My 2011-12 regular season results prediction.

So here goes. Here's how I think the final results of next season wind up. Am I psychic? We shall see! West: 1. Vancouver (piss-easy division and embellishments get them top seed - but not much else). 2. San Jose (will dismantle every gutless team on a nightly basis - it's Shark Week all year) 3. Chicago (most people are overrating Chicago - they'll make 3rd seed, but be ~10th in league points) 4. Los Angeles (injury concerns, but an easy division/conference outside of San Jose helps) 5. Nashville (The Preds' stability and great goaltending grinds out a decent season) 6. St. Louis (Good enough goaltending and tons of hidden talent will be enough to get St. Louis back in the playoffs) 7. Detroit (Fading fast, the Wings will spend the rest of their fuel before the next era is ready) 8. Columbus (Depends largely on Mason's consistency, but Carter and Wisneiwski are big upgrades) 9. Anaheim (Could compete for 8th, but goaltending and depth concerns are very real) 10. Colorado (Very close to greatness, but injuries (and injured goalies) and a big hurdle) 11. Phoenix (The Yotes lost a lot of depth, and it'll hurt them, but there is still hidden talent on this roster) 12. Edmonton (Provided injuries heal up, this team will gradually move up the rankings) 13. Minnesota (Heatley and Gooch are not necessarily improvements over Havlat, and losing Burns is huge) 14. Calgary (What seems to be organizational apathy (the "Toronto Syndrome" as It call it) makes them #2 in Alberta) 15. Dallas (This team would struggle to compete in the AHL, but drafting first may be better than constant 10th) East: 1. Boston (Practically unchanged from last year, Boston is a great team worthy of the Pres. Trophy - and Seguin gets a promotion) 2. Washington (The Caps are a great team, and certainly improved their roster, but Tampa is a storm warning) 3. Philadelphia (The team's easy division practically gives them a by, but losing Richards, Leino and Carter hurts) 4. Tampa (This is a great team that will only get better - The 4 is deceptive, as they'll finish 5th in the league) 5. Buffalo (Pegula's improvement plan seems to be legit, and a team on the bubble is much more stable for it) 6. New York Rangers (Looked great in the playoffs, and Richards is an improvement - just not a huge one) 7. Montreal (Those pesky Habs will be in the playoffs, as always, but not do much more) 8. New York Islanders (A young team on the brink of greatness, healed injuries and Nabby in goal will make the difference) 9. Winnipeg (The midseason collapse was more off-ice than on, in my eyes, so they may challenge for a low seed) 10. Pittsburgh (No Crosby, no Malkin, no playoffs) 11. Toronto (Reimer is the real deal, but the team still sucks up front) 12. Florida (A good team on paper, some immediate chemistry issues from an overhauled roster will affect their playoff hopes) 13. Carolina (Stall, Skinner, Ward and an AHL roster) 14. New Jersey (Brodeur isn't getting any younger, and the late-season 10-11 surge will out itself as a fluke) 15. Ottawa (The rebuild is on! The team has some talent on the horizon, but expect most of their aging assets to turn into draft picks) Feel free to argue with me! :D I put some solid work into this.

Discuss the 2011-12 season!

9 months ago Evil Stanchion 12 comments 0 recs |

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Excuse the shitty formatting.

Wasn’t like that when I wrote it. >_>;

The artist formerly know as *"Sharks_Fan_In_Toronto"*

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by Evil Stanchion on Sep 8, 2011 12:52 PM PDT reply actions

Why do you think people are overrating Chicago? Aside from record, pretty much everything else—clear victories, Corsi, goal differential, you name it—suggests that they’re nothing short of elite. The team that’s overrated is Boston. They’re pretty thin on the blueline, their defense when Chara is not on the ice is all Thomas, and I doubt he’s going to be ~40 goals above replacement level again. Rask looks elite as well, but I don’t think they improved much (though I think they did get better). At least, they have some ground to make up on Washington, and I don’t think that happened.

Also don’t know how you call Atlantic and Pacific easy in the same post. Two of the three clear toughest divisions in my mind (with the Central).

Pittsburgh without Crosby and Malkin is still a playoff team, I think. I can just barely name 30 centers I’d take over Staal, so he’s an above average 2C by definition. Kunitz and Neal can play on the top line, their top four is stellar, and Fleury last year starting living up to the hype.

