featuring Team 1200's Phil Melanson
In any professional sport, it’s just so difficult to repeat as champs. While a team may be able to fly under the radar and swoop in to win a championship, that team will find out in the second year that it won't be able to sneak up on the opposition and it will receive the best game from each opponent.
Also, the champs may not have the same killer instinct as they would have the year before as the contenders. So many factors come into play when a team is trying to build a dynasty and the Pittsburgh Penguins found that out the hard way a year ago by sleepwalking into the playoffs, getting past the Sens in the opening round, but ultimately losing to the Habs in the second round.
So, GM Ray Shero decided to shake things up in a big way in Pittsburgh and what they’ve come up with is a team that is re-loaded, rejuvenated and ready to prove to the hockey world that they aren’t going to be a team that just settles for winning one Stanley Cup. They believe their time is now and they want to get back to the dance.
We all know that the Penguins go as far as their three top centres can take them. We can expect 90-110 point seasons out of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, unless injury occurs. Jordan Staal has to still be the front-runner for best third-line centre in the NHL because of his ability to score in the offensive zone and be so dynamic in the defensive zone.
When you look at the rest of the forwards, you really begin to grasp just how good Crosby and Malkin are. They are so talented that they make the players they line up with that much better as well. For example, if it weren’t for Crosby, could we talk about Pascal Dupuis as a first-line winger anywhere else? If it weren’t for Malkin, could we talk about Aaron Asham as a second-line player?
Defensively, the Penguins made a big improvement to get younger and a little tougher. They lost Sergei Gonchar to the Sens on July 1st, but more than made up for that by picking up Paul Martin from New Jersey and Zybenek Michalek from Phoenix to make up their first pairing. Their second pairing of Brooks Orpik and Kris Letang is solid as well and the third pairing of Alex Goligoski and Ben Lovejoy is good enough to not be a liability for the few minutes that they’ll see every night.
The goaltending is solid with Marc-Andre Fleury at the helm. People always seem to want more from the 25 year-old, but starting 66 games and winning 37 of them is a good start. Having a 2.65 GAA with a save percentage of 910 is also good.
Two players to look out for in camp are Pascal Dupuis and Mike Comrie. Dupuis will be counted on for more production after the loss of Alexei Ponikarovsky, Bill Guerin and Ruslan Fedotenko from the lineup. Dupuis only had 38 points last season and his best season was in 2002-2003 with the Wild when he picked up 48 points. Can he contribute on the top line or second line for this club? Comrie was brought in at a low price to bolster the depth, but with a lack of scoring outside of the superstars, how much can he contribute to the lineup?
It was quite the summer for the Los Angeles Kings as they found themselves in the middle of the Ilya Kovalchuk sweepstakes. In the end, GM Dean Lombardi found that the asking price for the Russian’s services were too high and let the New Jersey Devils be the front-runners to eventually sign him. Now we’ll find out if they missed out or saved themselves from a lot of headaches.
The Kings have slowly built themselves from a cellar-dweller to a team that is destined for greatness because of all their young talent. What they’ve done in the last 3-4 years is a perfect blueprint for franchises that are looking to rebuild from the ground up and are willing to use the draft as their means of replenishment.
It starts with their star forward up front, Anze Kopitar. He enjoyed his best season in the NHL by picking up 81 points in a full season. At times, he could single-handedly put the Kings on his back and win the game for them with his production. But what may have separated him from the rest was his attention to the defensive side as he was on the right side of the plus/minus category for the first time in his career.
If the Kings are to become a contender for the Western Conference title, they will need a couple of guys to step up and help out with scoring at close to the same pace that Kopitar did last season. The gap between Kopitar and the next highest scoring forward was 35 points as Dustin Brown picked up 56 points a year ago.
Defensively, the Kings are solid as well. Their Top 6 include a top pairing of Drew Doughty and Jack Johnson that could be in line to be a dominating pair for the next decade. Their second pairing is also solid with Rob Scuderi returning to play with his new defence partner, Willie Mitchell.
In goal, the Kings are set with a good 1-2 of young goaltenders as well. For now, Jonathan Quick is the starter after starting 72 games, winning 39 games and picking up a 2.54 GAA with a save percentage of 910. However, the plan for the Kings all along has been to make Jonathan Bernier their franchise goaltender and he’s done his time at the AHL level. If Quick falters, they may act fast to give Quick the hook and give Bernier the position that he’s coveted for so long.
