Calgary), but you’d hopefully recoup a first-round pick and/or a top offensive prospect, as well. With all that sad, I highly doubt anything like that will happen. The Flames will point to how close they were and stand pat, a mistake in the long-run.
Playoff Hopes for Next Year: Moderate. Like I said, I’m expecting them NOT to go down the rebuild road, even though that’s what they really need for the long-term health of the franchise. Assuming there’s no rebuild (yet), any team with Miika Kiprusoff will always have at least a decent shot at making the playoffs. But considering how many good young teams there are in the West, I wouldn’t place any bets on it.
St. Louis Blues
(40-32-9, 89 points, 10th in West, 4th in Central, 17th in Offense, 13th in Defense)
What Went Wrong?: Of all the teams who missed the playoffs this year, in both conferences, the Blues are perhaps the toughest ones to figure out. St. Louis rallied late in the season last year to make the playoffs as the single best team in the NHL in the second-half of the season, got swept by the Canucks in the first round, and promptly came out of the gate almost as slowly this year. The weirdest thing of all is they had one of the best road records in the NHL, and yet the single worst home record. It was this home record that got Andy Murray fired as head coach despite finishing as a runner-up for the Jack Adams award just one season earlier. After rookie coach Davis Payne came up from the minors, he turned the team around somewhat in the same way other young coaches have found success all over the NHL, but ultimately there just wasn’t another magical second-half run in this team. Too many of their rookies who were so great last year had the traditional Sophomore Jinx (which should probably have Colorado Avalanche fans scared considering they’re the team in the top 8 carried primarily by rookies this year), and not enough of their aging veterans played well enough to make up for it.
What should they do now?: Not a whole hell of a lot, actually. Their kids will get every chance to rekindle that rookie magic next year, and until they start having a weak third year it’s not time to panic and assume they won’t be able to do it. They have one of the best one-two punches in net in the entire league, a young defenseman who looks like a star in the making in Erik Johnson, and a prospect cupboard that is still stocked pretty well from all their years of being bad-to-awful. Keith Tkachuk has already confirmed his retirement following the season and a few others could follow, opening up more roster spots for those young players. Their best plan of action is to probably write this season off as an anomaly and give their young guys another shot to get it done before making any drastic changes. It’s not like they even missed by that much this year, anyway.
Playoff Hopes for Next Year: Moderate. It’s going to be really hard to get a High out of me for any team in the West, just because of how strong the conference is top-to-bottom, but of all the moderate-ranked teams the Blues are the closest to High. If they get the kind of goaltending they got this year plus a quick and painless shaking-off of the various sophomore jinxes, they will not only be back in the post-season next year, but they should be able to make a bit more noise this time, as well. Unlike another team who’s missing with the word “Blue” in their name, last year wasn’t a mirage. This is still a good, young team with a ton of upside.
Anaheim Ducks
(38-32-11, 87 points, 4th in Pacific, 11th in West, 12th in Offense, 22nd in Defense)
What Went Wrong?: Everyone knew the defense of Anaheim, legendary in its stinginess that largely carried them to bring the entire state of California its first Stanley Cup in ‘06-07, was going to take a huge hit with the trade of Chris Pronger. But can anyone honestly say they expected this team to drop all the way down to TWENTY-SECOND in the league defensively? That’s not just a drop, that’s a freefall. All year long this team failed to maintain leads and lost games they should have won at home, and ultimately it cost them a playoff spot. This year wasn’t a total bust, however. Giguere’s monstrous contract was taken off the books thanks to Toronto and when all three were healthy, the Ryan-Getzlaf-Perry line was one of the best in the NHL. This is a team that struggled to find secondary scoring all year long, but when Teemu Selanne & Saku Koivu were both actually in the lineup at the same time, they largely managed to rekindle their Finnish Olympic team chemistry after a slow start, giving them a second-line threat down the stretch to the point where Teemu managed to hit the 600-goal mark and surpass childhood idol Jari Kurri (which for Ducks fans used to being in the playoff hunt this time of year was a welcome distraction). By then it was too little, too late, but there’s still plenty of reasons to like this team’s chances going forward. That is, of course….
What should they do now?: …..if their veterans want to come back and play one more year. No indication has been given one way or another if the trio of Scott Neidermayer and the aforementioned Finnish Flash & his Finnish Friend will return. So really we have to give two answers here: if they come back, again this is a team I don’t do much to outside of the odd tinker here or there. With a full year of secondary scoring and trade deadline pick-up Lubomir Visnovsky (who played really well for them down the stretch), I would expect this team to make the playoffs. If the triumvirate of indecision decides not to come back (and I fully expect there to be a domino effect here where if one announces their retirement, the other two will quickly follow, and vice-versa), however, it’s probably best to unload some of their other veteran pieces and make a go at a real rebuild here. Considering they will have two picks in the first round of the next two drafts thanks to the Pronger trade, it doesn’t have to be a lengthy rebuild, either; especially if prospect Luca Sbisa, picked up from Philly in that same trade, is ready to go at the NHL level full-time within a season or two.
Playoff Hopes for Next Year: Look above at the same two-pronged answer: High if the aging trio comes back, Low if they don’t. I just don’t see how this team replaces the secondary scoring of Selanne & Koivu and the veteran presence of Neidermayer in one summer, and even with all three of them they narrowly missed this year. If they keep them and Selanne & Koivu have healthier campaigns, they will more than likely be a playoff team again. If they decide to walk away, because the prospect cupboards are relatively bare, it will probably be a long season for them. But again, with two picks in the first rounds of the next two drafts, they’d be in pretty good shape to start filling those cupboards up relatively quickly.
Dallas Stars
(36-31-14, 86 points, 5th in Pacific, 12th in West, 11th in Offense, 23rd in Defense)
What Went Wrong?: A lot of the same things that went wrong for Anaheim, actually. This is another former defensive powerhouse that suddenly found themselves in the bottom-third of the league in GAA/per game. Despite a good offense, they couldn’t overcome their problems defensively and their incredible inconsistency. Dallas was the only team in the entire NHL who failed to have at least a three-game winning streak at any point in the season. They were the definition of mediocrity; win two, lose two, win one, lose one. It went on like that for the entire season. The fanbase, once looked at as a shining example of the NHL’s success in the south, largely stopped caring, and both live attendance and TV ratings suffered greatly. The problem is, Dallas is a HUGE market with a ton of options for fans’ sport & entertainment dollar, so a hockey team that’s nearly 8 million dollars below the salary cap and clearly not doing all it can to win right now is going to turn many of them off. The problem is, owner Tom Hicks is having serious financial difficulty and suddenly finds himself unable to maintain his previous commitment to winning (and spending the money it takes to do so). In the end, Dallas had some good pieces, but they seem to have been stuck all season long in a limbo between a young and hungry team and a complacent veteran team. Not a good place to be, to be sure.
What should they do now?: Rebuild, and that’s exactly what it appears first-year GM Joe Nieuwendyk is doing as we speak. He traded for the injury-prone but still full of potential former 1st overall pick Kari Lehtonen from Atlanta, clearly indicating veteran backstopper Marty Turco won’t be back next season. Other veterans like Mike Modano (who had a very touching tribute shown on the screen during the Stars’ last home game Thursday, resulting in a nearly three-minute-long standing ovation from the 18,000 fans in attendance that brought him to tears) are strongly considering retirement. Now it’s time to trade away some of the guys with attitude problems (yeah, that’s you Mike Riberio) and some of the underachieving veterans, and really tank next year. It’s the right move and I fully expect it to happen. There just isn’t enough talent or youth on this team right now to compete in a Western conference that’s suddenly become about young talent over everything else.
Playoff Hopes for Next Year: Low. Like I said, it will likely be a rebuild year for these Stars, and that means not coming even this close to making the playoffs. Don’t let their point total fool you: they were almost never really in the race since December or January. The only thing they did was lessen their own draft position, and next year they will probably look to avoid that by stripping this team down and starting over.
Minnesota Wild
(38-36-7, 83 points, 4th in Northwest, 13th in West, 20th in Offense, 21st in Defense)
What went wrong?: Before we talk about the season that was in the State of Hockey, it’s important to get a few disclaimers out of the way first. This team was pretty much the exact opposite of Dallas: where Dallas’ record looked better than it actually was, Minnesota’s looked worse. They were battered by injuries down the stretch and lost more games than they probably would have if so many of their top guys weren’t out injured. Many will point to the way former coach Jacques Lemaire guided the Devils towards another Atlantic division title while Minnesota’s new offense-first approach failed to ignite it past 20th and crippled their former defensive prowess. However, it’s worth keeping in mind that the Devils won the Atlantic before Lemaire got there last year, too; the real test of his mettle in 2010 as a coach will come in the playoffs, where the Devils and their defense-first philosophy has struggled since the lock-out (two 2nd round exits followed by 2 1st round exits). Stressing offense and puck possession is clearly the right way to go long-term, but to do it successfully you need your best player to have a much better start than Martin Havlat did. Letting Marian Gaborik, injury-prone as he may be, walk for nothing to the Rangers certainly hurt them too; he set a new career-high in points (86) and matched a career-high in goals (42). Add those numbers to Minnesota’s offense, which was bolstered significantly by the renaissance of former Hab Guillaume Latendresse, and they’d be one goal ahead of the San Jose Sharks for 4th in the West in goals for/per game. Without Gaborik and with Havlat’s early-season struggles (he picked up his play in a big way in the second-half after coming back from an injury), they simply did not have the firepower to get it done in the Western conference.
What should they do now?: Look around and find some more offense in the off-season. Cam Barker was a great pick-up from the Blackhawks at the trade deadline- he’s a young, offensively gifted defenseman, just the kind of guy the Wild desperately needed on their blueline. He’s been injured for most of his stay with the Wild so far, but I think with a full year of him playing first- or second-pair minutes, you can count on him to chip in 10 to 15 goals. Add another top 6 forward through either trade, free agency, or their own (slowly restocking) system, and this becomes a team that’s at least knocking on the door of a playoff spot. Luckily for the Wild, goalie Nicklas Backstrom’s numbers didn’t drop off nearly as badly as some people thought they would without Lemaire’s trapping system in front of him, so at least they can be reasonably confident they’ll get the goaltending they need to make a run at it again next year.
Playoff Hopes for Next Year: Moderate. The biggest concern for the Wild will be finding that top 6 forward they need, as it’s a pretty weak free-agent class this year. Signing Ilya Kovalchuk is probably not financially feasible even if he wanted to come to Minnesota (and he doesn’t), and there’s simply not a lot of pure goal-scorers behind him. If they manage to get that top 6 forward, a full year of Barker, Latendresse doesn’t turn out to be a one-hit wonder, and Havlat gets off to a better start, they will likely be a playoff team. Problem is, those are way too many ifs to give them a High ranking, but I like their chances. Certainly the rabid hockey fans of Minnesota, who have kept the insane sellout streak at Xcel Energy Center alive even with back-to-back lost seasons, deserve it.
