Sens at Land’s End

‘Twas the night before hockey, and all through the land
Hockey fans were stirring and feeling just grand;
Year previews were posted on blogs with great care,
In hopes that this season would be something rare.
Some teams’ fans were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of Stanley Cups danced in their heads;
But I in my Sens shirt, my jersey, and cap
Had settled for hoping for better than crap.

I’m not going to attempt a full season preview or prediction post. Why? Because it’s pointless. Some wildcard scenario no one anticipated always comes into play during the season. Players get hurt. Teams collapse or overperform for no apparent reason. This year, the Olympics will act as a major x-factor: some teams may suffer from Olympic fatigue, while other teams could benefit greatly from it.

So, instead of doing predictions, I’ll point out what I think are the most interesting stories going into the season.

Western Conference

Yawn: The Avalanche will be utterly terrible. The Red Wings will overcome obstacles such as Chris Osgood sucking and team-wide Olympic fatigue to win the Central Division for the 600th straight year. The Sharks will act out the same old story — regular season dominance, playoff choke — but this time with 100% more douchebag on their roster.

No Comment: Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota Wild, Nashville Predators, Phoenix Coyotes, St. Louis Blues. A lack of knowledge prevents me from saying anything useful.

Interesting Stories

Calgary Flames – Miikka Kiprusoff hasn’t played fewer than 74 games in a season since before the lockout. If he starts for Finland in the Olympics, which seems very possible, he’ll risk burnout come playoff time. Unfortunately, the Flames always play terribly in front of backup Curtis McElhinney, who had a 1-6 record last season. They may want to work on that. More questions: is Dion Phaneuf really any good? Is Olli Jokinen actually a locker room cancer? Can Darryl Sutter do a better job of cap management so the team isn’t left having to play with a short bench in crucial late season games? Early indications on the last thing would suggest not.

Edmonton Oilers – It will be interesting to see if new head coach Pat Quinn can get this team on track. He and goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin are the biggest unknowns here. Khabibulin shocked many in 2008-2009 with his great performance for the Blackhawks, who put him on waivers early in the season only to watch him step in and save their bacon after Cristobal Huet flamed out later on. But Khabibulin isn’t getting any younger.

Vancouver Canucks – The Canucks are my pick to win the Northwest; however, no other team will be as affected by the Olympics as they are. With the tournament taking place in their home building, the Canucks will be banished from Vancouver for all of February and half of March, embarking on an epic six-week, 14-game road trip to accommodate the games. There’s also the question of what kind of impact the Olympics will have on Roberto Luongo. If Luongo is named Canada’s starting goaltender, he will face a ton of pressure as well as some extra wear and tear. If he is not named Canada’s starter, that could have a psychological impact (either crushing or motivating) on him as well.

Chicago Blackhawks – The Blackhawks can be summed up in a few talking points: promising young team; questionable goaltending (and there’s no bacon-saving Khabibulin waiting in the wings this season); injuries to Marian Hossa and Adam Burish; Patrick Kane beat up a cab driver; Patrick Sharp is hot; cap issues next offseason. They should make it interesting for the Red Wings this season, but I’m not sure they have enough to catch them.

Columbus Blue Jackets – My other men will, I am sure, continue to impress in 09-10. Steve Mason will suffer no sophomore slump. Derick Brassard will definitely not get injured again. Nikita Filatov will score 30 goals and win the Calder Trophy (unless Erik Karlsson does). Rick Nash will tear it up at the Olympics but, because he eats such healthy food, will never feel even remotely tired. Everything will be perfect, and the team will not only make the playoffs again, but this time actually win a game — nay, a round! In all seriousness: the Jackets haven’t made major changes this offseason but if Brassard makes a strong comeback and Antoine Vermette continues to click with his not-so-new team, then the best additions to the team might come from within. A lot depends on whether Mason keeps up the form he showed last season. If he does, and if no major disasters occur, the Jackets could do very well.

Anaheim Ducks – The Ducks’ first line of Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf, and Bobby Ryan is exciting to watch and Randy Carlyle is an excellent coach, but there are several areas of uncertainty for the team going foward. They’ll have an intriguing goaltending battle between highly-paid veteran Jean-Sebastien Giguere and youthful playoff sensation Jonas Hiller. I’m also interested to see if/how Ryan Whitney and/or James Wisniewski will step up to fill the departed Chris Pronger’s freakishly big shoes. Other question marks include Getzlaf’s recovery from offseason surgery; the advancing age of Teemu Selanne and Scott Niedermayer; and the chance that Ryan goes through some kind of second year jinx. Several Ducks (including Niedermayer, Getzlaf, Selanne, Saku Koivu, and possibly Whitney, Perry, and Ryan) also seem likely to go to the Olympics, which may prevent them from duplicating their awesome finish to last season. Still, I think this should be another good year in Anaheim.