Reimer may be the “real deal” but he has what, two months of good play under his belt? Raycroft had more. Price (2008) had more.

I disagree that Florida looks good on paper. I see Weiss and a bunch of third liners up front (David Booth hasn’t been the same since the Richards hit, though maybe that issue will resolve itself with time). They have an underrated shutdown pair and a decent enough top-4, but other than them they’re pretty thin. Theodore by the numbers may be ~20 goals worse than Vokoun, perhaps more.

I also don’t think NJ is that bad. If Brodeur isn’t playing well, Lou will trade for some goalie (see Yzerman & Roloson). They have two 1LWs, a 1C (who’ll miss some time, but not a season-breaking amount), a 1LW/2C, some young talent, and 3 top-4 D at least. I think they’re okay.

Also don’t think Tampa really got better. Plusses include growth from Stamkos and Hedman…minuses include aging from Lecavalier (who really only turned it on for the playoffs), St. Louis, Roloson, Brewer, Ohlund, etc, losing Lundin as well.

What makes you think the Wings are fading fast? Lidstrom is still top-5, Datsyuk and Zetterberg are elite 1Cs, Howard at worst is better than Osgood was for most of the latter’s career…pretty much the same story as every season. White is a guy who can handle tough minutes (unlike the old Rafalski), and they have a plethora of young talent coming up.

I also think that dropping Dallas from 9th to 15th on the basis of, essentially, losing Brad Richards is a bit bold (though I’d do it too, since their Corsi was atrocious). Even then, a really good goalie who can stay healthy (as Lehtonen finally seems like) should drag them out of the bottom.

Why do you say Anaheim has “very real” goaltending concerns? Didn’t Hiller say he’s fine and ready to go? He’s on par with any other goalie you can name, right now, unless you think he’s been seriously affected by his vertigo issues.

Red Line Station and @RedArmyLine, featuring coverage of the most frustrating team in the NHL
I believe in next year.

by red army line on Sep 8, 2011 3:00 PM PDT reply actions

Most of what I wrote is opinion (obviously).

The only thing I can really counter of your post is the Hiller thing: Yes, I do think it’ll be a returning problem. If it’s a stress-related thing, it’ll only gets worse. The amount of time he was off also concerns me… I don’t know that we’ll see a return to form. I tried to keep the burbs brief, so I didn’t get too deep into that.

I will respond to most of the ones I can think of a response to:

Chicago: I think my placement for them is right – I think they’re better than 8th, but I don’t think they’re a cup contender. They lost too many important pieces that one year. The Hockey News picked them as the cup favourite, and I just don’t see that happening.

Pacific is easy outside of San Jose and Los Angeles. I think everyone agrees Phoenix declined, and while we disagree on Dallas and Anaheim, my statement about the division being easy is based on my opinion of those two teams’ decline. I think Dallas at 9th last year was more because of the Western basement being worse than it is now than anything else. I do think they’ll finish 30th without a centre.

Atlantic is also kinda of a pushover division. Philly is worse off (on paper) without Richards and Carter (though I’ve read that they and Pronger were essentially locking horns every night, so it could be the right thing to do), and Bryzgalov, while certainly an NHL goalie (finally), didn’t put up numbers better than his backups in Phoenix. Pittsburgh is definitely a worse team without Crosby and Malkin (both of whom I fear will miss most of the season, or come back only briefly without their complete game), and even if Staal is a #1 centre (and he may be), he’s pretty much ALL they have down the middle. I don’t think the team’s competitive without their biggest stars. New Jersey will have a full season of their first half of 10-11. At BEST, they finish 10th, and that’s only if Kovalchuk/Parise/both win(s) the Richard, really. And finally, the Islanders are much better, but not quite ready to make waves.

The Pants aren’t “good”, I struggled with words there. I wanted to say “decent”, but I think they’re slightly better than “decent”. Slightly. I think it’s a good step in rebuilding, kinda like a big tryout while they develop some of their young talent. Ted and Clem will make a decent tandem until Markstrom can take over, and thank god he isn’t being handled like DiPietro. Things are no longer dire in Sunrise.

