It's said that intelligent life that ceases to change, ceases to be intelligent. The curse of the internet means prognostication is more of a mugs game than ever before (Bob McKenzie's fine, retro description). What I'm saying is, can I change my mind about my pre-season predictions? No? Dang. Thing is, you want credit for making the right predictions (East here, West here), you'd gotta take the flak for the blown ones.

In that case, a hard swallow and excuses at the ready!

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Revisiting past decisions is for fools and dreamers. That being said, what the heck was I thinking in the pre-season?!?

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Welcome to the mid-point of the season!

[cheers, fireworks, etc.]

This is as good a point as any to look back at my pre-season predictions to see just how foolish I was then and how brilliant I am now at justifying those same bizarre choices. Bear in mind I could still be proven right, as my predictions are for the end of the season, not the middle. It's just not likely.

Still, no reason to back away from them now! Let's start in the East:

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Rick Nash.

Well, for me at least.  I liked watching Ryan Smyth play for a team I could cheer for each year.  Seriously, the Oilers sit a close second to the Rangers in terms of teams I despise (even if I do like watching the Oilers play their fast, exciting, and mistake-prone hock-DAMN IT!) and just a touch above the Flyers.  The Flyers took over third place when they shed Carcillo, with the added bonus of Chicago getting saddled with him.

That's the tricky part of liking players not on "your" team: when can you cheer for them?  In this case, there just may be a solution...

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Hey, this is tomorrow, right?  Close enough, in any case.  I don't want too many days going by, or I won't be able to use the fact that I posted these predictions up before training camps got going as an excuse when I'm wrong on 90% of what's here.  The joy of the internet: when it's out there, there's nothing you can say that will make it go away.  Once an internet porn star, always an internet porn star!

And on that note, let's look out West:

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Training camps have opened, junior pre-season games are already underway, and the unmistakable smell of artificial ice is in the air.  What better way to herald the season's arrival by including the potential for massive embarrassment?

Yeah, thought you might like that.  Without further ado, let's go East and start the commotion!

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With the recent signing of a FFP (Frequently Favourite Player) of mine, the forward ranks seem to be filling out reasonably well.  There's still some question about a second line scorer, but it's entirely possible that the Canucks will start the year with Samuelsson and Raymond (when he's back from injury) and see if those two can have bounce-back seasons.  Oreskovich should be coming back to the fold as well: he's restricted, limiting his options, and I don't think I'm alone in liking what I saw from him last year.  Still, lots of bodies coming in looking for fourth line work, so maybe he's not returning.  Seriously, there are eight players with the team right now who could make that fourth line...

Added bonus for Raymond ponderers: he's a restricted free agent after this season, making him more desirable to teams - including Vancouver.  Stays?  Gone?  Just have to see.

More interesting, from my point of view, is the defence...

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With Atlanta moving Westward (as well as Northward - finally!) talk has resurfaced of changing divisions to more accurately line up with regions and actual/potential rivalries.  So long as the NHL head office can get their insistence on numerical balance out of the way, this shouldn't be a problem.  A short primer on numerical stupidity in NHL scheduling:

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Bummer.  Going zero-for-three at the toughest trophy in sports sucks, but losing it to Boston doesn't make it too hard to take: that's a pretty darned good team over there.  The question now is: how do we make ours better?

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Ouch.  That was... awful.  After a tentative first, some bad luck to start the second then a descent into hell.  Ow.  Still, just like with wins, you can only lose one game at a time, and the Canucks still lead the series 2-1.

So now what?

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Thomas and Krejci for Boston; Kesler, Luongo, Henrik, and Bieksa for the Canucks.  Time to add another name.

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...Is it too soon to play with next season's roster?  After all, there's still plenty o'game to go here, and no-one knows which players will emerge as goats and heroes in the city.  (Actually, if Vancouver can pull this off, pretty much everyone on the team is going to have a statue in Stanley Park.  We know this, right?  I digress.)

In a time of cooler heads, I figured we've all got a few days to kill before the final round (WOO!) starts up, so why not have some fun with numbers?

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Everyone here knows what happened in round two.

I expect everyone here also knows why it happened: the Nashville Predators thought they needed to shut down Henrik and Daniel Sedin, and then hope the other lines would even up, letting Pekka Rinne steal the series from an uncertain Luongo.  It didn't work out that way, as there was only so long the brilliant shut down pair of Shea Weber and Ryan Suter could be on the ice; and they learned to their regret that not only is Vancouver not a one-line team, but unless you have a player dangerous enough to pull Ryan Kesler's attention, he's going to hurt your team very, very badly.

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Nashville, huh?  A team that has been made of sandpaper for a decade, with the few scoring stars brought in getting their numbers shaved.  A team that shoots from anywhere, so scores from anywhere - just not very often.  There are no scoring stars in the forward cast now, so the danger is evenly spread.

And what do you do about that?