Columbus Blue Jackets
(32-35-15, 79 points, 5th in Central, 14th in West, 19th in Offense, 24th in Defense)
What Went Wrong?: After teasing this team as a mirage when talking about the Blues all the way back at 10th, now I can explain just why the Blue Jackets flamed out in far more spectacular fashion. Like their Central division counterparts from St. Louis, the Jackets also went from surprise playoff team last year to missing the post-season this year. However, the similarities between the two teams are far outweighed by the differences. To understand why the Blue Jackets missed the playoffs this year, one has to understand why they made the playoffs last year, and his name is Steve Mason. The NHL’s Calder trophy winner last season, Mason had an amazing rookie season. While Ken Hitchcock, coach of the team at the time, got a great deal of the credit for guiding the Jackets to their first playoff berth in their decade-long existence, in actuality we can see now that almost all of that credit belonged to Mason. The problem is, rookie goaltenders have a long history in the NHL of having incredible rookie seasons and then dropping off the face of the Earth for the rest of their careers. There’s a reason why no one in Washington remembers Jim Carey and the people of Toronto are still trying to forget Andrew Raycroft (who, to his credit, played probably his best season since his rookie campaign backing up Roberto Luongo in Vancouver, which probably has a great deal to do with the utter lack of pressure that position comes with). Both goalies had fantastic rookie seasons and immediately followed that up with horrible year after horrible year. When it comes to goaltenders, it can often be more than your typical sophomore jinx. Rather, for whatever reason, there’s a long pattern of goalies never getting close to the level they played at in those magical rookie seasons.
Now, with all that said, once Hitchcock was finally fired and all the pressure of having even a shot in hell at making the playoffs was off Mason’s shoulders, he did play a LOT more like the rookie sensation for the rest of this season. The problem now is no one knows whether or not he’ll be able to get back to that level when the games start again. What we all learned is a lesson we should have all known as hockey fans to begin with: goaltending is not just the most important position in hockey, but arguably the most important position in all of sports, and it can provide a mirage of an overall team game that’s a lot better than it actually is. True, the Jackets bought into Hitchcock’s defense-first system somewhat better than they did this year, but that kind of defense-first mentality is going to end up falling on deaf ears on your skilled players anyway. This is especially true when the aforementioned message is delivered ham-over-fist by one of the most legendarily hard-assed coaches hockey’s ever seen. For a team that has drafted pretty badly for most of the decade, it’s ill-advised to drive off your latest first-round pick, especially when they have as much raw offensive talent as a Nikita Filatov. But Hitchcock rode Filatov hard throughout the first-half of the NHL season for not playing well defensively, overlooking the dynamic offensive presence he could have (and arguably SHOULD have) brought to a hockey team that desperately needed it. Add that up to an even more significant sophomore jinx than usual for young center Derrick Brassard, who went from averaging more than a point-a-game in his injury-shortened rookie campaign to falling to around 30 points during a full season, and you’ve got all the ingredients for a disastrous year. The team in general played better once Claude Noel was brought up for the minors to replace Hitchcock on an interim basis, but going from a hard-ass coach like Hitch to a player’s coach like Noel is always going to result in an early jump. This is especially true for a team whose playoff hopes were already fantasy by then. No one’s fooling for the mirage this time.
What should they do now?: Honestly? I haven’t the slightest idea. The Jackets are one of the most poorly-run franchises not just in hockey but in all of major sports. Their drafting and talent-developing has been awful. You’d think that a full decade out of the playoffs other than last year (and it’s not like they were picking 29th overall when they were promptly swept out of the first round by the Red Wings, either) would have resulted in more than one franchise player, and unless Mason completely reverts back to his rookie form (which as we mentioned is, historically, highly unlikely), you’d be wrong. This is a team that is screaming out for a franchise blueliner, and yet none of their homegrown talent would crack one of the first two pairings on a good team. Barring a miraculous return to form for Mason & Brassard next year, they will probably have no choice in what they do next. They will continue to be a bad team, and they will try to get better mileage out of their high draft choices. The problem of that is, being in the West is going to hurt where they draft, since the West is always so much better than the East. Even though they are second-to-last in the Western conference, if the season ended today they would likely be drafting 6th overall. Luckily for them this year’s class is fairly deep in talent, but the top 5 is still the strongest we’ve seen in probably 5 years, and barring a draft lottery shocker, they would likely just miss out on it. Not a good thing for a team in desperate need of some young talent. The fans in Ohio want to support a good hockey team, but there’s no reason to believe this franchise won’t continue to leave them out in the cold.
Playoff Hopes for Next Year: Low. I just don’t see a way for this team to leapfrog all of the other teams above them who AREN’T in the playoffs this year, let alone any of the top 8. I suppose it’s possible if Mason & Brassard both rebound and they can get production from their backend (one of the most important parts of being a good team in today’s NHL, and the Jackets rank in the bottom 5 in the league), but it’s definitely far from likely. This is just a hockey team that’s not particularly good at anything, offense or defense, and that’s a recipe for disaster when you play in the same division as the powerhouse Blackhawks, the still-great Red Wings, the solid-as-a-rock Predators, and the young and hungry Blues. I can’t see this team making it back to the playoffs anytime soon.
Edmonton Oilers
(26-46-8, 60 points, 5th in Northwest, 15th in West, 27th in Offense, 30th in Defense)
What Went Wrong?: The real question when it comes to the 2009-2010 Oilers is, what DIDN’T go wrong? This was not a particularly great team to begin with- they had one Cinderella run in the 05-06 season coming out of the lockout, going in as the 8th seed and going all the way to Game 7 of the Cup finals (ironically the very same thing their southern Alberta rivals in Calgary did in 03-04 right BEFORE the lockout). Thinking this was a team he had to keep together so they could make another run at the Cup in the future, then-GM Kevin Lowe went utterly insane, signing everyone he could to bloated, ridiculous contracts. Now, there should be a disclaimer here: people really do not want to play in Edmonton, so the fact that they had to overpay to keep guys like Shawn Horcoff coming out of their Cup run should come as no surprise. The problem is, this core wasn’t worth keeping together to begin with, and without stud blueliner Chris Pronger (who reportedly forced the hand of management to deal him to a warmer climate in order to appease his wife, making her the most hated woman in Edmonton in the process; Pronger, of course, went on to immediately help the Anaheim Ducks win the Stanley Cup) this was just not a very good hockey team. They proceeded to miss the playoffs every year since, though it was usually by a narrow margin.
Now take that mediocre team and give half of them the swine flu, have their newly signed starting goaltender injure his back mere weeks into the season and miss the entire rest of the campaign, and have their star forward tear his ACL in November for good measure. Guess what that equals? If you said “the worst team in hockey and very nearly the worst team in franchise history”, you’re right! If you said “aforementioned goalie gets a DUI”, well, you’re right too. There isn’t much else to say about the Oilers. They were not a good team. About the only bright spot was Dustin Penner FINALLY scoring at the same pace he scored at for Anaheim when Lowe made the offer-sheet that would get him ridiculed by Brian Burke (then GM of the Ducks, of course) for years to come.
What should they do?: I’m sure you’re tired of hearing this answer by now, but it’s rebuild time in Edmonton. Luckily for Oiler fans, they already have a bit of a head start. Several of their prospects are already turning heads in the lower leagues and competitions. Jordan Eberle dazzled for the Canadian team in this year’s World Junior tournament, while last year’s first-round pick Magnus Pääjärvi-Svensson is having a good rookie campaign in the Swedish Elite League playing with men. In addition, the Oilers will finish the season in 30th, so they will likely pick first and will definitely pick no lower than 2nd should another team win the lottery. That means no matter what happens, they will get a chance to draft a rookie sensation in Taylor Hall or Tyler Seguin, two players who are expected to jump into an NHL lineup and immediately make them much, much better. They are being called possibly the best 1-2 to go in a draft since Ovechkin and Malkin in 2004, so obviously there’s a ton of potential there. Of course, if they draft first and have to choose between them, that’s a choice that will be second-guessed for years, especially if the one they don’t pick clearly outperforms his counterpart in the first few seasons. But this is still a team with a lot of good, young prospects, and more help is clearly coming.
Playoff Hopes for Next Year: Low. Of all the teams in both conferences, the only one I can look at and say “You will not make the playoffs next year.” is the Oilers. You can point at Colorado and Phoenix rising from 15th and 14th into playoff position this year all you want, but the fact of the matter is, neither of those two teams were tied down with utterly ludicrous contracts like this Oilers team. They are paying a bunch of third- and fourth-line guys first- and second-line money, and that’s a recipe for disaster in today’s salary cap world. The Oilers will be hard-pressed to move any of those contracts, and they don’t have the financial muscle of a Toronto team required to bury these contracts in the minors. Even if they had money to spend, last year’s Dany Heatley fiasco reminded everyone that almost no one ever chooses to play for the Oil, which also necessitates a slow, in-house rebuilding project. Next year may see some immediate improvement from adding Hall or Seguin, hopefully getting the Bulin Wall rebuilt, and getting Ales Hemsky back in their lineup. But asking this team to go all the way back to the playoffs for the first time in five seasons coming off this disastrous campaign is likely asking more than a little too much. Still, those contracts will start to come off the books in a few seasons, and once those awful deals and bad veterans have been flushed out of their system, this could be the next young team to build a contender through the draft in the same vain as the Penguins, Capitals, Blackhawks, and others who are on their way there already. Two to three years from now, the Oilers may finally become the Northwest division-winning team many had pegged them to be going into the 08-09 year.
Alright folks, it’s rejoicing time, because this incredibly long blogumn (that’s John Buccigross’ saying and I kinda love it) is finally over! I hope you’ve learned something about the 7 teams who are not going to be in the playoffs in the Western conference this season, because barring a major firing, they will likely never be spoken of again here until it’s time for next season’s preview.
The playoffs are almost here, and I’m sure you can all taste it. To help you gear up for the nonstop thrill ride that is playoff hockey, we’ll be back with a new blog as soon as the playoff match-ups are set (late Sunday). I’m also excited to announce the return of CIA Radio, a podcast I briefly headed up last season. We’ll be returning Monday night at 9 pm EST, and I’ll make sure to post the live Talkshoe link on here and on my Twitter & Facebook accounts so you can join us to talk all the playoff match-ups. You’ll hear not just my opinion on who’s going to the Cup final, as we’ll have a three-man (well, two men and one woman) booth to break it all down for you piece-by-piece. Until then, enjoy the last two days of regular season hockey!
Of the teams who missed last year, almost all of them save maybe Edmonton will have a decent chance to make it back to the playoffs. That’s little consolation to the players, but they can be rest assured, next year they could be playing playoff hockey again instead of golf. Of course, you also have to wonder, of eight teams who are in this year, who is going to miss next year? The powerhouses (San Jose, Chicago, Vancouver, even Detroit who would have been higher without all the injuries) all have their franchise players locked-up for the foreseeable future. The rest of the teams are, for the most part, very young teams who are only going to get better. Of course, we all said the same things last year about St. Louis & Columbus and both of them managed to drop out, so anything can happen. Still, when you look at that top 8 and try to think who might miss next year, there’s really no one who jumps out at you, and that’s a problem for all of the teams we’ll be talking about today.
We’ll be looking at three areas for each team: first, before we can discuss their future prospects, we’ll take a look back at just went so terribly wrong this season. Then, we’ll look at what they SHOULD do to try and get things turned around in the off-season. Finally, we’ll rate their chances of making the playoffs next year as either High, Moderate, or Low.
