Haven't had time to give all the eulogies this season it's probably better to focus on the teams that were still in it to win it. That said, here's a rundown of the teams who didn't make the cut and why:
Eastern Conference:
Florida Panthers: Always ice a team that's average at best; this season they managed to finish off as the worst. Could get better if Dale Tallon can use the ridiculous amount of cap space on the team to build a squad that's competitive.
New York Islanders: Injuries, as well as a locker-room that was reportedly lackadaisical, were enough to mute the torrid second-half run they made. Could get better if owner Charles Wang cares to properly invest in the team.
Atlanta Thrashers: The successful first-half wasn't enough to allow them to overcome their rather pedestrian second-half; perhaps the team was more average than they cared to admit in the off-season. Could get better if they get those "marquee" players to come to Atlanta.
New Jersey Devils: Had the only coach to recently come from the AHL that turned out to be a dud. Kovalchuk's contract matters didn't help and this team might have sacrificed the future for one player. Rebuild?
Toronto Maple Leafs: Started getting it together in the second half but could only get so close; should be a playoff team again next season.
Carolina Hurricanes: Lost the game that would have made them a playoff team. They can be successful next season with the right cast and a heaping dose of fortitude.
Western Conference:
Columbus Blue Jackets: Jumped the shark after their only playoff season and rushed their goalie to the NHL too quickly. They don't ever seem to have a strategy that works.
Minnesota Wild: Despite a talented roster, the team came up short more often than not. It cost to coach his job but does it need to stop there?
St. Louis Blues: The team's too young and despite a promising pedigree, there's something that needs to be said about experience. The ownership issues affecting the club certainly didn't help matters.
Calgary Flames: On paper it should work so why doesn't it on the ice? There's going to be another year of this before they'll have the finances freed up to make the moves necessary for an appropriately-balanced roster; hopefully they learn to stop leaning on the same few people to carry them along.
Dallas Stars: Another team that needed to win to get into the playoffs and come up short, this wouldn't have been a problem if they hadn't been atop of the standings during the All-Star Break. Did trading James Neal away really lead to THAT monumental of a collapse?!?!
Well, as we're advancing toward the semi-finals of the playoffs, I will be reviewing the seasons of teams as they're eliminated from the playoffs. Obviously, the last team reviewed will be the one that wins the Cup.
Now the third team to be eliminated from playoff contention: The Ottawa Senators.
My prediction: Third in the Northeast Division and on the playoff bubble.
The truth: They were the first team in the Eastern Conference to be eliminated from playoff contention.
So what happened?: Remember that move a few seasons ago to essentially sink all their money into one line and hope the supporting cast could generate around 30 points a season if they were given second-line ice time? Remember that guy who became dissatisfied with being there and was traded to San Jose for Milan Michalek and a guy who's not in the league anymore? Yup. Essentially inconsistent offense, injuries, porous defensive play, and absolutely brutal goaltending had these guys being good in essentially one area: toughness. You'd think there would be a wholesale change in regards to management and coaches, but apparently GM Bryan Murray salvaged his job by bringing in two goaltenders who actually may work out for them beyond this season.
So what's next?:Cory Clouston and his staff have been shown the door. There appears to be a solid group of players in place going into next season; Murray will still have his work cut out for him to bring the right players in while finding a coach who's system will fit the team in place. They could turn it around but it's gonna take some work.
Well, as we're advancing toward the semi-finals of the playoffs, I will be reviewing the seasons of teams as they're eliminated from the playoffs. Obviously, the last team reviewed will be the one that wins the Cup.
Now the second team to be eliminated from playoff contention: The Colorado Avalanche.
My prediction: I predicted the team would finish third in the Northwest Division at least on the playoff bubble.
The truth: They were the second team in both the Western Conference and in the league to be officially eliminated from playoff contention.