Two players to watch out for in camp are Alexei Ponikarovsky and Willie Mitchell. Pony is coming off a 50 point season with the Leafs and Penguins. He’s always been counted on to be a breakout player, but every single year, he fails to live up to the expectations. Can he finally put it all together on the West Coast? Mitchell was considered damaged goods after having troubles with concussions last season. Much like Tim Connolly in Buffalo, Mitchell was given a second chance to prove that his concussions were in the past, he could stay healthy and that he could produce. Will he make his bosses in LA happy with taking the risk?
If the Ottawa Senators are going to get back to the top of the Eastern Conference (or near it), they will have to dethrone our next previewed team and the defending Northeast Division champions, the Buffalo Sabres. Coming off a 100 point regular season, but a first-round exit courtesy of the Boston Bruins, the major question is whether they can repeat their triple-digit point total?
The Sabres are one of a very select few that can say that their goaltender is the guy that runs the ship, stirs the drink and any other cliché with being “the man”. Ryan Miller had another outstanding season for the Sabres as he won 41 times in 68 starts and picked up a 2.22 GAA with a save percentage of 930. How the Sabres go depends on how he goes, but based on past numbers, he should go pretty well.
So, the Sabres are set with the reigning Vezina trophy winner in goal for about 80-85% of the games, but how much harder will he have to work with a defence corps that won’t be as good on paper as it was a year ago? Where the Sabres really got hurt was in free agency over the off-season as they lost their top two defensemen early in July.
Gone are Toni Lydman to Anaheim and Henrik Tallinder to New Jersey, but they were replaced by Jordan Leopold and Shaone Morissonn. With the defence shakier than a year ago, the Sabres will really be counting on second-year man Tyler Myers to build off of his Calder-winning campaign and avoid the dreaded sophomore jinx.
But overshadowed by Miller and Myers is a talented group of forwards that have the ability to create complete havoc for any team in the NHL on a nightly basis. The problem for this franchise is that they have never been in a position where all the talented forwards were able to find the consistency at the same time.
Derek Roy led the team in points with 69 last year. We’ve seen worse totals lead their respective teams, but the problem is that Roy is capable of much more. Same for someone like Jason Pominville who had 62 points a year ago or Thomas Vanek, who only had 53 points last season when he has a career-high of 84 a few years ago. Just imagine what this team could have done if these three guys could have played with their "A" games every single night.
Two players to watch out for in camp are Tim Connolly and Tyler Ennis. Connolly was pretty much left for dead after having major problems with concussions for two years prior to last season, but he came back with a vengeance last year by scoring 65 points in 73 games, good for second on the team. The bigger question is not whether he can repeat the feat, but whether he can stay healthy long enough to repeat? Ennis had a great end to the season last year putting up 13 points in 16 games in his first NHL stint. What can he offer in a full season with the big club?
If you’re looking for a team to cheer for that flies under the radar ever year because it doesn’t rely on a couple of big superstars, but rather hard work and good coaching, then the Nashville Predators would be my recommendation. Every single year, the experts dismiss them and yet, they just hang around and eventually find themselves in the playoffs.
In doing these previews, we haven’t usually talked about the coaching staff, but the job that Barry Trotz has done since the franchise went into existence in 1998 just can’t be overlooked. There may not be a coach out there right now that can get the most of out their players as well as Trotz can. He doesn’t get the credit that others in the league do, but he’s just as good.
How else do you explain a team finishing 7th in the Western Conference despite the fact that their leading scorers were Patric Hornqvist and Steve Sullivan with 51 points? The team didn’t have a defence corps full of Norris trophy winners or a goaltender that has won multiple Vezinas, so that excuse is out. A team with so little offence shouldn’t be winning enough to be in the playoffs.
The Preds are hoping that they were able to improve their scoring a bit by picking up a couple of cast-offs in Matthew Lombardi and Sergei Kostitsyn. When you’re a team like Nashville that is looking to keep a tradition of playoff appearances, but are lacking funds to make big moves, you have to rely on pickups like this to work out.
Defensively, the Preds took a hit with the loss of Dan Hamhuis in a trade with Philadelphia to pick up Ryan Parent. Their first pairing is still solid with new captain Shea Weber partnered with Ryan Suter, but with the loss of Hamhuis, young guys like Parent, Kevin Klein and Cody Franson will have to step up to take on big responsibilities.