Calgary Flames
(40-31-10, 90 points, 9th in East, 4th in Northwest, 29th in Offense, 4th in Defense)
What Went Wrong?: This team is by far the easiest when it comes to why they won’t be playing playoff hockey this year. Simply put, the Calgary Flames could not put the little, round black object into the big white net, and considering that’s the point of this sport of ours, that would in fact be a problem. Calgary’s GM Daryl Sutter made blunder after blunder, starting with trading away Matthew Lombardi and their first-round pick to Phoenix for Olli Jokinen at last year’s trade deadline. To justify his decision to trade for Jokinen and allow him to sign free-agent defenseman Jay Bouwmeester, Sutter then allowed Mike Cammalleri (he of the 39 goals) to walk right on over to Montreal for nothing in free agency. Of course, losing 39 goals is hard enough for any team to overcome, but Sutter probably assumed a full year of Jokinen and acquiring Bouwmeester (who hit the elusive 15-goal mark for a defenseman 3 times in Florida) would equal, if not surpass, Cammy’s totals. Guess what? He was wrong. Jokinen had just 12 goals before he was shipped off to the Rangers just before the Olympic break, in exchange for another forward who lost his scoring touch in Chris Higgins and the 3 million dollar-a-year-for-2-more-years Ales Kotalik. The deal was even more absurd when you realize that Kotalik had been a healthy scratch for almost 10 games in a row prior to the deal; Rangers fans rejoiced that 6 million dollars came off the books in exchange for a pending-UFA, while Flames fans groaned.
It was not the first time Flames fans had groaned that weekend, either. Dion Phaneuf, he of the NHL 09 cover and the Norris trophy nomination at just 20 years old, was traded to Toronto. In exchange for Luke Schenn, maybe? The rights to Nazem Kadri? No, that would imply Toronto gave up something they had an intention of keeping. Instead, Calgary received the proverbial bag of pucks. For a guy who, despite a couple of so-so seasons, still carries with him the potential to be a franchise defenseman, the Flames took third-line center Matt Stajan, woefully inconsistent scorer Niklas Hagman, aging 4th liner Jamal Meyers, and a decent but undersized defenseman who was admittedly having a career year in Ian White. Of course, Calgary was so impressed with this package of free agents Burke had no intention of resigning anyway that they threw in one of their best prospects and a very useful third-to-fourth liner too. The excuse given was they wanted to finally find a center to play with Jarome Iginla; in response to this explanation, Flames fans everywhere asked “So why in God’s name did you trade for MATT FRIGGIN’ STAJAN, dipshits?” Of course, Stajan didn’t come close to playing well with Iginla, and for this abject failure he was swiftly punished with a 14-million dollar contract, only about 13.5 million more than any sane person would give to Matt Stajan.
You’ll notice that we’ve yet to mention Jay Bouwmeester since we talked about his signing. That’s because the 15-goal man currently sits at just THREE goals in his first year with the Flames, going scoreless from November to March. Calgary’s defensive system choked all of the offense right after him, and suddenly the Flames found themselves, at 6.8 million, paying him almost 2.5 million per goal! Even poor Jarome Iginla finally cracked, coming up dry in 9 straight games down the stretch.
Add all this up and you have possibly one of the most disastrous years in the history of any franchise. Yeah, 9th place is certainly respectable in a conference where the 8th place team has 94 points, but now the damage has been done. The Flames are stuck with a team that can’t score, very little room under the cap to solve the problem, and a cupboard that isn’t just bare but has spider webs hanging inside. This is a team that has all the potential to be one of the worst teams in the NHL for a good half-decade. Only by the grace of Miika Kiprusoff (who might as well be God as far as the Flames fans are concerned) and his Vezina-like season did the Flames avoid finishing much, much worse.
What should they do now?: Well, now that I’ve finished writing a small book on Calgary’s horrific season, I suppose it’s time to discuss what they should do next. First of all, they must satisfy the Flames’ passionate fanbase and their thirst for blood. GM Daryl Sutter being shown the door should be a given, but there should be a good, long look taken at letting his brother Brent go as head coach as well. While it’s true he only had a single season to work with this team and they never seemed to buy 100% into his system, the fact remains that his system is a problem to begin with. We are currently in the middle of the most wide-open era in NHL hockey since the early ‘90s; defense-first just can’t get it done anymore. If you look at the top 10 defensive teams in the NHL as far as the GAA/per game goes, most of the top 10 are there not because they play a waiting, clog-up-the-neutral-zone kind of game. Rather, almost everyone has copied Detroit. Puck possession is preached above all else, with the idea being very simple: if you’re always in their end taking it to them offensively, how are they ever going to score? Of course the argument is always there that they don’t have the personnel to play that kind of game, and it’s true to a point. But I guarantee you that if Jay Bouwmeester was given the opportunity to join the rush and make plays the way he was in Florida, he would be right back at that 15-goal range. Considering it’s generally not a good idea to sign defensemen to 6.8 million dollar deals for three goals, getting him going again should be a huge priority.
Regardless of what happens to the coach, once Daryl Sutter is fired and someone else is brought in, patience must be stressed and chance must be made. This is a team that has spent the past 5 years living off the reputation of their magical 2004 run from 8th place to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. While they’ve made the playoffs every year since then, they have also been knocked out in the first round every single one of those years. Coaches have been changed more often than some people change underwear. The fact that they finally took the next step down and missed the playoffs entirely this year should really come as no surprise, even though many pundits picked them to do more. The Phaneuf trade was a partial admission that something about that locker room just wasn’t right, but it’s clearly not enough. Considering they will go into this year’s draft without picks in the first two rounds and next year’s draft without a first-rounder as well, it is time to tear this thing down and rebuild. Without their draft picks this will have to be another Toronto-style unconventional rebuild, and they are not in the same position as Toronto to be able to sign coveted undrafted free agents. Instead, it’s time to do what was previously unfathomable and trade Jarome Iginla. Not only would you give the 32-year-old a legitimate shot at winning a Stanley Cup (something it doesn’t look like he’ll have anytime soon in Calgary), but you’d hopefully recoup a first-round pick and/or a top offensive prospect, as well. With all that sad, I highly doubt anything like that will happen. The Flames will point to how close they were and stand pat, a mistake in the long-run.
Playoff Hopes for Next Year: Moderate. Like I said, I’m expecting them NOT to go down the rebuild road, even though that’s what they really need for the long-term health of the franchise. Assuming there’s no rebuild (yet), any team with Miika Kiprusoff will always have at least a decent shot at making the playoffs. But considering how many good young teams there are in the West, I wouldn’t place any bets on it.
St. Louis Blues
(40-32-9, 89 points, 10th in West, 4th in Central, 17th in Offense, 13th in Defense)
What Went Wrong?: Of all the teams who missed the playoffs this year, in both conferences, the Blues are perhaps the toughest ones to figure out. St. Louis rallied late in the season last year to make the playoffs as the single best team in the NHL in the second-half of the season, got swept by the Canucks in the first round, and promptly came out of the gate almost as slowly this year. The weirdest thing of all is they had one of the best road records in the NHL, and yet the single worst home record. It was this home record that got Andy Murray fired as head coach despite finishing as a runner-up for the Jack Adams award just one season earlier. After rookie coach Davis Payne came up from the minors, he turned the team around somewhat in the same way other young coaches have found success all over the NHL, but ultimately there just wasn’t another magical second-half run in this team. Too many of their rookies who were so great last year had the traditional Sophomore Jinx (which should probably have Colorado Avalanche fans scared considering they’re the team in the top 8 carried primarily by rookies this year), and not enough of their aging veterans played well enough to make up for it.
What should they do now?: Not a whole hell of a lot, actually. Their kids will get every chance to rekindle that rookie magic next year, and until they start having a weak third year it’s not time to panic and assume they won’t be able to do it. They have one of the best one-two punches in net in the entire league, a young defenseman who looks like a star in the making in Erik Johnson, and a prospect cupboard that is still stocked pretty well from all their years of being bad-to-awful. Keith Tkachuk has already confirmed his retirement following the season and a few others could follow, opening up more roster spots for those young players. Their best plan of action is to probably write this season off as an anomaly and give their young guys another shot to get it done before making any drastic changes. It’s not like they even missed by that much this year, anyway.
Playoff Hopes for Next Year: Moderate. It’s going to be really hard to get a High out of me for any team in the West, just because of how strong the conference is top-to-bottom, but of all the moderate-ranked teams the Blues are the closest to High. If they get the kind of goaltending they got this year plus a quick and painless shaking-off of the various sophomore jinxes, they will not only be back in the post-season next year, but they should be able to make a bit more noise this time, as well. Unlike another team who’s missing with the word “Blue” in their name, last year wasn’t a mirage. This is still a good, young team with a ton of upside.
Anaheim Ducks
(38-32-11, 87 points, 4th in Pacific, 11th in West, 12th in Offense, 22nd in Defense)
What Went Wrong?: Everyone knew the defense of Anaheim, legendary in its stinginess that largely carried them to bring the entire state of California its first Stanley Cup in ‘06-07, was going to take a huge hit with the trade of Chris Pronger. But can anyone honestly say they expected this team to drop all the way down to TWENTY-SECOND in the league defensively? That’s not just a drop, that’s a freefall. All year long this team failed to maintain leads and lost games they should have won at home, and ultimately it cost them a playoff spot. This year wasn’t a total bust, however. Giguere’s monstrous contract was taken off the books thanks to Toronto and when all three were healthy, the Ryan-Getzlaf-Perry line was one of the best in the NHL. This is a team that struggled to find secondary scoring all year long, but when Teemu Selanne & Saku Koivu were both actually in the lineup at the same time, they largely managed to rekindle their Finnish Olympic team chemistry after a slow start, giving them a second-line threat down the stretch to the point where Teemu managed to hit the 600-goal mark and surpass childhood idol Jari Kurri (which for Ducks fans used to being in the playoff hunt this time of year was a welcome distraction). By then it was too little, too late, but there’s still plenty of reasons to like this team’s chances going forward. That is, of course….
What should they do now?: …..if their veterans want to come back and play one more year. No indication has been given one way or another if the trio of Scott Neidermayer and the aforementioned Finnish Flash & his Finnish Friend will return. So really we have to give two answers here: if they come back, again this is a team I don’t do much to outside of the odd tinker here or there. With a full year of secondary scoring and trade deadline pick-up Lubomir Visnovsky (who played really well for them down the stretch), I would expect this team to make the playoffs. If the triumvirate of indecision decides not to come back (and I fully expect there to be a domino effect here where if one announces their retirement, the other two will quickly follow, and vice-versa), however, it’s probably best to unload some of their other veteran pieces and make a go at a real rebuild here. Considering they will have two picks in the first round of the next two drafts thanks to the Pronger trade, it doesn’t have to be a lengthy rebuild, either; especially if prospect Luca Sbisa, picked up from Philly in that same trade, is ready to go at the NHL level full-time within a season or two.
Playoff Hopes for Next Year: Look above at the same two-pronged answer: High if the aging trio comes back, Low if they don’t. I just don’t see how this team replaces the secondary scoring of Selanne & Koivu and the veteran presence of Neidermayer in one summer, and even with all three of them they narrowly missed this year. If they keep them and Selanne & Koivu have healthier campaigns, they will more than likely be a playoff team again. If they decide to walk away, because the prospect cupboards are relatively bare, it will probably be a long season for them. But again, with two picks in the first rounds of the next two drafts, they’d be in pretty good shape to start filling those cupboards up relatively quickly.
Dallas Stars
(36-31-14, 86 points, 5th in Pacific, 12th in West, 11th in Offense, 23rd in Defense)
What Went Wrong?: A lot of the same things that went wrong for Anaheim, actually. This is another former defensive powerhouse that suddenly found themselves in the bottom-third of the league in GAA/per game. Despite a good offense, they couldn’t overcome their problems defensively and their incredible inconsistency. Dallas was the only team in the entire NHL who failed to have at least a three-game winning streak at any point in the season. They were the definition of mediocrity; win two, lose two, win one, lose one. It went on like that for the entire season. The fanbase, once looked at as a shining example of the NHL’s success in the south, largely stopped caring, and both live attendance and TV ratings suffered greatly. The problem is, Dallas is a HUGE market with a ton of options for fans’ sport & entertainment dollar, so a hockey team that’s nearly 8 million dollars below the salary cap and clearly not doing all it can to win right now is going to turn many of them off. The problem is, owner Tom Hicks is having serious financial difficulty and suddenly finds himself unable to maintain his previous commitment to winning (and spending the money it takes to do so). In the end, Dallas had some good pieces, but they seem to have been stuck all season long in a limbo between a young and hungry team and a complacent veteran team. Not a good place to be, to be sure.