Dallas Stars – The Stars’ total failure last season was definitely the most shocking underachievement of the year to my mind. They looked so impressive in the 2008 playoffs, but then Brenden Morrow got hurt, Marty Turco sucked, and Sean Avery apparently messed up their chemistry so badly that they never recovered. Avery is gone, Morrow is back, and they’ve got a capable backup for Turco in the form of Alex Auld, which, according to my Stars fan friend, is all Turco really needed. My feeling is that they should rebound.

Eastern Conference

Yawn: Even if the Bruins don’t perform up to last year’s standard, they will win the Northeast due to a lack of competition. The Islanders will suck. The Devils and the Penguins will make the playoffs. The Rangers will finish near the middle of the pack.

No Comment: Atlanta Thrashers, Carolina Hurricanes, Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning. Sorry Southeast Division, I just don’t know you that well.

Interesting Stories

Washington Capitals – The Caps are always interesting if only because of Alex Ovechkin. This year, the development of young goalie Semyon Varlamov (and the fate of Jose Theodore) will also be something to keep an eye on.

Philadelphia Flyers – The Broad Street Bullies trading for Chris Pronger this offseason seemed like fate: at last, Pronger and his flying elbows are with the team he was always meant to play for. Watch your heads, Penguins. Also watch your backs, because on paper this is an excellent team. I think they’ll win the Atlantic Division, partly because the Penguins will be tired thanks to two long playoff runs and Olympic appearances for some of their important players, and partly because the Flyers should just be that good. They may even finish first in the East. Goaltending is a question mark: will Ray Emery’s return to the NHL be triumphant or disastrous? Philly’s defense is so solid that it may not matter that much.

The Northeast Division other than the Bruins – Boston is the clear alpha wolf in this pack; everyone else is pretty much a complete wildcard. The Habs have undergone a coaching change (welcome back to the Northeast, Jacques Martin) and a massive amount of roster change. The Leafs, in case you haven’t heard, are now very truculent and expect to compensate for a lack of goalscoring by doing violence to their opponents. The Sabres are still the Sabres, which means they could finish anywhere from 4th to 14th depending on injuries, Ryan Miller, and luck.

Which brings me to those confounding Ottawa Senators. We’ve watched them play on an extreme rollercoaster-esque cycle for the last few years: down in 2006, up in 2007, down in 2008. (It’s unfortunate that this pattern seems to follow the calendar year rather than the hockey season, but that’s the Sens for you.) They were on a definite upswing after Cory Clouston took over in early 2009. A major question now is: can Clouston keep it going — and will the team be able to pull off a full season of good play? There are, of course, many other questions. Will Alex Kovalev perform well? Will Jonathan Cheechoo actually produce 20 goals? How will Kovalev, Cheechoo, and Milan Michalek fit into the lineup? Peter Regin, Erik Karlsson, and Matt Carkner have all made the team: will they continue the play that got them there? Will Mike Fisher be productive on the wing? Is the defense any good? Can Pascal Leclaire stay healthy?

That’s a lot of questions. It seems too much to hope that everything will work out, so I’m not expecting much from this team. That said, I don’t know that the Sens are as bad as many people would have us believe. Certainly, the team’s depth at forward is much improved over last year. I also think Clouston was doing something right, and I see no reason to think he’ll suddenly become an awful coach. A full season playing under his system should benefit the team. The bottom line for me is that the Sens are no more or less of an unknown quantity than either of their fellow eastern Canadian teams, yet it seems more prognosticators are forecasting positive things for Toronto and/or Montreal than for Ottawa. In Puck Daddy’s staff prediction post this morning, for example, no one had the Sens placing higher than the Habs and only two of five posters guessed they’d finish ahead of the Leafs. Personally, I wouldn’t be too surprised if Ottawa did better than both Montreal and Toronto. I also wouldn’t die of shock if this team happened to squeak into the playoffs.

It’s the NHL: anything can happen.

Photo taken moments before the Stanley Cup crushed a ravenous Sidney Crosby.

With the Pittsburgh Penguins’ victory in game seven last night, the 2008-2009 NHL season has come to a close. It seems appropriate at this time to look back at the highlights of the year.

There was the Blue Jackets getting their first ever playoff berth. That was nice. They immediately got stomped on by the Red Wings, but still.

From a Sens perspective, there was the hiring of Cory Clouston. Of course, to get to that point we had to live through the crapitude of the Hartsburg era, and in getting a coach who can apparently make our team win we lost the source of about 20% of our offense. But hey, I’m sure it’ll be worth it. Another plus: we no longer have a Swiss goaltender. We now have a (gimpy) French Canadian waiting in the wings instead. That seems like an improvement. Other than that, let’s see … well … I guess … the team … won some games?

Take heart, Sens fans. The season from hell is done. It’s finally over. And the future looks … um.