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The Canucks have been beaten soundly over the last three games, outscored by 11 goals; the coach pulled the putative starter in two of those games, inserting him in the third just in time to lose; that starter didn't start the last game in what is widely called a "panic move by the coach"; that same starter clearly has Blackhawks on the brain, making mistakes against this team he simply doesn't make otherwise; a player called the heart and soul of the team and a major trophy candidate has no goals when his team needs him the most; the team captain, likewise; one of the top two defencemen only managed 2 minutes of playing time before being injured (yet again)...

So why am I optimistic about tonight's game?

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So.  After waiting months (and months) for Jeff Tambellini to break into double digits for goals - a bit greedy, perhaps, as he's never done it before - I started thinking up "races" for the magic number to beat.  So far, he's lost every one.

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With a week off to heal our D (again.  Anyone working for the Canucks pushing to make 6-day breaks 10 games in part of the permanent schedule?), I thought I'd toss one of these into the mix while we wait.  Bit of a shame were not playing the New Jersey Devils on Hallowe'en, but I suppose All Hallows Day can be appropriate, too...

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Yeah, that was forced.

So I was at The Hockey News, and saw a fan letter asking if there will ever be another dynasty in the NHL.  Now they didn't bother describing what they meant by a dynasty, but I've seen the question often enough to have thought a bit about it, so here goes.

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There is a current post up by Yankee Canuck regarding what Samuelsson is going to do next season, which is a reasonable question: any time someone jumps in their stats, it's fair to ask not only where the increased numbers came from, but if they will be sticking around.  It got me thinking about the state of Vancouver's offence over all, and how likely it is that the guns we carried last season will still be firing this time around.

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*Edit: Team BC now has centres.  Not the same since Yzerman and Sakic retired, but better than none!

It's not my fault.

We got to talking about the Atlanta-Chicago trade, and it was noticed that Atlanta picked up two black players, and how that would be a good idea for marketing there (see also: Simmonds in LA; Ward in Nashville).  That led to thoughts of Vancouver calling up Prab Rai and trading for Brandon Yip and Evander Kane, which led to bringing back all the BC players, which led to thoughts about the old "Canada entering three hockey teams in the Olympics" joke, which caused this.  Plus, having a broken leg means I'm sitting around WAY more than could ever be considered healthy.

So it's not my fault.

First things first: the poll is at the bottom.  Go there first, then check out the teams.  Hey, I'm old: I'm allowed to get Teh Intertubes wrong!

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Okay, put away the trade sticks and the "everyone SUCKS!" eyeglasses.  Chicago, a very good team that finished (just) ahead of Vancouver in the standings, beat the Canucks in six games.  Lots happened in these playoffs, and in games leading up to them, and that's all up for evaluation... Even if some folks have dug their foxholes already and have invested too much into their positions to change them.

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...I need to aim it at my foot.

Lots and lots of hand-wringing lately about the state of the Canucks of late, and fair enough: after all, it's getting close to the playoffs, when the Sedins suck, and we can't get scoring from anyone else, and our goalie's a sieve, and our defence collapses and our forwards are too slow and our hitters go nuts picking up more penalties then Lehman Brothers and -

Okay, hold it.  Take a breath.  Have a drink and sober up.  It's really not as bad as you think.

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It feels... strange to be thanking Living Sock Puppet Gary Bettman for anything.

Strange and quite possibly evil.  And yet I have been led on a spiritual and intellectual journey over the past few weeks, with only Schmuck Monkey Bettman and his astoundingly dorky "weenie point" scoring system to thank for my dawning realization:

I really, really hate the New York Rangers.

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Follow the bouncing puck, here:

Mark Chipman has been trying to get a team back in Winnipeg for a long time, apparently succeeding in principle as of yesterday.  You all know the story behind why Chipman might succeed where Balsillie failed: Chipman co-owns a modern arena already, with the other owner being the scion of Canada's richest family.  Plus, Bettman doesn't hate his ass with the petulance of a toddler entering the Terrible Twos.

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A recent post discussed the opinion that recent re-signee Ryan Kesler was the steal of the 2003 draft.  I found it a bit difficult to call anyone from the first round an actual "steal", given that those players were assumed to have the strongest change of making an impact in the NHL.  More accurately, anyone who was selected far below their expected draft position, then made an impact more in tune with previous expectations would be considered "steals"...

But looking that up would take way, WAY too much work for my lazy ass.

So who, among current players, are the lucky strikes?  I've looked through all the drafts from 2009 back to see who is currently the best players grabbed using the "Here's the remainders, where are my darts?" technique, trying to make a full team of them (13 forwards, 7 defence, 3 goalies), limiting myself to the sixth round and later.

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With both Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby being in the news (for much, much different reasons) I thought the time was right to irritate as many people as possible by mentioning who I like more.

Hey, where are you going?

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Two Canuck forward prospects are about to have their seasons end, and given the offensive difficulties the Moose are experiencing (only three AHL teams have fewer goals) it's certainly possible they'll make an appearance in the majors this year...  Or should Manitoba keep the players they have now, riding the experience and physical maturity of the current team into the playoffs?

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