What should they do now?: Rebuild, and that’s exactly what it appears first-year GM Joe Nieuwendyk is doing as we speak. He traded for the injury-prone but still full of potential former 1st overall pick Kari Lehtonen from Atlanta, clearly indicating veteran backstopper Marty Turco won’t be back next season. Other veterans like Mike Modano (who had a very touching tribute shown on the screen during the Stars’ last home game Thursday, resulting in a nearly three-minute-long standing ovation from the 18,000 fans in attendance that brought him to tears) are strongly considering retirement. Now it’s time to trade away some of the guys with attitude problems (yeah, that’s you Mike Riberio) and some of the underachieving veterans, and really tank next year. It’s the right move and I fully expect it to happen. There just isn’t enough talent or youth on this team right now to compete in a Western conference that’s suddenly become about young talent over everything else.
Playoff Hopes for Next Year: Low. Like I said, it will likely be a rebuild year for these Stars, and that means not coming even this close to making the playoffs. Don’t let their point total fool you: they were almost never really in the race since December or January. The only thing they did was lessen their own draft position, and next year they will probably look to avoid that by stripping this team down and starting over.
Minnesota Wild
(38-36-7, 83 points, 4th in Northwest, 13th in West, 20th in Offense, 21st in Defense)
What went wrong?: Before we talk about the season that was in the State of Hockey, it’s important to get a few disclaimers out of the way first. This team was pretty much the exact opposite of Dallas: where Dallas’ record looked better than it actually was, Minnesota’s looked worse. They were battered by injuries down the stretch and lost more games than they probably would have if so many of their top guys weren’t out injured. Many will point to the way former coach Jacques Lemaire guided the Devils towards another Atlantic division title while Minnesota’s new offense-first approach failed to ignite it past 20th and crippled their former defensive prowess. However, it’s worth keeping in mind that the Devils won the Atlantic before Lemaire got there last year, too; the real test of his mettle in 2010 as a coach will come in the playoffs, where the Devils and their defense-first philosophy has struggled since the lock-out (two 2nd round exits followed by 2 1st round exits). Stressing offense and puck possession is clearly the right way to go long-term, but to do it successfully you need your best player to have a much better start than Martin Havlat did. Letting Marian Gaborik, injury-prone as he may be, walk for nothing to the Rangers certainly hurt them too; he set a new career-high in points (86) and matched a career-high in goals (42). Add those numbers to Minnesota’s offense, which was bolstered significantly by the renaissance of former Hab Guillaume Latendresse, and they’d be one goal ahead of the San Jose Sharks for 4th in the West in goals for/per game. Without Gaborik and with Havlat’s early-season struggles (he picked up his play in a big way in the second-half after coming back from an injury), they simply did not have the firepower to get it done in the Western conference.
What should they do now?: Look around and find some more offense in the off-season. Cam Barker was a great pick-up from the Blackhawks at the trade deadline- he’s a young, offensively gifted defenseman, just the kind of guy the Wild desperately needed on their blueline. He’s been injured for most of his stay with the Wild so far, but I think with a full year of him playing first- or second-pair minutes, you can count on him to chip in 10 to 15 goals. Add another top 6 forward through either trade, free agency, or their own (slowly restocking) system, and this becomes a team that’s at least knocking on the door of a playoff spot. Luckily for the Wild, goalie Nicklas Backstrom’s numbers didn’t drop off nearly as badly as some people thought they would without Lemaire’s trapping system in front of him, so at least they can be reasonably confident they’ll get the goaltending they need to make a run at it again next year.
Playoff Hopes for Next Year: Moderate. The biggest concern for the Wild will be finding that top 6 forward they need, as it’s a pretty weak free-agent class this year. Signing Ilya Kovalchuk is probably not financially feasible even if he wanted to come to Minnesota (and he doesn’t), and there’s simply not a lot of pure goal-scorers behind him. If they manage to get that top 6 forward, a full year of Barker, Latendresse doesn’t turn out to be a one-hit wonder, and Havlat gets off to a better start, they will likely be a playoff team. Problem is, those are way too many ifs to give them a High ranking, but I like their chances. Certainly the rabid hockey fans of Minnesota, who have kept the insane sellout streak at Xcel Energy Center alive even with back-to-back lost seasons, deserve it.
Columbus Blue Jackets
(32-35-15, 79 points, 5th in Central, 14th in West, 19th in Offense, 24th in Defense)
What Went Wrong?: After teasing this team as a mirage when talking about the Blues all the way back at 10th, now I can explain just why the Blue Jackets flamed out in far more spectacular fashion. Like their Central division counterparts from St. Louis, the Jackets also went from surprise playoff team last year to missing the post-season this year. However, the similarities between the two teams are far outweighed by the differences. To understand why the Blue Jackets missed the playoffs this year, one has to understand why they made the playoffs last year, and his name is Steve Mason. The NHL’s Calder trophy winner last season, Mason had an amazing rookie season. While Ken Hitchcock, coach of the team at the time, got a great deal of the credit for guiding the Jackets to their first playoff berth in their decade-long existence, in actuality we can see now that almost all of that credit belonged to Mason. The problem is, rookie goaltenders have a long history in the NHL of having incredible rookie seasons and then dropping off the face of the Earth for the rest of their careers. There’s a reason why no one in Washington remembers Jim Carey and the people of Toronto are still trying to forget Andrew Raycroft (who, to his credit, played probably his best season since his rookie campaign backing up Roberto Luongo in Vancouver, which probably has a great deal to do with the utter lack of pressure that position comes with). Both goalies had fantastic rookie seasons and immediately followed that up with horrible year after horrible year. When it comes to goaltenders, it can often be more than your typical sophomore jinx. Rather, for whatever reason, there’s a long pattern of goalies never getting close to the level they played at in those magical rookie seasons.
Now, with all that said, once Hitchcock was finally fired and all the pressure of having even a shot in hell at making the playoffs was off Mason’s shoulders, he did play a LOT more like the rookie sensation for the rest of this season. The problem now is no one knows whether or not he’ll be able to get back to that level when the games start again. What we all learned is a lesson we should have all known as hockey fans to begin with: goaltending is not just the most important position in hockey, but arguably the most important position in all of sports, and it can provide a mirage of an overall team game that’s a lot better than it actually is. True, the Jackets bought into Hitchcock’s defense-first system somewhat better than they did this year, but that kind of defense-first mentality is going to end up falling on deaf ears on your skilled players anyway. This is especially true when the aforementioned message is delivered ham-over-fist by one of the most legendarily hard-assed coaches hockey’s ever seen. For a team that has drafted pretty badly for most of the decade, it’s ill-advised to drive off your latest first-round pick, especially when they have as much raw offensive talent as a Nikita Filatov. But Hitchcock rode Filatov hard throughout the first-half of the NHL season for not playing well defensively, overlooking the dynamic offensive presence he could have (and arguably SHOULD have) brought to a hockey team that desperately needed it. Add that up to an even more significant sophomore jinx than usual for young center Derrick Brassard, who went from averaging more than a point-a-game in his injury-shortened rookie campaign to falling to around 30 points during a full season, and you’ve got all the ingredients for a disastrous year. The team in general played better once Claude Noel was brought up for the minors to replace Hitchcock on an interim basis, but going from a hard-ass coach like Hitch to a player’s coach like Noel is always going to result in an early jump. This is especially true for a team whose playoff hopes were already fantasy by then. No one’s fooling for the mirage this time.
What should they do now?: Honestly? I haven’t the slightest idea. The Jackets are one of the most poorly-run franchises not just in hockey but in all of major sports. Their drafting and talent-developing has been awful. You’d think that a full decade out of the playoffs other than last year (and it’s not like they were picking 29th overall when they were promptly swept out of the first round by the Red Wings, either) would have resulted in more than one franchise player, and unless Mason completely reverts back to his rookie form (which as we mentioned is, historically, highly unlikely), you’d be wrong. This is a team that is screaming out for a franchise blueliner, and yet none of their homegrown talent would crack one of the first two pairings on a good team. Barring a miraculous return to form for Mason & Brassard next year, they will probably have no choice in what they do next. They will continue to be a bad team, and they will try to get better mileage out of their high draft choices. The problem of that is, being in the West is going to hurt where they draft, since the West is always so much better than the East. Even though they are second-to-last in the Western conference, if the season ended today they would likely be drafting 6th overall. Luckily for them this year’s class is fairly deep in talent, but the top 5 is still the strongest we’ve seen in probably 5 years, and barring a draft lottery shocker, they would likely just miss out on it. Not a good thing for a team in desperate need of some young talent. The fans in Ohio want to support a good hockey team, but there’s no reason to believe this franchise won’t continue to leave them out in the cold.
Playoff Hopes for Next Year: Low. I just don’t see a way for this team to leapfrog all of the other teams above them who AREN’T in the playoffs this year, let alone any of the top 8. I suppose it’s possible if Mason & Brassard both rebound and they can get production from their backend (one of the most important parts of being a good team in today’s NHL, and the Jackets rank in the bottom 5 in the league), but it’s definitely far from likely. This is just a hockey team that’s not particularly good at anything, offense or defense, and that’s a recipe for disaster when you play in the same division as the powerhouse Blackhawks, the still-great Red Wings, the solid-as-a-rock Predators, and the young and hungry Blues. I can’t see this team making it back to the playoffs anytime soon.
Edmonton Oilers
(26-46-8, 60 points, 5th in Northwest, 15th in West, 27th in Offense, 30th in Defense)
What Went Wrong?: The real question when it comes to the 2009-2010 Oilers is, what DIDN’T go wrong? This was not a particularly great team to begin with- they had one Cinderella run in the 05-06 season coming out of the lockout, going in as the 8th seed and going all the way to Game 7 of the Cup finals (ironically the very same thing their southern Alberta rivals in Calgary did in 03-04 right BEFORE the lockout). Thinking this was a team he had to keep together so they could make another run at the Cup in the future, then-GM Kevin Lowe went utterly insane, signing everyone he could to bloated, ridiculous contracts. Now, there should be a disclaimer here: people really do not want to play in Edmonton, so the fact that they had to overpay to keep guys like Shawn Horcoff coming out of their Cup run should come as no surprise. The problem is, this core wasn’t worth keeping together to begin with, and without stud blueliner Chris Pronger (who reportedly forced the hand of management to deal him to a warmer climate in order to appease his wife, making her the most hated woman in Edmonton in the process; Pronger, of course, went on to immediately help the Anaheim Ducks win the Stanley Cup) this was just not a very good hockey team. They proceeded to miss the playoffs every year since, though it was usually by a narrow margin.
Now take that mediocre team and give half of them the swine flu, have their newly signed starting goaltender injure his back mere weeks into the season and miss the entire rest of the campaign, and have their star forward tear his ACL in November for good measure. Guess what that equals? If you said “the worst team in hockey and very nearly the worst team in franchise history”, you’re right! If you said “aforementioned goalie gets a DUI”, well, you’re right too. There isn’t much else to say about the Oilers. They were not a good team. About the only bright spot was Dustin Penner FINALLY scoring at the same pace he scored at for Anaheim when Lowe made the offer-sheet that would get him ridiculed by Brian Burke (then GM of the Ducks, of course) for years to come.
