And just like that, my Olympic days was over.
NHL is underway tonight, with Gold Medal coach Mike Babcock behing the bench in Colorado for Wings-Avs, the only game tonight. There are 12 games tomorrow. Yummy. To get back in the NHL spirit, I'm giving my two cents on the what I feel are the 10 biggest stories for the 2nd half. OK, it's more like the 4th quarter, but there was a big break in between, so it feels like a second half.
10. Spilling Oil, Falling Leafs: Between now and 3pm, the Leafs and Oilers may look quite different. Obviously, the Leafs have gotten that ball rolling, already, in a big way, with the Phaneuf and Giguere acquisitions, but there are major rumblings surrounding both Ponikarovsky and Kaberle, and who knows who else. In Edmonton, the home of bad contracts, the shipping away of Denis Grebeshkov is being seen as a harbinger of a fire sale. Everyone you've heard of that plays in Edmonton seems to be on the block. My picks? Ponikarovksy is gone in Toronto, as are Staios and Pisani in Edmonton.
9. Calder, anyone?: Much was made of the Islanders selection of John Tavares 1st overall in last year's draft, and the fudging over whether to take him, Matt Duchene or Viktor Hedman. I believe they made the right pick, and despite Johnny T's recent struggles, he has been very good at times this year, and will be a great player. That said, barring a huge push, he won't win the Calder. It has to be between Tyler Myers, Matt Duchene, Jimmy Howard and now, Tuukka Rask. Don;'t look now, but Rask leads all rookies in GAA, SV% and Shutouts, while trailing only Howard in Wins. He also leads the NHL in GAA right now, albeit in somewhat limited starts. Duchene has been a huge scorer, and a major part of Colorado's unlikely push, Myers has provided an unlikely spark in Buffalo, and Howard has been terrific in bringing Detroit back into the race, but boy, the last time I saw Tuukka live, a few weeks back in Montreal, he appeared to be on another level. Let's not forget that he stole the job in Boston from last year's Vezina winner. Thr Bruins appear poised to make a late surge, and I predict he leads it and wins the Calder.
8. Kovy and the Rock: The Kovalchuk-Devils deal was Butch Goring-esque in its shakeup of the league, but has had mixed results through the first few games. Will Kovalchuk be able to prosper as the one-man scoring machine that he is in a Lamoriello system? Can he bring them, and Marty, to the promised land, one last time, and most of all, does he stay in NJ, or even in the NHL? My prediction, Kovy does just fine in Jersey, and they have a late playoff run, falling short of a cup win. After that, the KHL looks more and more likely every day, but I just can't see it. Despite his rep, Kovalchuk cares too much to bail on the best league in the world. Don't count on him staying in Jersey, however.
7. Bounceback Springs for Dissapointments?: The Bruins, Flyers, Flames and Red Wings all came into this season as legitimate cup contenders in the eyes of most, and had been just that in '08-'09, and all have stumbled, at times mightily. The Wings have been horrifically injured, and have gone from juggernaut to on the outside looking in, though a win in Colorado would leapfrog the Flames for 8th, the Bruins had some injury problems of their own, plus a 10-game winless streak, their longest in 13 years, the Flyers came out of the gate terribly, even firing the homegrown coach that brought them to the conference finals a year ago, and the Flames have been so inconsistent, particularly in terms of scoring, that they have traded 2 of their franchise players (if you want to call Jokinen that) in order to shake it up. On the flipside, none of them have played themselves out of it, particularly the eastern teams in question, certainly more due to the quality of conference than to anything else. The Flyers have been on a roll since shortly after LaViolette took over, and the Bruins have won 4 straight since the 10-game slide, putting them at 6 and 7 respectively in the awfully tight East. To me, they're both shoo-ins, and could even climb the ladder more as we move along; Philly has really bought into their new coach's style, and they have a world of talent, and Boston has a lot of buzz to play with with Tuukka Rask, and some reinforcements finally healthy. Out West, I think one of Calgary and Detroit will finish above 8th, and one below, and to me it comes down to how the Flames trades pan out, and whether there are more to come. Apparently, Iggy likes Stajan, as the Calgary brass just inked him to a 4-yr deal, so perhaps that is a good omen for the Flames.