Maybe don’t think about hockey for a while.

I was thinking of making another post about this whole stupid Heatley situation, but then I remembered that there’s still hockey going on. In fact, there’s a rather important game tonight: a game which represents the culmination of the season, and is ultimately pretty much the reason we all watch hockey. The Penguins and the Red Wings have probably worked hard to get to this point, and I think it behooves me to take notice of their accomplishment. So, despite the fact that I hate both teams with a fiery passion and haven’t watched a full game during the Final, I will now focus on them and save the rest of my bitching till the offseason (tomorrow).

I have a feeling the Penguins might pull off the first away win of the series this evening. I encountered the number 87 at work today and spotted a post about some cute baby penguins headed for a zoo exhibit called the “Power Play Zone” while I was reading blogs this morning. Those seem like omens to me.

I’ve been wrong before, though, so I thought I’d consult my trusty psychic iPod for the last time this season and see if it could give me any insight on who might win game seven. Since Tori Amos provided me with my musical message for Mr. I Totally Know How to Quit You in a previous post, I looked to her library for the answer to this important question. The song I was given was “i i e e e.” Unless one team has been committing human sacrifice, I’m not sure the lyrics are relevant. I’ve therefore concluded that this means whichever team’s players have more E’s and I’s in their names will win the game. I looked at the rosters from game six and by my count the Pens take it by 34-32. Evgeni Malkin is truly this team’s MVP.

The results of my first round predictions were pretty good. While I only picked one series (Anaheim vs. San Jose) exactly correctly, I managed to pick the winners of six of the eight series. The only ones I missed were Detroit and Pittsburgh, and those didn’t surprise me. Radiohead correctly predicted every winner in the Eastern Conference but were somewhat less impressive in the West: they picked San Jose and were non-committal on the Columbus vs. Detroit series.

I will now put my record on the line by attempting to guess which teams will move on to the Conference Finals. Rather than predicting a number of games for each series, I’m going to make the potentially daring move of declaring here that all these series will go six games and predicting some other random details about the series below.

I’ve given Radiohead a holiday for this one. Instead, I chose a random yet sort of related song to represent each team and paired the songs to create series playlists on my trusty psychic iPod. I then played each playlist up to seven times on shuffle, counting the first song picked as a win for the team the song represents. I continued this for each series until one team’s song had been picked four times, indicating that the team in question would win four games and therefore the series.

Eastern Conference

(1) Boston Bruins vs. (6) Carolina Hurricanes: The Hurricanes have some momentum from their crazy game seven victory against New Jersey — which I hope you all watched, because it was pretty incredible — but I doubt they have enough energy to carry them through an entire series against the well-rested Bruins, who I believe are simply the superior team

My Prediction: The teams will split the first two games in Boston, but the Bruins will pick up steam as it goes and eventually take the series. Carolina will fail to score a single power play goal.

iPod Prediction: Bruins in 6. We have “The Bear” by The Tragically Hip to represent the Bruins, and “Wild is the Wind” by Nina Simone to represent the Canes. The iPod has the Bruins winning games 1, 3, 4, and 6.

(2) Washington Capitals vs. (4) Pittsburgh Penguins: The Caps’ rookie goaltender Simeon Varlamov looked pretty good against the Rangers, which was good news for Washington. The bad news is that New York’s offence is pathetic and the Penguins will be a whole new kind of test for him. As much as I hate to say so, I think the Pens will win this without too much trouble. By the way, the NHL would like you to note that this series features a couple of pretty good players.

My Prediction: Evgeni Malkin will use his wizard powers to triumph in the battle of the superstars and lead both teams in scoring as the Pens take out the Caps. It will be impossible for TV stations to go more than six minutes without showing one or both of Crosby and Ovechkin on camera.

iPod Prediction: The Penguins (Manhattan Rhythm Kings, “Happy Feet”) beat the Capitals (Mogwai, “Ratts of the Capital”) in 6. The Pens take games 1, 2, 4, and 6.

Western Conference

(2) Detroit Red Wings vs. (8) Anaheim Ducks: Clearly, I was wrong to think Detroit’s experience wouldn’t be a huge factor against the Jackets in the first round. But that was Columbus, and Anaheim may be the only team that can match the Red Wings for playoff experience. They did to San Jose what Detroit did to Columbus. Their victory in that series was impressive and, despite the Sharks’ habit of choking, I’d have to say it was a bigger accomplishment than the Red Wings beating the Blue Jackets. One thing that will be interesting to keep an eye on in this series is the penalties. Both teams have great power plays, but they don’t appear to be as evenly matched on the penalty kill. The Ducks, who were the second most penalized team in the regular season, did a great job of shutting down the Sharks’ power play (with help from the Sharks). The Red Wings, who generally don’t take a huge number of penalties, managed only a 76.9% penalty kill against the Jackets — the Jackets, team of the league worst 12.7% regular season power play — in round one. Goaltending is obviously another thing to watch. Chris Osgood was much less sucktacular against Columbus than he was during the regular season, but can he keep it up against Anaheim’s stronger offence? What about Jonas Hiller? Is he for real? How does he feel about having Tomas Holmstrom’s big hockey butt (TM Kelly Hrudey) in his face for 20 minutes a night?