What should they do?: I’m sure you’re tired of hearing this answer by now, but it’s rebuild time in Edmonton. Luckily for Oiler fans, they already have a bit of a head start. Several of their prospects are already turning heads in the lower leagues and competitions. Jordan Eberle dazzled for the Canadian team in this year’s World Junior tournament, while last year’s first-round pick Magnus Pääjärvi-Svensson is having a good rookie campaign in the Swedish Elite League playing with men. In addition, the Oilers will finish the season in 30th, so they will likely pick first and will definitely pick no lower than 2nd should another team win the lottery. That means no matter what happens, they will get a chance to draft a rookie sensation in Taylor Hall or Tyler Seguin, two players who are expected to jump into an NHL lineup and immediately make them much, much better. They are being called possibly the best 1-2 to go in a draft since Ovechkin and Malkin in 2004, so obviously there’s a ton of potential there. Of course, if they draft first and have to choose between them, that’s a choice that will be second-guessed for years, especially if the one they don’t pick clearly outperforms his counterpart in the first few seasons. But this is still a team with a lot of good, young prospects, and more help is clearly coming.
Playoff Hopes for Next Year: Low. Of all the teams in both conferences, the only one I can look at and say “You will not make the playoffs next year.” is the Oilers. You can point at Colorado and Phoenix rising from 15th and 14th into playoff position this year all you want, but the fact of the matter is, neither of those two teams were tied down with utterly ludicrous contracts like this Oilers team. They are paying a bunch of third- and fourth-line guys first- and second-line money, and that’s a recipe for disaster in today’s salary cap world. The Oilers will be hard-pressed to move any of those contracts, and they don’t have the financial muscle of a Toronto team required to bury these contracts in the minors. Even if they had money to spend, last year’s Dany Heatley fiasco reminded everyone that almost no one ever chooses to play for the Oil, which also necessitates a slow, in-house rebuilding project. Next year may see some immediate improvement from adding Hall or Seguin, hopefully getting the Bulin Wall rebuilt, and getting Ales Hemsky back in their lineup. But asking this team to go all the way back to the playoffs for the first time in five seasons coming off this disastrous campaign is likely asking more than a little too much. Still, those contracts will start to come off the books in a few seasons, and once those awful deals and bad veterans have been flushed out of their system, this could be the next young team to build a contender through the draft in the same vain as the Penguins, Capitals, Blackhawks, and others who are on their way there already. Two to three years from now, the Oilers may finally become the Northwest division-winning team many had pegged them to be going into the 08-09 year.
Alright folks, it’s rejoicing time, because this incredibly long blogumn (that’s John Buccigross’ saying and I kinda love it) is finally over! I hope you’ve learned something about the 7 teams who are not going to be in the playoffs in the Western conference this season, because barring a major firing, they will likely never be spoken of again here until it’s time for next season’s preview.
The playoffs are almost here, and I’m sure you can all taste it. To help you gear up for the nonstop thrill ride that is playoff hockey, we’ll be back with a new blog as soon as the playoff match-ups are set (late Sunday). I’m also excited to announce the return of CIA Radio, a podcast I briefly headed up last season. We’ll be returning Monday night at 9 pm EST, and I’ll make sure to post the live Talkshoe link on here and on my Twitter & Facebook accounts so you can join us to talk all the playoff match-ups. You’ll hear not just my opinion on who’s going to the Cup final, as we’ll have a three-man (well, two men and one woman) booth to break it all down for you piece-by-piece. Until then, enjoy the last two days of regular season hockey!
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Breaking Down the Playoff Chances: Western Conference
Welcome back to Center Ice Addict! Today, we're going to try something a little bit different. As you probably know, we usually break down the day's schedule in the NHL and tell you which games are worth watching. But taking a look at the schedule for today, there really isn't much of a point in doing that; of the 11 games on tap for today, only 1 (Phoenix @ Nashville) is between teams currently in playoff position. And as great as the hockey as been this year, there's something that's become increasingly obvious as the weeks go by. The playoff races are, to be quite frank, the worst we've seen in years.
For all the talk of parity in today's NHL, the fact is in both Conferences, most of the teams have little to no shot of making the playoffs. There is real separation heading into the final weeks of the regular season. In the West, 9th place Calgary sits 4 points behind Detroit, and with their respective schedules that will be a very difficult point differential to make up down the stretch. 10th place Dallas sits 9 points back, and Detroit has a game in hand on all the teams sitting 10th-14th. While all those teams are still *mathematically* in it, realistically they haven't got a shot in hell.
The East, for all its mediocrity compared to the West (those some 10th place Stars would be tied for 8th if they were in the Eastern Conference, and virtually everyone other than Columbus & Edmonton would still be in it in the East), isn't much better. 8th place Boston sits 3 points ahead of 9th place Atlanta, and 5 points ahead of the 10th place Rangers, with a game in hand on both. As a Ranger fan I do want to point out that our schedule, despite being road-heavy, is actually a lot easier than Boston's. If the Rangers can beat the Devils tonight, they have a real chance to go on a run against non-playoff teams: they'll play at the Maple Leafs, Islanders, Lightning, Panthers, Buffalo (the only playoff team here), then home to the Leafs again. If they can make hay on that schedule and win 5 of 6 or even run the table, then they may be able to make this race close again. Realistically, they're still out of it until they get it done, and Boston still has their fate in their own hands.
With all that said, the "parity" that we're seeing this year in the NHL has been replaced a bit by three real "tiers' of teams. You've got your Elite Tier, the teams at the top of the conferences who have put a ton of separation from everyone else (and one could argue Washington and their 108 points, which have already tied a franchise record with 9 games left to play, should be their own tier). Washington, Jersey, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo would be your elite teams in the East, with Chicago, San Jose, Vancouver, & shockingly Phoenix being the elite teams in the West. Then you have your Playoff Tier, the teams in each conference who aren't quite in striking distance of the elite teams, but who have put a great deal of separation between themselves and the non-playoff teams in each conference. Ottawa, Montreal, Philadelphia, and Boston comprise this tier in the East, while Los Angeles, Colorado, Nashville, and Detroit (maybe Calgary) comprise this tier in the West. Finally, you've got your non-playoff teams, which are everyone else.
This is what I like to call the New Parity in the NHL. Other than Washington, who like I said should be their own tier, in the East you've got the Pens, Devils, and Sabres all separated by just 1 point. In the West, Chicago, San Jose, Phoenix, and Vancouver are only separated by 4 points. Then when you get to the playoff teams, in the East 5th place Ottawa and 8th place Boston are only separated by 5 points, and in the West it's even tighter as 5th place LA and 8th place Detroit are only separated by 3 points. Finally, the non-playoff teams are just as tight: 2 points are all that separates 10th place Dallas and 13th place Anaheim in the West, while 5 points separate the 10th place Rangers and 14th place Islanders.
So while things are still tight in today's NHL, there's also a lot more separation than there are in years past, and that makes this year's playoff race seem a bit more, well, boring than usual. Like I said in my last blog, how excited can you really get for a race for 8th in the East when your "reward" is playing the most dominant regular-season team the NHL has seen in almost a decade? In the West, you have the opposite problem: all the teams in the playoffs right now seem so good and seem like they can knock off anyone, so when those eight teams just keep winning games, who could you really see dropping out of it so Calgary can get in?
But there is light at the end of this tunnel. The trade-off for having a less-interesting stretch drive than we might usually have is we may have one of the most exciting playoffs ever coming up in just a few short weeks. And that's saying something coming off one of the most exciting playoffs in almost two decades last year, but this year's has all the potential to top it. The East may not be as interesting as last year (it really looks like Washington's conference to lose, but we'll get more into that next time), but can you ever recall a time when the West was this wide open? You've got 4 teams atop the West all within 4 points of each other, and you've got an 8th place team in Detroit right now that NO ONE wants to play in the first-round. Any single one of these eight teams could win the Western conference.
So here's what we're going to do today. We're going to take a look at all of the teams currently in the playoffs, break down where they were expected to finish before the season started, and then break down what they could do in the playoffs. Each team will get a High and a Low, in another words where we think their potential is and where they could flame out. We'll list their records, overall, home, and away, and we'll also list their rankings among all 30 teams in the NHL in both offense & defense (goals for/goals against per game). Finally, we'll talk briefly about what their possible playoff match-ups and which ones would most benefit them. Alright folks, with all this intro out of the way, let's get started in the Western conference!
Western Conference
1st: Chicago Blackhawks
(46-19-7, 99 points, 27-7-3 at home, 19-12-4 away, 3rd in Offense, 4th in Defense)
Pre-Season Pick: Cup Favorite
High: Stanley Cup champions
Low: Second-round exit
The Blackhawks went into this season with the high expectations of winning their first Stanley Cup since 1961, and they've been right at the top of the Central division & Western conference standings since pretty much the season began. People had issue with their goaltending heading into the season, and some still do, but for the most part the duo of Huet & Niemi have gotten it done in the regular season. The big question heading into the post-season is who will be the starter, but the Hawks will at least be able to comfort themselves with the knowledge that if whoever they go with flames out, they've still got the other one to hand the ball to.
Even though the Blackhawks are currently matched-up with the Red Wings in the first round, I can't see them going out any earlier than the second. They're simply too good on both sides of the puck to get upset in the first round. A second round upset is possible if their goaltending, which just isn't playoff-tested, gives out on them. But realistically, this is probably as close as the West has to a favorite to make it to at least the Conference finals, and until someone knocks them off they have to be considered the favorite to win the West.
Possible playoff match-ups: Detroit, Nashville, Colorado
Wants to play: Colorado
Wants to avoid: Detroit
(The Hawks have had their problems with Nashville's trapping style over the years, but Detroit still has to be the most feared team to the Blackhawks and especially their fans. Despite Chicago's mastery over the Central this season, the Red Wings have already shown in recent weeks that, when healthy, they're still very capable of playing the Blackhawks evenly. I would still favorite the Hawks in any of these potential match-ups, including against the Wings, but there's no doubt they'd like to avoid facing Detroit in the first round if it's at all possible.)
2nd place: San Jose Sharks
(44-19-10, 98 points, 22-6-8 at home, 22-13-2 on the road, 4th in Offense, 9th in Defense)
Pre-Season Pick: ???
High Expectation: Conference Final
Low Expectation: First-round exit
The question marks are pretty much what everyone put down for the Sharks heading into the season. Every year this team looks great on paper, and then everyone year they find a way to flame out in the first or second round of the playoffs. So finally, almost no one picked them to win the Cup this year, saying they wouldn't be fooled again by San Jose, even after they retooled a lot of their roster, striped Marleau of the C, and acquired Dany Heatley from Ottawa. The Sharks at first did that usual San Jose domination of the regular-season, but they're recently coming off a six-game winless streak (their longest since November of 2005, and five straight losses came in regulation) that was just snapped this past week in Minnesota.
The problems with the Sharks are numerous: despite the fact that their leaders continue to bang the drum in interviews that "this isn't the same team as last year", who were their leaders last year? Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Rob Blake, Dan Boyle....you guessed it, they're all on the team again this year. The only difference is the aforementioned Heatley, who no one has ever confused with a clutch performer. So does changing around a bunch of role-players on the lower lines really mean this is a totally different team? I don't buy it.