So what happened?: On one hand, the injury bug took a significant bite out of the team this season. Peter Mueller hasn't played a game this season while both the newly-acquired Tomas Fleischmann and former rookie sensation T.J. Galiardi will both close out the season on the IR: all of this has a significant effect on their scoring ability. Add Kyle Quincey and Kyle Cumiskey among those battling the injury bug and you start second guessing why you traded away one of the better defensive defensemen in the league...
... so how the team counter this? They gave up on the goaltender who carried them into the playoffs last season, as well as the totally excellent power forward who couldn't immediately find his scoring touch after breaking his hand, for a future backup goaltender in Brian Elliott and a potential all-around defenseman in Erik Johnson, who's decent but only effective at the offensive end of the rink. I understand sometimes to have to hit the rebuild button but unless they land that coveted goaltender and defensive defenseman in free agency; this is going to look really bad next season.
So what's next?: See above. This team still has Matt Duchene and Paul Stasny so they have two solid centers to build around. If Johnson can become everything they want and the right guys either stay or are brought in than it's not too unrealistic to expect them to be back in playoff contention next season. If they pull off the wrong moves, however, then maybe the Colorado to Quebec relocation rumors will swirl (kidding... sort of.)
Now that people are talking playoffs, we'll review the seasons of teams as they're either eliminated from the playoffs or eliminated from playoff contention before the end of the season. Obviously, the last team reviewed will be the one that wins the Cup.
Now the first team to be eliminated from playoff contention: The Edmonton Oilers.
My prediction: At the beginning of the season we figured Edmonton would finish fifth in the Northwest Division and out of the playoffs.
The truth: They were the first team eliminated from playoff contention and are fighting not to finish last in the league.
So what happened?: It was a rebuild year where anything that could have gone wrong did. Yes youth was served and they were able to get many exciting prospects onto the roster, but many of them ended up injured or currently battling injuries (see: Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle, Sam Gagner, and Theo Peckam.) Leave additional injuries to Ryan Whitney, Ales Hemsky, and Nikolai Khabibulin and you have a not-ready-for-prime-time team being supported by guys who're, for all intents and purposes, supporting players. I don't know why the team was so adamant about not giving Martin Gerber a fair shot in net while Khabibulin got his life together in the minors (probably the money but either way...) but the organization seemed completely committed to losing this season, which is sad because some of those guys on the ice took some significant steps forward, too. Oh, and remember that guy they gave up their first three picks in the 2008 draft over? He's no longer with the club.
So what's next?: Remember the 80's when the two best teams were the Edmonton Oilers and the New York Islanders? 30 years later they're at the opposite end of the spectrum. The difference is that the Islanders improved this season while the Oilers stood pat. The team will be exciting to watch next season, but they're still seasons away from even being a playoff team, let alone close to what they used to be.
Darn we've been as bad as absentee parents lately. Nevertheless, we look back at the season from the little-over-halfway finished mark of the NHL season and note the following:
The Good...
Sergei Bobrovsky: One of the big questions coming out of analysts everywhere was "Is the Philadelphia Flyers goaltending good enough to be competitive this season?" In fairness, many analysts expected them to go with the tandem of Michael Leighton and Brian Boucher with Johan Backlund pressing them for the Number 3 spot. But in the middle of September while training camp was underway, the preseason victories were starting to mount for this Russian kid who put up solid individual numbers on a losing Metallurg Novokuznetsk squad in the Kontinental Hockey League. With Michael Leighton on the shelf due to injury and with neither of the other two aforementioned goaltenders looking worlds better than Bobrovsky, "Bob" was able to secure the starting job at the beginning of the year and catapulted them in front of the standings. While he cooled slightly, he is still the Number 1 of the 1/1A tandem he's formed with Boucher (who, in his own right has been marvelous) and is a lock to win the Calder Trophy for the league's best rookie. And he doesn't even speak English yet...