The artist formerly know as *"Sharks_Fan_In_Toronto"*

by Evil Stanchion on Sep 8, 2011 4:40 PM PDT up reply actions

They lost too many important pieces that one year

The only real guys they lost were Ladd and Niemi. Otherwise, just “pluggers” and depth defensemen. The top-4 stayed intact (though now they’ve lost Campbell too, Montador is actually quite good). Byfuglien was a 4th liner. Brouwer is versatile, but they have a deep system and looks like guys like Bickell or Smith can replace him. Toews and Kane and Hjalmarsson have only gotten better since their Cup run, and Seabrook has too, I’d say. They’re definitely worse off, but essentially they’re still carrying their four best forwards and checking line forward and three of their top four D. They were just so much better than anyone else that year (save maybe Washington) that they had room to get worse and still be elite (just like Lidstrom used to have room to get worse and still be the best defenseman in the league).

I don’t think the team’s competitive without their biggest stars.

Didn’t you see like the entire second half of this past year? They’re deeper now than they were then, and kept winning.

New Jersey will have a full season of their first half of 10-11. At BEST, they finish 10th, and that’s only if Kovalchuk/Parise/both win(s) the Richard, really.

You expect their big guns to have career low-type seasons again? Maybe from Brodeur, but from Kovy? To have that terrible coaching again? I doubt it.

Red Line Station and @RedArmyLine, featuring coverage of the most frustrating team in the NHL
I believe in next year.

by red army line on Sep 8, 2011 5:38 PM PDT up reply actions

I would disagree pretty heavily on the downplay of the loss of Byfuglien. He certainly could be a 3rd/4th liner through long stretches of the regular season, but the year they won the cup and the year prior for sure, he was a huge factor in them winning series. He was a major factor in taking out vancouver two years in a row as well as the big reason they knocked us off in 4 games. (yes niemi played well…but we had no answer for byf. he won them 2 of the 4 games and had a big factor in the other 2 games. with all the guys they lossed and factor the loss of him, yes some of the guys Chicago gave up have been matched and made up for with players like Bickell, Smith, Picking up Montador. Crawford is still a downgrade from Niemi and they never filled the void on ice that Byfuglien left which was their pushover factor from being a good team that is playoff bound, to a cup contending team.

by dannyschmanny on Sep 20, 2011 11:45 AM PDT up reply actions

This probably should have been a FanPost, not a FanShot.

FanShots are for quick links to other sites.

Picklesnakebit since 2011.
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by ievans on Sep 8, 2011 4:57 PM PDT reply actions

Agreed, but I'm new here.

I don’t know if there’s like, a semi-official one of these later in the off-season. Also, I wouldn’t feel right posting this right above my plane crash one.

The artist formerly know as *"Sharks_Fan_In_Toronto"*

by Evil Stanchion on Sep 8, 2011 5:01 PM PDT up reply actions

FanPosts are pretty much unregulated, and are for exactly this kind of article. If you post an interesting one, it might get promoted to the main page by one of the editors.

I wouldn’t worry about bumping the crash story, as there’s a main page story now.

Picklesnakebit since 2011.
@shampeon

by ievans on Sep 8, 2011 5:12 PM PDT up reply actions

So should I repost it?

Not too up on FTF netiquette.

The artist formerly know as *"Sharks_Fan_In_Toronto"*

by Evil Stanchion on Sep 8, 2011 5:59 PM PDT up reply actions

Nah, there’s already discussion. You might try to edit the post so it’s more readable.

Picklesnakebit since 2011.
@shampeon

by ievans on Sep 8, 2011 6:17 PM PDT up reply actions

I did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35XI37SVVYI

The artist formerly know as *"Sharks_Fan_In_Toronto"*

by Evil Stanchion on Sep 8, 2011 6:24 PM PDT up reply actions

14. New Jersey (Brodeur isn’t getting any younger, and the late-season 10-11 surge will out itself as a fluke)

I’m actually going to guess that the early part of the season was the fluke. Parise and Kovalchuk are both fantasic players. Elias and Zajac are very good as well. And Marty’s not getting any younger, but I still think he has a few more very good years in him.

I see them as a 7th seed. Maybe better.

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by jwizzle241 on Sep 8, 2011 8:10 PM PDT reply actions 1 recs