Even when they win, even when they have as good a chance as any other team in the league of hoisting Stanley’s mug in a few weeks. Sad.
Why do we keep hearing about Kansas City and Las Vegas, again?
Continuing my early look at the NHL season, this time with the
Top Three
An easy three choices, with the Dallas Stars, Minnesota Wild and Buffalo Sabres all sporting five straight victories.
Dallas Stars
The Dallas Stars made the dubious decision to strip the captain’s ‘C’ from Mike Modano, passing to newly re-signed Brendan Morrow. I say dubious because even if Morrow is the best leader on the team, taking the C away from Modano is an insult and an embarassment, and Modano deserves better. If Morrow truly was the better leader, he wouldn’t need the C on his jersey to do so. On the plus side, the Stars still sport Marty Turco, Sergei Zubov and the majority of the team that finished 2nd last year in the Western Conference. Underachieving Bill Guerin was bought-out (no response from the Stars so far, so it doesn’t look like they’ll be paying me $2 million to not play for them this year), replaced by injury-prone Eric Lindros. The move thus far seems to have paid off, as Lindros is leading the team in points and has looked good playing on Modano’s wing. Oh, and Jussi Jokinen had the shootout winner last night. Surprise surprise.
Regular season success, of course, means little to Dallas, given their recent playoff implosions. The real test for the Stars doesn’t come until April (although I for one am curious to see if they can stay ahead of the vastly improved Ducks and Sharks in the standings).
Minnesota Wild
The success of the Wild makes me happy. Fewer franchices are as deserving as Minnesota for playoff hockey, and it looks like this year could be the year. The addition of Pavol Demitra and the resigning of Marian Gaborik has benefited the team a great deal. Manny Fernandez has not faltered in the least under the pressure of being the sole and undisputed starter. The injury to defenceman Pascal Dupuis won’t help, but having early games with players out of the lineup generally helps teams to build character and the Wild are a very strong team’s team. They wouldn’t fall apart due to any single player’s absence.
The Division is very, very tough, quite possibly the best in the league, and the Wild will have a difficult season. But they’ll also ensure that the teams they face have the same problem.
Buffalo Sabres
A team with a mission. The Sabres are out to prove they weren’t one-hit wonders last year, and so far they’re suceeding. Miller has looked absolutely tremendous (no sophomore slump so far. He’s probably waiting for Biron to get traded before he falls apart). The Sabres don’t have a single bona-fide top line guy (several are making serious cases for themselves), but their depth through all four lines is unparalleled. They come at you in waves and don’t stop for anything.
The Sabres, like the Wild, play in a very tough division. They also have had a very easy schedule so far. The remainder of their schedule will be a much tougher test, and will give a more accurate impression of just how good this young team really is.
runner up:
Anaheim Ducks: If the Dallas-Anaheim shootout had gone the other way last night, the Ducks and Stars positions would be reversed. The strength of the Ducks is obviously the blueline, with proven stars Chris Pronger and Scott Niedermayer and rising star Francois Beachemin as quite probably the best top three in the league (certainly the first two are the best 1-2). Ilya Bryzgalov didn’t do himself any favours with his recent, very poor performance (why or why did I trade to get him my pool?) but Giguere has been very, very good. I’m not convinced the forwards are good enough to compete. Is the blueline good enough so that that won’t matter?
Additions: Chris Pronger, Michael Leighton, Shawn Thornton
Subtractions: Ruslan Salei, Jeff Friesen, Joffrey Lupul, Ladislav Smid
Analysis
Improving on a team that comes so close to the Stanley Cup finals is always tricky, but the newly minted Ducks managed to make a splash in a big way when they acquired big Chris Pronger from the same Edmonton Oilers who bounced them from the playoffs. While they gave up their best defensive prospect (Smid) and an exciting young forward who managed almost 30 goals in his sophomore season (Lupul), the Ducks got the best of the deal, adding one of the best defensivemen in the league to play alongside Scott Neidermeyer. These two represent easily the best one-two punch in the NHL, and will probably get some regular time together during important power plays, penalty kills - not to mention the final minutes of key games.
Up front, Anaheim will count on Teemu Selanne and Andy McDonald. Beyond those two the Ducks lack depth, a situation made worse with the departure of Lupul. Assuming the Ducks can lock up Bryzgalov, look for them to lose Jean Sebastien Giguere’s big salary to add some depth of front. On the other hand, Giguere will likely be in line for a paycut unless he can vastly improve on last year’s performance. A tandem of Giguere and Bryzgalov would be much deeper and more solid than either Giguere or Bryzgalov have shown themselves capable of.
Defence wins championships and the Ducks have put themselves in line for a tremendous run next year. However, without depth up front, the Ducks will discover that putting pucks in the net can be just as important as keeping them out. Selanne proved last year that he’s still capable of shouldering much of a team’s offense, and the emergence of Andy McDonald as a true top line center helped, as well. I don’t see the Ducks having enough offense to make a deep run in the postseason. However, if their goaltending holds up, they should be nearly impossible to sscore against and should make a run at the division and possibly the conference title. I would be interestled in seeing games between the Sharks and Ducks - possibly the best offence in the league against the best defence.