The Pittsburgh Penguins: As a Red Wings fan and Flyers supporter, I can't help but hate this team. Yet Sidney Crosby was absolutely fantastic until suffering a concussion and the team is managing to lead the league in fighting majors. You can love 'em and you can hate 'em but dammit they're playing some inspired hockey right now. And while I'm certain many people believed Kris Letang would be a great player this season, who the hell woulda thought he'd be going to the All-Star game?
HBO 24/7 and The Winter Classic Hockey players may not be as colorful on the playing surface as some of the athletes in other sports, but the HBO series really took away the "Be-polite-for-the-cameras-kids" feel that many hockey games have presented themselves as such lately and replaced it with a cold, honest look as to how things were going; no matter how awesome or awful it was. The guys (especially Bruce Boudreau) readjusted after they saw how they looked and it really set the stage for this season's Winter Classic. With the puck-drop moved to nighttime and the pageantry stripped away, the game was exciting and featured something for everyone. Also, I've seen last seasons' tilt but this one was waaaaaaay better...
Emerging hockey teams in the South: With a major brain-drain heading south of the Mason-Dixon line, many of the southern teams are seeing a renaissance or are still improving from last season. In the Southeast Division, Steve Yzerman's Tampa Bay Lightning is currently sitting atop of the heavily-favored Washington Capitals while new Atlanta Thrahsers GM Rick Dudley was able to acquire Dustin Byfuglien among others to fortify an emerging squad to make them genuinely competitive for the first time ever (and the local fans have started to notice too.) The Carolina Hurricanes are young but definitely nothing to sneeze at with a better-than-.500 record while the Florida Panthers are literally a game shy of the .500 mark (woulda been nice if Steve Reinprecht had worked out for them but...) In the Pacific Division, The Dallas Stars have rebounded from bottom-of-the-division territory and back into being a top-seeded playoff team (with a goaltending tandem of Kari Lehotnen and Andrew Raycroft nonetheless) while the Phoenix Coyotes, Anaheim Ducks, L.A. Kings, and San Jose Sharks are fully competitive in what's probably the closest thing to a five-horse race in the league as you'll see in any other division. If you live in any of those hockey markets you've been lucky to not only witness some entertaining hockey, but have likely done so without having to shovel a driveway to get to the game!
The continued dominance of the Vancouver Canucks and the Detroit Red Wings This was looking like Vancouver's year and it has been exactly that. Despite an ugly incident toward the beginning of the season (which we'll get to later), Vancouver's been so balanced that they could afford to make Keith Ballad their seventh defenseman... and he's played in all 82 games for 4 of the past 5 seasons! The Sedin Brothers are producing over a point per game, Ryan Kesler's just a hair off (.98), and they've got constant production from their secondary scoring forwards as well as their offensive defensemen (and the third-line's pretty productive too.) With a solid blend of technicality and toughness to go with two excellent goaltenders, the Canucks look poised to be at the Western Conference Finals this season.
As for the other team poised to be at the Western Conference Finals this season, the Red Wings have been the model of excellence and continue to prove why they're the benchmark for what all other hockey organizations wish to be. Their defensive production is simply incredible with Nicklas Lidstrom and Brian Rafaskii being close to a point per game (mind you, as defensemen!) while their offensive production's been as good as Vancouvers, possibly even better. Injuries are now a concern and the goaltending is starting to look somewhat average with Ozzy hurt and Howard somewhat slumping, but just when you thing they're down...
Babcock's hair and death stare guides them back into winning territory!
The Bad...
The New Jersey Devils Wow, who woulda thought these guys would have poo'ed the bed as badly as they have? I figured they would have been one of the best teams going into the season but instead, Ilya Kovalchuk's monster contract created the wrong kind of distraction for the team while injuries, ineffective goaltending and defense, insufficient point production, and inexperienced coaching lead to one of the biggest disasters since the Hindenberg. Players (like Jamie Langenbrunner) are getting moved while coaches are getting axed (Jacques Lemaire came back; can it work again?) but they've essentially made their bed for the season. But hey, for an organization that's somewhat short on prospects, they're definitely going to land a solid draft pick this season!
