NHL analysis

This entry could also be titled “Teams To Watch Out For.”

Early in the season, as usual, some teams are surprising everyone with their speed - or lack thereof - out of the gate.  Here are a few notes about a few of the surprising teams, and about teams that should become surprising in the near future.

Buffalo Sabres: Due for a slip-up anytime now.  Just don’t tell that to the Philadelphia Flyers, who got hammered 9-1 tonight.  The Sabres have had a very easy scheudle so far but that looks to change soon enough.  While it is still very early for stats to tell us much, the Sabres are the team that is overachieving the most so far, based on their schedule difficulty (past and future) and their success.

Detroit Red Wings: Add the goals the Wings have scored to the shots they’ve taken, take away the shots they’ve allowed and the goals they’ve allowed, and you get a whopping 81, or 16.2 per game.  Even when they’re losing, they’re outplaying their opponents.  They deserve to be doing better than they are (at least until Hasek hurts his groin).

Pittsburgh Penguins: The opposite end of the spectrum.  The same calculations as with Detroit yields an average of minus-15.25.  Ouch.  How long can Marc-Andre Fleury hold this team together?  And no, Evgeni Malkin is not the answer.  Still too many question marks on this team for them to seriously challenge for a playoff position.

Phoenix Coyotes: More bad news for Gretzky and Company.  Assuming every team maintained their current winning percentage, the Coyotes have the most difficult remaining schedule.  Tough break.

Dallas Stars: Here’s a scary one for Pacific Division rivals: The Stars are statistically underperforming so far.  Their first 5 games have been more difficult than the remaining 77 are expected to be.  Yikes.  My money’s still on the Sharks for the division title though.

Additions: Matt Hussey, Dan Smith, Dominik Hasek, Krys Kolanos, Danil Markov, Dan Smith

Subtractions: Steve Yzerman, Mark Mowers, Brendan Shanahan, Manny Legace, Don MacLean

Analysis

Detroit is a team for whom anything less than the Stanely Cup is considered a failure. They are also a team undergoing a major changing of the guard this summer. With Steve Yzerman’s retirement and Shanahan’s defection to the Rangers, Detroit lost plenty of veteran leadership. Chris Chelios, back for one more year, will be leaned upon even more heavily, but the real burden will fall to Datsyuk and Zetterberg. The due led the Wings in points last year (87 and 85 points respectively) and will be required to repeat their performance if Detroit can have any hope of repeating as President’s Trophy winners.

Even if the team has trouble adjusting to the loss of two of their leaders, Detroit is pretty obviously a lock to at least make the playoffs. Playing 8 games against each of St. Louis, Chicago and Columbus (worst 3 teams in the West last year) is a tremendous boost to any team’s point total. But how will they do in the second season?

Picking up Dominik Hasek should help - so long as they conserve him more than Ottawa did last year and he remains healthy enough to play through the playoffs. In my opinion, Detroit’s playoff woes over the past few years is mostly caused my a mental block. They’ve become used to losing playoff series they are heavily favoured to win. Hasek, for all his faults, despite his age, despite his injuries, is a winner. He finds ways to win, no matter what it takes.

Danny Markov is another addition that should help. I had the pleasure of watching Markov frequently back when he played for the Leafs, and since then I’ve been unable to figure out why this guy moves around so often. He’s a solid, quick, smart defenceman who’s not afraid of blocking shots, throwing his body around, and will do anything to win. He comes to play every night and was pretty cheap ($2.5 million) considering what guys like Willie Mitchel or Jay Mckee were signing for.

Greg Johnson deserved more than his $500 000 and should have received far more attention than he got. He’ll be a quiet leader, he’ll make the guys around him better, and he’ll help the team in a variety of situations.

Can Hasek remain healthy throughout an entire season? If he doesn’t, the Wings have no one but Osgood to fall back on. Osgood is a very capable backup but the Wings have basically stated they have no confidence in him as their starter. Tough to inspire confidence in your teamates when your team doesn’t believe in you.

Detroit is very gracefully transitioning from the previous generation to the new. Expect great things from Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Kronwall and other young rising stars, while the veterans that remain will bring all the right things and only help the development of those young players. Schneider and Chelios in particular are excellent players but can’t carry a team like they once did.

The battle for the Central division should be a close one this year. Nashville improved over the summer, as did all three of the bottom feeders. Detroit will likely face a dramatic reduction in points since last season, and could easily lose their top spot to Nashville. If Hasek remains healthy, they should be a very tough team to knock off in the playoffs. But I’m not sure if I would want to rest my team on Hasek’s groin.