6. Cinderella x3: 4, 5, and 6 out West are, in order, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Colorado. LA was picked by many to be just out of the playoffs, and by many to be a 8-seed kind of team, while Phoenix and Colorado were almost universally picked as the last 2, in either order, in the conference. This would be a bigger story, and higher on my list, if any one of these teams had showed any sign of let-up, but they just haven't. They will all be there in April. Who gets the farthest? I'll say Phoenix, because they may have the biggest chip on their shoulders, and Bryzgalov has been that good.
5. The Little Conference That Couldn't: Out East, there are 5 points separating the #6 team from the #11 team, mostly because no one has played well enough to create any distance. It should be awfully entertaining, watching these teams duke it out, but in the end, my guess is that the only change is Montreal out and Tampa in. Why? Because Atlanta may be deflated after the Kovy deal, and a potential Kozlov deal; the Rangers still can't score, Lundqvist will only get more fatigued, and they come out of the break with a brutal stretch of games: @OTT, Home Vs. PIT, @ WAS, Home vs. BUF, @NJ, @ ATL, Home vs. PHI. I say they're cooked in a couple of weeks; Montreal is just not deep enough, and everyone's got games at hand on them; Tampa has only up to look. Vinny LeCavalier appears to be somewhat on a bounceback, St. Louis has been very tough, and Stamkos is on the precipice of superstardom. There is more excitement on this team than any of the others hovering between 8-11.
4. The Hart: Ovy and Sid are of course right there, but Henrik Sedin, Marian Gaborik and a handful of goalies, including our own Ryan Miller promise to make it a dark-horse friendly race. I've got Ovy coming out on top, furious in the wake of the Olympics.
3. The Caps: Right now, no one in the East is in Washington's stratosphere, with the 2nd place Devils back by 13 points. The Caps are 7-1-2 in their last 10, and that is not abnormal for them. Their scoring attack is one unseen since the days of the Oilers, and as mentioned above, you've got to believe that Ovechkin wants to prove something badly. The only hurdle, like everyone will point out, is goaltending, but Varlamov should be ready to go, and the netminding has obviously been good enough. They're dangerous as all get-out. Oh, and Obama needs to attend a Caps game, for Pete's sake, all politics aside.
2. The Hawks and Sharks: On one hand, you have the wild excitement of the young fast, complete Hawks, seemingly destined to bring Hockey's answer to the Cubs their long sought after Cup, and on the other hand, you have the perennial contenders, but perennial early departers in San Jose. There was talk that teh Olympics could be good for the Sharks, with almost every major player from San Jose being given a major Olympic role, but the results were mixed. Yes, the 3 forwards walk away with gold, but it's tough to say that Heatley, or particularly Thornton, the lightning rod himself, had much to do with it, and we all know how Nabokov went out, with him and his team mutually agreeing to hang one another out to dry. My guess is the Sharks get past the first round this time, but the Hawks get further. I believe they will trade for a goalie tomorrow, and that their team is too deep, up front and on the blue line, to be outmatched in a long series, at least early.
1. The Rocket: This may be somewhat redundant, going back to the Hart race, but the contest for the Rocket Richard Trophy this year is something extra special, as it has come down to our two modern day living legends, deadlocked at 42 as the Olympic break unwinds, the exact number of goals scored by the Rocket himself in 1951, when he fell short to Gordie Howe by a mere goal in what may have been the greatest race ever for that title. Ovechkin and Crosby, as sick as I get of both at times (and I think that NBC, VS, etc. severely miscalculate at times when they assume that the best way to get maximum viewership is to over-saturate us with those two as much as possible, but that's another point), are the game's two idols, and they may give us a race to mirror one of those fantastic races of old that we get to hear about. Verdict? Ovie takes it, look at the goals per game.
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