The Calgary Flames What a mess. Going into this season these guys looked like they'd have something of a return back to respectability. Now they're basically standing atop of the Edmonton Oilers in the basement of the Western Conference. Things aren't looking good when the only prayer of re-signing the guy who's second on your team for point production (Alex Tanguay) hinges on whether or not another player can return from what may be a career-ending spinal injury (Daymond Langkow). The guys on the team who can score can't play defense while the guys who defend can't find ways to produce. Combine that with the amount of immovable contracts given to under-performing players and you've essentially got a recipe for disaster. Too bad because I was kinda hoping they'd do better.
The Rick Rypien Incident Early in the season in a contest between the Vancouver Canucks and the Minnesota Wild, things got a little out of hand after the refs broke up a fight between Rick Rypien and Brad Staubitz... Since then the fan has threatened legal action and Rypien was suspended for 6 games; eventually returning only to be granted a personal leave of absence since the beginning of December (with no estimated time to return.) He's battled a lot of physical injuries and it wouldn't be surprising if that's finally effected his mental state to some degree as well. In spite of everything I hope he gets well; hockey's a more boring place without him.
The continued poor play of the New York Islanders and Edmonton Oilers: To a certain degree I can't help but feel both teams deserve this. In the case of the Edmonton Oilers, the team is frightingly young while the cast selected to support them just isn't up to snuff either by assignment or by choice. The Oilers are stuck with Nikolai Khabibulin's contract (which looks worse and worse each day) while they're forced to keep a less expensive and more effective Martin Gerber in the minors. The team does have a solid young cast of emerging talent in the likes of Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle, Devan Dubnyk, Magnus Paajarvi, Linus Omark, and Theo Peckham; but they'll need to get the right cast of characters in place to support them if they're looking to have any hope of contention in the near future.
In the case of the New York Islanders, they don't seem to have their stuff together and are only breaking the salary cap floor thanks to buying out Alexei Yashin's contract and giving Rick DiPietro a 15-year deal that may never be truly realized. Charles Wang hasn't done much to invest in the team and instead of trying to give local government a reason to go forward with the Lighthouse Project he looks like a guy who's simply waiting out the terms of the lease so he can sell off the team to an investor elsewhere. Yeah the team has some solid young prospects and a collection of lunchbox players surrounding them but it's all at a minimum and very incomplete. Injuries have taken out top contributors to the group and anonymous sources have eluded to the fact that their dressing room is a whole lot lighter than it should be for a team that's constantly losing. Boy oh boy, if a team isn't concerned over whether they win or lose, you can't expect immense support from outside the community.
The decline of the Chicago Blackhawks and the San Jose Sharks: The Chicago Blackhawks were in playoffs-or-bust mode last season and with good reason. After winning the championship, the Blackhawks management had to move many of their component players in favor of keeping their stars around to work with a new group of emerging depth players. The end result? Decreased production throughout and the same type of symptoms affecting the Flames where the scorers can't defend and the defenders can't score along with ineffective goaltending from Marty Turco and unproven goaltending in Corey Crawford. They're in significant danger of becoming the 3rd team in 16 years to have missed the playoffs after winning the Stanley Cup. Meanwhile, the Sharks brass decided that the way of the future was to let go of their star goaltender (Evgeni Nabokov) along with his emerging backup (Thomas Greiss) and to go with a less expensive platoon cast off from other teams (Antti Niemi and Antero Niittymaki). While Niemi has taken the brunt of the losses, neither goaltender has proven to be spectacular or a gamechanger in the ways that the team needs them to be. Combine that with the fact that the team's scoring lines aren't effectively producing points or defending and you have the reason why they've went from perennial division winner to sitting in the basement of the Pacific Division. They may have a chance to catch up to Anaheim, but Phoenix and L.A. are a winning streak away from being untouchable while an unmitigated disaster will bring Dallas' season down.