My Prediction: Hiller won’t feel great about the Holmstrom thing, but he’ll feel good enough to keep the Wings’ offensive production fairly low (with help from Anaheim’s deep defence). Osgood will return to form in the bad way. Teemu Selanne will flash back to 2007 and pick up his game enough to ensure that he haunts the Wings’ dreams for another year. The Ducks advance to the Western Final.

iPod Prediction: “The Big Three Killed My Baby” by Detroit natives The White Stripes represents the Red Wings; “Rubber Ducky” by Ernie from Sesame Street is the Ducks’ song. My iPod sees the Wings losing games 1 and 4, but coming back for victories in games 2, 3, 5, and 6 to win this series in 6 games.

(3) Vancouver Canucks vs. (4) Chicago Blackhawks: Roberto Luongo played exceptionally well in round one against St. Louis. Nikolai Khabibulin had a great first round series too, but he’s very very old. Advantage: Luongo. He seems like a man on a mission right now, as do Canucks players like Alex Burrows and the Sedin twins. As good as the Blackhawks looked against Calgary, it must be said that the Flames looked equally bad and were already kinda defeated going in.

My Prediction: Luongo will have two shutouts as Vancouver wins the series. The Canucks will play a very physical type of game, and the series will feature at least one brawl brought on by a big hit on one of Chicago’s star players.

iPod Prediction: For Chicago, it’s Sufjan Stevens’ “The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You’re Going to Have to Leave Now, or, ‘I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them Until They Are Off Our Lands!’” For Vancouver, “Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe” by Whale (because their logo is a whale, mmkay). The Canucks will lose the first two games, but win games 3, 4, and 5 en route to a (presumably dramatic) 7 game series win.

Sens Watch

Let’s all take a moment to mentally punch Christoph Schubert in the face for allegedly breaking Anton Volchenkov. SCHUBERT!! WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?

Now that we’ve got that out of our system, let’s pat Jason Spezza on the head: he’s currently third in tournament scoring with seven points in Canada’s first three games. Keep it up, Spezz. I hear there might be an opening on the Olympic team.

I’ve watched bits and pieces of all the first round series, but have seen the least of Carolina-New Jersey and Calgary-Chicago: both have been conflicting with other games I want to see and things I have to do. I will watch the Flames and Hawks play today, but I may not get to see Patrick Kane, who is a game-time decision for Chicago. It seems that while Jonathan Toews has had no trouble stepping up his game for the playoffs, the smaller Kane has been a bit more vulnerable to the Flames’ abuse. (CORRECTION: It seems Kane has the flu. I assumed he was hurt because I saw him looking very pained after taking a big hit the other day.) The Canes-Devils series looks likely to be a long one. I’m surprised — but not too surprised — to see the Devils apparently getting back on track.

For me, the biggest surprise so far has been the Rangers. I think we all knew Henrik Lundqvist was probably going to outplay Jose Theodore, but it seems very few people foresaw just how big a problem the entire goaltending situation in this series was going to be for the Caps. Obviously, if they can’t get their offense going today, they may as well pack it in. What would lie ahead for them after another first round loss this year is clear: a developing reputation as chokers. And a reputation like that is hard to shake.

Which brings me to what has been my favourite series to this point: Ducks-Sharks. It’s just fun. Chris Pronger and Jonathan Cheechoo had quite the battle going last night, with Cheechoo, who runs around like a maniacal ball of energy out there, goading big dumb Pronger into two silly crosschecking penalties. This caused Randy Carlyle to make the face of a man who’s just been told his flight is cancelled and he’ll have to take the Greyhound from Winnipeg to Vancouver. Normally I would find this funny — and really, it was — but because I picked the Ducks to win I am actually rooting for them here. (Yes, it feels dirty and all kinds of wrong.) I now feel I have new insight into what it must be like to be a Ducks fan and have to watch your team take a constant stream of idiotic penalties. It would be like having several highly-paid Christoph Schuberts on your roster. All you can do is shake your head.

My dear Blue Jackets are in a spot of trouble, looking overwhelmed in their series against Detroit. They’ve also had some pretty unfortunate bounces, but mostly Detroit just plain has them off their game. Trying to get things back on track, they’re doing some line shuffling and our old buddy Antoine Vermette now finds himself centring the team’s top line, with Rick Nash and Kristian Huselius as his wingers. Good luck with that, Antoine.