There's an argument to be made that all these recent struggles is actually a good thing for a team that got it easy for most of the season, but I don't buy that, either. First of all, even though they didn't lose so many in a row last season, they had their fair share of struggles around this time last year, too, and look how well that worked out for them. Second of all, the big two problems among this team- lack of effort from backchecking and defensive-zone coverage amongst their "big guys" and sub-par/inconsistent goaltending from Nabakov (ask Russia how well he handled clutch games for them in the Olympics)- aren't just magically going to go away once the playoffs start. So that's why the farthest I can see this team going is the Conference final. I just don't see how, in a 7-game series, these guys can beat Chicago or Vancouver. Hell, I think I'd favor teams like Detroit, Phoenix, and LA against them, too. They could easily get bounced in the first-round again, and then I just have no idea where you go with this team. It might be time to blow this thing up, let Marleau walk in free-agency, and see if you can trade Jumbo Joe and let him be someone else's problem in the playoffs.
Possible playoff match-ups: Nashville, Colorado, Detroit
Wants to play: Nashville
Wants to avoid: Detroit
(Seeing a pattern here? No one wants to play the Red Wings in the first round. The Sharks have had, for the most part, an easy time with the Predators this season, including that five-goal 3rd period explosion at home. The Wings, on the other hand, have beaten up on the Sharks all season, even when they had a ton of people out with injuries. If the Wings can climb into 7th and face San Jose, we'll probably be looking at yet another first-round exit for the Sharks.)
3rd Place: Vancouver Canucks
(45-25-4, 94 points, 27-8-2 at home, 18-17-12 on the road, 2nd in offense, 7th in defense)
Pre-Season Pick: Dark Horse
High: Stanley Cup champions
Low: Second-round exit
Coming into the season I saw the Canucks as a classic dark horse team: a team that is not quite as strong as the real favorites, but should one or two of them get knocked out, is very capable of winning the West. Now, with less than 10 games to go in the regular season, I think they have to be upgraded to Cup favorites right alongside Chicago, and if you're looking for the reason why, it's their offense. No one would have predicted Vancouver, who has always been a good defensive team (and one could argue that 7th, as good as that is, is actually a little disappointing for the Canucks, who you'd probably expect to be in the top 5), would be the 2nd-best *offensive* team in the NHL. In fact, they have the best offense in the Western conference, ahead of the likes of Chicago & San Jose.
Their Achilles heel is their lackluster road record. If they can't turn that around in the post-season, well, they'd better hope they can climb into one of the top two seeds down the stretch or someone eliminates them for them, because they'll need home-ice throughout the playoffs. You also have to keep in mind that as great as Roberto Luongo has been in the regular season, he's yet to really get it done in the playoffs (remember last year's game 6 meltdown against Chicago?), and that's why I think they could still get knocked out in the second round. They should make it through the first round easily, however, and I'm personally placing bets on a Chicago-Vancouver re-match in the Western Conference finals, which would be a hell of a show.
Possible playoff match-ups: Colorado, Los Angeles, Nashville
Wants to play: Colorado
Wants to avoid: Nashville, I guess
(Of the teams sitting 5th-7th that Vancouver is most likely to play, they really haven't had any trouble with any of them this season. Whoever it is, the Canucks would be the heavy favorite.)
4th Place: Phoenix Coyotes
(46-23-5, 97 points, 26-10-2 at home, 20-13-3 on the road, 26th in Offense, 3rd in Defense)
Pre-Season Pick: Misses the playoffs
High: Conference Final
Low: First-round exit
If you honestly said you thought the Phoenix Coyotes would be sitting not just in fourth place, but comfortably in 4th place and only 1 point behind division-leading San Jose at this point in the season, you, sir, are a liar. This is a team that has taken everyone by surprise, and make no mistake about it, they are *the* story this year in the NHL.
Unfortunately for Phoenix, there will be a ton of issues that will probably prevent them from carrying that success over to the playoffs. The most obvious one is their 26th-ranked offense. Yes, they are really, really good defensively, but traditionally the teams that make it far in the playoffs are teams that are top 10 (or at the very least, top 15) in both categories, not 3rd in one and 26th in the other. The second issue is one that happens to a lot of Cinderella teams: I like to call it the "exhale" factor. In another words, this team played so far out of their minds to defy everyone and just make it into the post-season, there might be a bit of unconscious exhaling, so to speak. They make it to the playoffs and they think to themselves, okay, we made it. And then they exhale and relax a little bit, which naturally leads to you playing worse than you played when you were on that mission in the first place.
Now, if there's any coach who might be able to combat the "exhale factor", it's Dave Tippett, who is about as big of a lock to win the Jack Adams as I've ever seen in my lifetime. And that's why I'm still giving this team a chance to run all the way to the Conference final if they can get the right combination of goaltending and timely goals they've been getting all season. But this is a team that could also very easily go out in the first-round, and then the challenge will be not to turn into next season's version of the Columbus Blue Jackets or St. Louis Blues; that is, a team that made a huge run to the post-season they weren't supposed to make (albeit on a bigger scale for the 'Yotes) and then flames out next year under the newfound pressure of expecting to make it this time.
Possible playoff match-ups: LA, Colorado, Nashville
Wants to play: Colorado
Wants to avoid: LA
(Phoenix hasn't played too badly against any of these teams, but of the three, to me the team with the most dynamic offensive potential is the Kings. They're 2-2-1 against the Kings this year, not bad but not great, and since any first-round match-up will be them relying on their defense, you don't want to have to worry about shutting down all the Kings' weapons throughout an entire series.)
5th place: Los Angeles Kings
(42-24-6, 90 points, 21-12-3 at home, 21-12-3 on the road, 9th in Offense, 10th in Defense)
Pre-Season Pick: Playoff bubble
High: Dark Horse
Low: First-round exit
The Kings have followed the Chicago/Washington model to perfection: they've built from within with a ton of young players (Kopitar, Brown, Johnson, Doughty, Quick, Frolov, Simmonds....I could go on), added a few big pieces in free-agency and trades (Handzus, Smyth, Williams, Scuderi), and now after almost a decade out of the playoffs they're skipping the bubble and heading in right near the top of the Conference. If they can keep it up down the stretch and stay right around the 5th spot (or maybe even climb into 4th if Phoenix or San Jose falters), they have to be considered the West's dark horse pick to make it to the Cup finals.
The numbers back it up: the Kings have identical home and road records, meaning they can get it done at home or on the road if they're a lower seed in a series. Teams that are top 10 in both categories tend to get it done in the playoffs, and they're sitting right there at 9th in offense and 10th in defense. They can play pretty much any style of hockey: they have a ton of guys who love to hit and get gritty down in the corners (which is playoff hockey), and then they've got their skilled guys like Kopy & Frolov who can make a breathtaking move in the slot, too. They've got perhaps the best TEAM cycle-game of any team in the NHL (Vancouver has the Sedins that do it better, but LA has FOUR LINES that can cycle the puck down low like demons). They have to worry about that same "exhale factor" I talked about for Phoenix, but their run hasn't been quite the Cinderella story that Phoenix's has been. Yeah, they're maybe a year ahead of schedule according to some pundits, but this team was called "the sexy pick" to make the playoffs before the season started. In another words, they're out of nowhere, but not out of NOWHERE.
Potential playoff match-ups: Phoenix, Vancouver, San Jose
Wants to play: San Jose
Wants to avoid: Vancouver
(Some people will think I'm insane for saying the Kings want to play the Sharks, but hear me out here. If the Kings do in fact play San Jose in the first round, it will be because, barring a total meltdown by the Kings, the Sharks lost out the division to Phoenix and fell into that 4-5 hole with them. That's a wounded animal already. The Kings also play the exact kind of hockey that wins in the playoffs, and the exact kind of hockey the Sharks seem to shy away from too often: that is to say, gritty, dig-the-puck-out-of-the-corners hockey. They've got a good record against them in the regular season, including scoring 7 goals against them twice, once in their own building. Yeah, I'd favor the Kings in that match-up. The Canucks, on the other hand, have had the Kings' number all season, so avoiding falling into 6th and having to deal with them in the first-round is really, really important for them.)
6th place: Colorado Avalanche
(41-25-7, 89 points, 23-11-2 at home, 18-14-5 on the road, 6th in Offense, 11th in Defense)
Pre-season pick: Misses the playoffs
High: Second-round exit
Low: First-round exit
Avs fans will probably cry out that I'm not giving enough respect to their team, and they might have a case. They do have some pretty good numbers in the two stat categories; they just barely miss being top-10 in both of them. What stops and gives me concern for the Avalanche's playoff hopes are three things: the aforementioned "exhale factor" we talked about for the Coyotes, as the Avs were also picked to miss the playoffs and probably used that as motivation all season long. Secondly, the overwhelming youth of this team has to be a concern. So much of the Avs have never gotten in done in the playoffs before, including their netminder Craig Anderson. You could say the same about the Kings and their own netminder, but they have more of a veteran presence than the Avs do to go along with all that youth.
Finally, the Avs' road record is cause for great concern considering they will almost certainly not have home-ice advantage in the first round and throughout the playoffs. The Avs are only 4 games above .500 on the road, and that kind of play isn't good enough in a Conference loaded with teams who are much, much better road teams. I think that with some bounces they could win their first-round series, but I wouldn't favor them to do it in any stretch of the imagination, and I definitely can't see them getting any farther than the second round. Still a hell of a story, though.
Potential playoff match-ups: Vancouver, San Jose, Phoenix
Wants to play: San Jose
Wants to avoid: Vancouver
(Unfortunately for the Avs, the team they're currently slated to play in the first round is the Canucks, who are a dominating 4-1-0 against them this season. If they fall back into 7th with San Jose at 2nd or climb into 5th with the Sharks falling to 4th, that will be a much better match-up for them, as the Avs have played the Sharks well all-season, including an opening night win.)
7th Place: Nashville Predators
(42-27-5, 89 points, 21-13-2 at home, 21-14-3 on the road, 14th in Offense, 16th in Defense)
Pre-Season Pick: Playoff bubble, probably out of it
High: Second-round exit
Low: First-round exit
The Predators are another surprising story in a year full of them in the Western conference. This is a budget team that year after year manages to stay consistently around the bubble, and this year they're in even better shape than usual to make the playoffs after missing last year. The Preds' were always a good defensive team (and at 16th they're probably having a bit of a down year for that, oddly enough), but their 14th-ranked offense is nothing short of a huge shocker. They're getting contributions up-and-down their line-up, and their dynamic, high-scoring blueline is a big factor in their success.
Of the three teams that I'm picking to finish out of the playoffs by the second-round (Phoenix, Colorado, and the Preds), the Predators have probably the biggest chance of proving me wrong. They've got that dynamic back-end lead by Olympians Shea Weber (Canada) & Ryan Suter (US), they've got some of the most underrated goaltending in the league from both Pekka Rinne & Dan Ellis, and they've got some decent forwards who play gritty, playoff-style hockey (Arnott, Dumont, Tootoo, etc.) I still can't see them getting past the second round and it will be enough of a struggle to make it past the first, but who knows.
Potential playoff match-ups: San Jose, Chicago, Vancouver
Wants to play: San Jose
Wants to avoid: Chicago
(The Predators haven't played their Central rival Blackhawks very well at all this season, so they want to avoid that match-up if at all possible. They've had pretty good showings against both the Sharks & Canucks all season, but I'm still going with San Jose as their "want to play" just because I think all of the lower seeds probably want to play the Sharks if they can help it.)
8th place: Detroit Red Wings
(37-23-13, 87 points, 21-10-5 at home, 16-13-8 on the road, 15th in Offense, 8th in Defense)
Pre-Season Pick: Dark Horse
High: Conference final
Low: First-round exit
Ah yes, we finally make it to the elephant in the proverbial room that is the NHL playoffs. No one wants to play these Red Wings in the first-round. The only reason they're sitting so low in the West is because of their incredible streak of injuries earlier in the season: now that they're finally healthy again, they've been on an absolute tear since the Olympic break, to the tune of 8-2-1. But saying that this is the same team that went to the Cup finals two years in a row now is a little bit of an over exaggeration. The fact is, they're still missing key guys on offense (Hossa to the Hawks, Samuelssson to the Canucks, Hudler to the KHL) and they're going with a rookie in goal instead of Chris Osgood, whose game has finally appeared to fall off once and for all this season. They've made up for their decrease in offensive production by climbing up to having the 8th-best defense in the league, which is up significantly from a poor defensive season last year.
It's also worth pointing out that the Wings, along with the Penguins, have played more hockey than any other team in going to those back-to-back Cup Finals. While all those injuries may have actually helped the Red Wings by giving their key players some rest, all that still tends to add up, especially once you get back into the post-season grind. Along with their lackluster road record, that's why I can't see the Wings getting farther than the Conference final this year. They also have the potential to be eliminated in the first-round, like any other lower seed. Still, it won't be an easy out for any of the high seeds, by any stretch, and you can bet none of them will be happy to draw the Red Wings in the first round.
Potential playoff match-ups: Chicago, San Jose, Vancouver
Wants to play: San Jose
Wants to avoid: Chicago
(I honestly think Detroit would be comfortable playing any of these three teams in the first round, but of the three they've had their most success this season against the Sharks. Like I said before, even when they were suffering from all their injuries, they still went into San Jose and won. There's something about the Red Wings that just seem to scare the crap out of the Sharks. Of the other two, the Red Wings have a 2-2-1 record against Chicago, so that's probably not the best match-up for them. But don't get me wrong, no one in Chicago will be happy about that match-up should it come to fruition.)
Alright folks, that will *finally* do it for this very, very long blog. I'll be back at some point, maybe tonight or maybe tomorrow (since it's a 3-game schedule so once again not much of a point in doing a Today's Games to Watch) to break down the Eastern conference. Until then, try to enjoy the hockey we've got left and keep in mind, the playoffs are right around the corner!
For all the talk of parity in today's NHL, the fact is in both Conferences, most of the teams have little to no shot of making the playoffs. There is real separation heading into the final weeks of the regular season. In the West, 9th place Calgary sits 4 points behind Detroit, and with their respective schedules that will be a very difficult point differential to make up down the stretch. 10th place Dallas sits 9 points back, and Detroit has a game in hand on all the teams sitting 10th-14th. While all those teams are still *mathematically* in it, realistically they haven't got a shot in hell.
The East, for all its mediocrity compared to the West (those some 10th place Stars would be tied for 8th if they were in the Eastern Conference, and virtually everyone other than Columbus & Edmonton would still be in it in the East), isn't much better. 8th place Boston sits 3 points ahead of 9th place Atlanta, and 5 points ahead of the 10th place Rangers, with a game in hand on both. As a Ranger fan I do want to point out that our schedule, despite being road-heavy, is actually a lot easier than Boston's. If the Rangers can beat the Devils tonight, they have a real chance to go on a run against non-playoff teams: they'll play at the Maple Leafs, Islanders, Lightning, Panthers, Buffalo (the only playoff team here), then home to the Leafs again. If they can make hay on that schedule and win 5 of 6 or even run the table, then they may be able to make this race close again. Realistically, they're still out of it until they get it done, and Boston still has their fate in their own hands.
With all that said, the "parity" that we're seeing this year in the NHL has been replaced a bit by three real "tiers' of teams. You've got your Elite Tier, the teams at the top of the conferences who have put a ton of separation from everyone else (and one could argue Washington and their 108 points, which have already tied a franchise record with 9 games left to play, should be their own tier). Washington, Jersey, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo would be your elite teams in the East, with Chicago, San Jose, Vancouver, & shockingly Phoenix being the elite teams in the West. Then you have your Playoff Tier, the teams in each conference who aren't quite in striking distance of the elite teams, but who have put a great deal of separation between themselves and the non-playoff teams in each conference. Ottawa, Montreal, Philadelphia, and Boston comprise this tier in the East, while Los Angeles, Colorado, Nashville, and Detroit (maybe Calgary) comprise this tier in the West. Finally, you've got your non-playoff teams, which are everyone else.
This is what I like to call the New Parity in the NHL. Other than Washington, who like I said should be their own tier, in the East you've got the Pens, Devils, and Sabres all separated by just 1 point. In the West, Chicago, San Jose, Phoenix, and Vancouver are only separated by 4 points. Then when you get to the playoff teams, in the East 5th place Ottawa and 8th place Boston are only separated by 5 points, and in the West it's even tighter as 5th place LA and 8th place Detroit are only separated by 3 points. Finally, the non-playoff teams are just as tight: 2 points are all that separates 10th place Dallas and 13th place Anaheim in the West, while 5 points separate the 10th place Rangers and 14th place Islanders.
So while things are still tight in today's NHL, there's also a lot more separation than there are in years past, and that makes this year's playoff race seem a bit more, well, boring than usual. Like I said in my last blog, how excited can you really get for a race for 8th in the East when your "reward" is playing the most dominant regular-season team the NHL has seen in almost a decade? In the West, you have the opposite problem: all the teams in the playoffs right now seem so good and seem like they can knock off anyone, so when those eight teams just keep winning games, who could you really see dropping out of it so Calgary can get in?
But there is light at the end of this tunnel. The trade-off for having a less-interesting stretch drive than we might usually have is we may have one of the most exciting playoffs ever coming up in just a few short weeks. And that's saying something coming off one of the most exciting playoffs in almost two decades last year, but this year's has all the potential to top it. The East may not be as interesting as last year (it really looks like Washington's conference to lose, but we'll get more into that next time), but can you ever recall a time when the West was this wide open? You've got 4 teams atop the West all within 4 points of each other, and you've got an 8th place team in Detroit right now that NO ONE wants to play in the first-round. Any single one of these eight teams could win the Western conference.
So here's what we're going to do today. We're going to take a look at all of the teams currently in the playoffs, break down where they were expected to finish before the season started, and then break down what they could do in the playoffs. Each team will get a High and a Low, in another words where we think their potential is and where they could flame out. We'll list their records, overall, home, and away, and we'll also list their rankings among all 30 teams in the NHL in both offense & defense (goals for/goals against per game). Finally, we'll talk briefly about what their possible playoff match-ups and which ones would most benefit them. Alright folks, with all this intro out of the way, let's get started in the Western conference!
Western Conference
1st: Chicago Blackhawks
(46-19-7, 99 points, 27-7-3 at home, 19-12-4 away, 3rd in Offense, 4th in Defense)
Pre-Season Pick: Cup Favorite
High: Stanley Cup champions
Low: Second-round exit
The Blackhawks went into this season with the high expectations of winning their first Stanley Cup since 1961, and they've been right at the top of the Central division & Western conference standings since pretty much the season began. People had issue with their goaltending heading into the season, and some still do, but for the most part the duo of Huet & Niemi have gotten it done in the regular season. The big question heading into the post-season is who will be the starter, but the Hawks will at least be able to comfort themselves with the knowledge that if whoever they go with flames out, they've still got the other one to hand the ball to.
Even though the Blackhawks are currently matched-up with the Red Wings in the first round, I can't see them going out any earlier than the second. They're simply too good on both sides of the puck to get upset in the first round. A second round upset is possible if their goaltending, which just isn't playoff-tested, gives out on them. But realistically, this is probably as close as the West has to a favorite to make it to at least the Conference finals, and until someone knocks them off they have to be considered the favorite to win the West.
Possible playoff match-ups: Detroit, Nashville, Colorado
Wants to play: Colorado
Wants to avoid: Detroit
(The Hawks have had their problems with Nashville's trapping style over the years, but Detroit still has to be the most feared team to the Blackhawks and especially their fans. Despite Chicago's mastery over the Central this season, the Red Wings have already shown in recent weeks that, when healthy, they're still very capable of playing the Blackhawks evenly. I would still favorite the Hawks in any of these potential match-ups, including against the Wings, but there's no doubt they'd like to avoid facing Detroit in the first round if it's at all possible.)
2nd place: San Jose Sharks
(44-19-10, 98 points, 22-6-8 at home, 22-13-2 on the road, 4th in Offense, 9th in Defense)
Pre-Season Pick: ???
High Expectation: Conference Final
Low Expectation: First-round exit
The question marks are pretty much what everyone put down for the Sharks heading into the season. Every year this team looks great on paper, and then everyone year they find a way to flame out in the first or second round of the playoffs. So finally, almost no one picked them to win the Cup this year, saying they wouldn't be fooled again by San Jose, even after they retooled a lot of their roster, striped Marleau of the C, and acquired Dany Heatley from Ottawa. The Sharks at first did that usual San Jose domination of the regular-season, but they're recently coming off a six-game winless streak (their longest since November of 2005, and five straight losses came in regulation) that was just snapped this past week in Minnesota.
The problems with the Sharks are numerous: despite the fact that their leaders continue to bang the drum in interviews that "this isn't the same team as last year", who were their leaders last year? Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Rob Blake, Dan Boyle....you guessed it, they're all on the team again this year. The only difference is the aforementioned Heatley, who no one has ever confused with a clutch performer. So does changing around a bunch of role-players on the lower lines really mean this is a totally different team? I don't buy it.
There's an argument to be made that all these recent struggles is actually a good thing for a team that got it easy for most of the season, but I don't buy that, either. First of all, even though they didn't lose so many in a row last season, they had their fair share of struggles around this time last year, too, and look how well that worked out for them. Second of all, the big two problems among this team- lack of effort from backchecking and defensive-zone coverage amongst their "big guys" and sub-par/inconsistent goaltending from Nabakov (ask Russia how well he handled clutch games for them in the Olympics)- aren't just magically going to go away once the playoffs start. So that's why the farthest I can see this team going is the Conference final. I just don't see how, in a 7-game series, these guys can beat Chicago or Vancouver. Hell, I think I'd favor teams like Detroit, Phoenix, and LA against them, too. They could easily get bounced in the first-round again, and then I just have no idea where you go with this team. It might be time to blow this thing up, let Marleau walk in free-agency, and see if you can trade Jumbo Joe and let him be someone else's problem in the playoffs.
Possible playoff match-ups: Nashville, Colorado, Detroit
Wants to play: Nashville
Wants to avoid: Detroit
(Seeing a pattern here? No one wants to play the Red Wings in the first round. The Sharks have had, for the most part, an easy time with the Predators this season, including that five-goal 3rd period explosion at home. The Wings, on the other hand, have beaten up on the Sharks all season, even when they had a ton of people out with injuries. If the Wings can climb into 7th and face San Jose, we'll probably be looking at yet another first-round exit for the Sharks.)
3rd Place: Vancouver Canucks
(45-25-4, 94 points, 27-8-2 at home, 18-17-12 on the road, 2nd in offense, 7th in defense)
Pre-Season Pick: Dark Horse
High: Stanley Cup champions
Low: Second-round exit
Coming into the season I saw the Canucks as a classic dark horse team: a team that is not quite as strong as the real favorites, but should one or two of them get knocked out, is very capable of winning the West. Now, with less than 10 games to go in the regular season, I think they have to be upgraded to Cup favorites right alongside Chicago, and if you're looking for the reason why, it's their offense. No one would have predicted Vancouver, who has always been a good defensive team (and one could argue that 7th, as good as that is, is actually a little disappointing for the Canucks, who you'd probably expect to be in the top 5), would be the 2nd-best *offensive* team in the NHL. In fact, they have the best offense in the Western conference, ahead of the likes of Chicago & San Jose.
Their Achilles heel is their lackluster road record. If they can't turn that around in the post-season, well, they'd better hope they can climb into one of the top two seeds down the stretch or someone eliminates them for them, because they'll need home-ice throughout the playoffs. You also have to keep in mind that as great as Roberto Luongo has been in the regular season, he's yet to really get it done in the playoffs (remember last year's game 6 meltdown against Chicago?), and that's why I think they could still get knocked out in the second round. They should make it through the first round easily, however, and I'm personally placing bets on a Chicago-Vancouver re-match in the Western Conference finals, which would be a hell of a show.
Possible playoff match-ups: Colorado, Los Angeles, Nashville
Wants to play: Colorado
Wants to avoid: Nashville, I guess
(Of the teams sitting 5th-7th that Vancouver is most likely to play, they really haven't had any trouble with any of them this season. Whoever it is, the Canucks would be the heavy favorite.)
4th Place: Phoenix Coyotes
(46-23-5, 97 points, 26-10-2 at home, 20-13-3 on the road, 26th in Offense, 3rd in Defense)
Pre-Season Pick: Misses the playoffs
High: Conference Final
Low: First-round exit
If you honestly said you thought the Phoenix Coyotes would be sitting not just in fourth place, but comfortably in 4th place and only 1 point behind division-leading San Jose at this point in the season, you, sir, are a liar. This is a team that has taken everyone by surprise, and make no mistake about it, they are *the* story this year in the NHL.
Unfortunately for Phoenix, there will be a ton of issues that will probably prevent them from carrying that success over to the playoffs. The most obvious one is their 26th-ranked offense. Yes, they are really, really good defensively, but traditionally the teams that make it far in the playoffs are teams that are top 10 (or at the very least, top 15) in both categories, not 3rd in one and 26th in the other. The second issue is one that happens to a lot of Cinderella teams: I like to call it the "exhale" factor. In another words, this team played so far out of their minds to defy everyone and just make it into the post-season, there might be a bit of unconscious exhaling, so to speak. They make it to the playoffs and they think to themselves, okay, we made it. And then they exhale and relax a little bit, which naturally leads to you playing worse than you played when you were on that mission in the first place.
Now, if there's any coach who might be able to combat the "exhale factor", it's Dave Tippett, who is about as big of a lock to win the Jack Adams as I've ever seen in my lifetime. And that's why I'm still giving this team a chance to run all the way to the Conference final if they can get the right combination of goaltending and timely goals they've been getting all season. But this is a team that could also very easily go out in the first-round, and then the challenge will be not to turn into next season's version of the Columbus Blue Jackets or St. Louis Blues; that is, a team that made a huge run to the post-season they weren't supposed to make (albeit on a bigger scale for the 'Yotes) and then flames out next year under the newfound pressure of expecting to make it this time.
Possible playoff match-ups: LA, Colorado, Nashville
Wants to play: Colorado
Wants to avoid: LA
(Phoenix hasn't played too badly against any of these teams, but of the three, to me the team with the most dynamic offensive potential is the Kings. They're 2-2-1 against the Kings this year, not bad but not great, and since any first-round match-up will be them relying on their defense, you don't want to have to worry about shutting down all the Kings' weapons throughout an entire series.)
5th place: Los Angeles Kings
(42-24-6, 90 points, 21-12-3 at home, 21-12-3 on the road, 9th in Offense, 10th in Defense)
Pre-Season Pick: Playoff bubble
High: Dark Horse
Low: First-round exit
The Kings have followed the Chicago/Washington model to perfection: they've built from within with a ton of young players (Kopitar, Brown, Johnson, Doughty, Quick, Frolov, Simmonds....I could go on), added a few big pieces in free-agency and trades (Handzus, Smyth, Williams, Scuderi), and now after almost a decade out of the playoffs they're skipping the bubble and heading in right near the top of the Conference. If they can keep it up down the stretch and stay right around the 5th spot (or maybe even climb into 4th if Phoenix or San Jose falters), they have to be considered the West's dark horse pick to make it to the Cup finals.
The numbers back it up: the Kings have identical home and road records, meaning they can get it done at home or on the road if they're a lower seed in a series. Teams that are top 10 in both categories tend to get it done in the playoffs, and they're sitting right there at 9th in offense and 10th in defense. They can play pretty much any style of hockey: they have a ton of guys who love to hit and get gritty down in the corners (which is playoff hockey), and then they've got their skilled guys like Kopy & Frolov who can make a breathtaking move in the slot, too. They've got perhaps the best TEAM cycle-game of any team in the NHL (Vancouver has the Sedins that do it better, but LA has FOUR LINES that can cycle the puck down low like demons). They have to worry about that same "exhale factor" I talked about for Phoenix, but their run hasn't been quite the Cinderella story that Phoenix's has been. Yeah, they're maybe a year ahead of schedule according to some pundits, but this team was called "the sexy pick" to make the playoffs before the season started. In another words, they're out of nowhere, but not out of NOWHERE.
Potential playoff match-ups: Phoenix, Vancouver, San Jose
Wants to play: San Jose
Wants to avoid: Vancouver
(Some people will think I'm insane for saying the Kings want to play the Sharks, but hear me out here. If the Kings do in fact play San Jose in the first round, it will be because, barring a total meltdown by the Kings, the Sharks lost out the division to Phoenix and fell into that 4-5 hole with them. That's a wounded animal already. The Kings also play the exact kind of hockey that wins in the playoffs, and the exact kind of hockey the Sharks seem to shy away from too often: that is to say, gritty, dig-the-puck-out-of-the-corners hockey. They've got a good record against them in the regular season, including scoring 7 goals against them twice, once in their own building. Yeah, I'd favor the Kings in that match-up. The Canucks, on the other hand, have had the Kings' number all season, so avoiding falling into 6th and having to deal with them in the first-round is really, really important for them.)
6th place: Colorado Avalanche
(41-25-7, 89 points, 23-11-2 at home, 18-14-5 on the road, 6th in Offense, 11th in Defense)
Pre-season pick: Misses the playoffs
High: Second-round exit
Low: First-round exit
Avs fans will probably cry out that I'm not giving enough respect to their team, and they might have a case. They do have some pretty good numbers in the two stat categories; they just barely miss being top-10 in both of them. What stops and gives me concern for the Avalanche's playoff hopes are three things: the aforementioned "exhale factor" we talked about for the Coyotes, as the Avs were also picked to miss the playoffs and probably used that as motivation all season long. Secondly, the overwhelming youth of this team has to be a concern. So much of the Avs have never gotten in done in the playoffs before, including their netminder Craig Anderson. You could say the same about the Kings and their own netminder, but they have more of a veteran presence than the Avs do to go along with all that youth.
Finally, the Avs' road record is cause for great concern considering they will almost certainly not have home-ice advantage in the first round and throughout the playoffs. The Avs are only 4 games above .500 on the road, and that kind of play isn't good enough in a Conference loaded with teams who are much, much better road teams. I think that with some bounces they could win their first-round series, but I wouldn't favor them to do it in any stretch of the imagination, and I definitely can't see them getting any farther than the second round. Still a hell of a story, though.
Potential playoff match-ups: Vancouver, San Jose, Phoenix
Wants to play: San Jose
Wants to avoid: Vancouver
(Unfortunately for the Avs, the team they're currently slated to play in the first round is the Canucks, who are a dominating 4-1-0 against them this season. If they fall back into 7th with San Jose at 2nd or climb into 5th with the Sharks falling to 4th, that will be a much better match-up for them, as the Avs have played the Sharks well all-season, including an opening night win.)
7th Place: Nashville Predators
(42-27-5, 89 points, 21-13-2 at home, 21-14-3 on the road, 14th in Offense, 16th in Defense)
Pre-Season Pick: Playoff bubble, probably out of it
High: Second-round exit
Low: First-round exit
The Predators are another surprising story in a year full of them in the Western conference. This is a budget team that year after year manages to stay consistently around the bubble, and this year they're in even better shape than usual to make the playoffs after missing last year. The Preds' were always a good defensive team (and at 16th they're probably having a bit of a down year for that, oddly enough), but their 14th-ranked offense is nothing short of a huge shocker. They're getting contributions up-and-down their line-up, and their dynamic, high-scoring blueline is a big factor in their success.
Of the three teams that I'm picking to finish out of the playoffs by the second-round (Phoenix, Colorado, and the Preds), the Predators have probably the biggest chance of proving me wrong. They've got that dynamic back-end lead by Olympians Shea Weber (Canada) & Ryan Suter (US), they've got some of the most underrated goaltending in the league from both Pekka Rinne & Dan Ellis, and they've got some decent forwards who play gritty, playoff-style hockey (Arnott, Dumont, Tootoo, etc.) I still can't see them getting past the second round and it will be enough of a struggle to make it past the first, but who knows.
Potential playoff match-ups: San Jose, Chicago, Vancouver
Wants to play: San Jose
Wants to avoid: Chicago
(The Predators haven't played their Central rival Blackhawks very well at all this season, so they want to avoid that match-up if at all possible. They've had pretty good showings against both the Sharks & Canucks all season, but I'm still going with San Jose as their "want to play" just because I think all of the lower seeds probably want to play the Sharks if they can help it.)
8th place: Detroit Red Wings
(37-23-13, 87 points, 21-10-5 at home, 16-13-8 on the road, 15th in Offense, 8th in Defense)
Pre-Season Pick: Dark Horse
High: Conference final
Low: First-round exit
Ah yes, we finally make it to the elephant in the proverbial room that is the NHL playoffs. No one wants to play these Red Wings in the first-round. The only reason they're sitting so low in the West is because of their incredible streak of injuries earlier in the season: now that they're finally healthy again, they've been on an absolute tear since the Olympic break, to the tune of 8-2-1. But saying that this is the same team that went to the Cup finals two years in a row now is a little bit of an over exaggeration. The fact is, they're still missing key guys on offense (Hossa to the Hawks, Samuelssson to the Canucks, Hudler to the KHL) and they're going with a rookie in goal instead of Chris Osgood, whose game has finally appeared to fall off once and for all this season. They've made up for their decrease in offensive production by climbing up to having the 8th-best defense in the league, which is up significantly from a poor defensive season last year.
It's also worth pointing out that the Wings, along with the Penguins, have played more hockey than any other team in going to those back-to-back Cup Finals. While all those injuries may have actually helped the Red Wings by giving their key players some rest, all that still tends to add up, especially once you get back into the post-season grind. Along with their lackluster road record, that's why I can't see the Wings getting farther than the Conference final this year. They also have the potential to be eliminated in the first-round, like any other lower seed. Still, it won't be an easy out for any of the high seeds, by any stretch, and you can bet none of them will be happy to draw the Red Wings in the first round.
Potential playoff match-ups: Chicago, San Jose, Vancouver
Wants to play: San Jose
Wants to avoid: Chicago
(I honestly think Detroit would be comfortable playing any of these three teams in the first round, but of the three they've had their most success this season against the Sharks. Like I said before, even when they were suffering from all their injuries, they still went into San Jose and won. There's something about the Red Wings that just seem to scare the crap out of the Sharks. Of the other two, the Red Wings have a 2-2-1 record against Chicago, so that's probably not the best match-up for them. But don't get me wrong, no one in Chicago will be happy about that match-up should it come to fruition.)
Alright folks, that will *finally* do it for this very, very long blog. I'll be back at some point, maybe tonight or maybe tomorrow (since it's a 3-game schedule so once again not much of a point in doing a Today's Games to Watch) to break down the Eastern conference. Until then, try to enjoy the hockey we've got left and keep in mind, the playoffs are right around the corner!
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