In goal, the Preds 1-2 combination will look different with the departure of Dan Ellis, but Pekka Rinne was able to establish himself as the starter last season, so that won’t be any different. Rinne was able to pick up 32 wins in 54 starts last season with a 2.53 GAA and a 910 save percentage. The Preds are counting on the same kind of performance from Rinne because if not, the Preds could be in trouble having to rely on backup Mark Dekanich or Chet Pickard.
Two players to watch out for in camp are David Legwand and Steve Sullivan. Legwand is expected to be the number one centre for this team, but is coming off a 38 point season for his worst season in 5 years. Is he capable of being a top performer in this league anymore? After having so much trouble with a wonky back two years ago, Sullivan was able to bounce back with a 51 point season last year. Has he gotten past his injury problems or is it a matter of time before he’s back on the shelf again?
As a fan of a struggling sports team, you just hope that the ownership and management of the team you cheer for make proper decisions that are going to help rebuild the team for the future with young and exciting talent. Eventually the team becomes better and the fans become very excited as things are turning around. A lot of times, the fans feel that the team is only one or two key moves away from being a champion. They want to see those moves made now because the waiting has hurt too much.
The Colorado Avalanche could be in that spot now with their fans after a season in which a lot of their young players broke out and had career years. The excitement is there after a playoff appearance and they want to see that repeated. However, the moves that were made in the off-season would not have made a lot of the fans happy or thinking that everything is being done to make this team as good as it can be. It looks more like the Avs are going to rely on their young guys once again and not necessarily look for the white knight to put them over the top.
Just looking at some of the players that had career years for this team and you just shake your head in disbelief about how wrong we were. Combine that with the big names having rebound years as well and you get a team leap-frogging their last-place expectations to finish 8th in the conference.
People may have been a little surprised to see Paul Stastny put up 79 points in 81 games, 47 points from Wojtek Wolski and 44 points from Milan Hedjuk in an injury-filled season. However, no one would have expected 64 points from Chris Stewart, 55 points from Matt Duchene in his rookie campaign, 39 points from T.J. Galiardi, 19 points from Brandon Yip in 32 games or 20 points in 15 games from Peter Mueller.
Avalanche management have clearly given these guys a chance to prove that all of their break-out seasons were not flukes and that they can be a part of a young core that can make hockey relevant again in Denver.
Another guy that will need to prove that he’s worthy of being an NHL starter is Craig Anderson. The journeyman never really had a chance to be a starter before he landed in Denver. All he did to thank his new bosses was play 71 games, win 38 of them with a 2.63 GAA and a save percentage of 920.
Anderson will be one of two guys to watch out for in camp because fans will be hoping that he doesn’t come back down to earth in Year 2 of his tenure with the Avs. The other guy to look out for will be Matt Duchene. Is he ready to become a superstar with a season like we saw with Steven Stamkos, or will he go in the opposite direction and have a sophomore slump?
It’s a city that has become accustomed to winning with all of their sports teams. The Boston Celtics are a recent NBA champion and are coming off a season in which they made the finals. The New England Patriots have been a model of consistency in the NFL under Bill Belichick and the Boston Red Sox are always going to be in the mix because of the out-of-whack economic system in Major League Baseball.
The one team in the Boston area that has not lived up to the winning expectations is the Boston Bruins. After a season in which they were eliminated by the Philadelphia Flyers in 7 games despite having a 3-0 series lead, how do the Bruins rebound from such a big disappointment?
It won’t be easy when the roster is fully healthy, but with reports suggesting that their number one centreman Marc Savard may miss as much as the full 2010-2011 season due to post-concussion syndrome, their task will be that much harder. Savard would be a huge help since he scored 33 points in only 41 games last season.
Boston needs all the offensive help they can get since they were second-last in the NHL in goals scored. Their leading scorers from a year ago were David Krejci and Patrice Bergeron with 52 points each. That’s simply not good enough.
There can be an interesting debate about the forwards for the Bruins because a lot of them had career years a couple of years ago in order for them to win the Eastern Conference. However, many of these same over-achieving forwards regressed last season to make the Bruins one of the worst offensive teams in the NHL. So, the question has to be asked: How many of these forwards are capable of repeating their career years and how many of them had years that will just be aberrations to what will be otherwise normal NHL careers?
Defensively, they are led by their Norris-trophy anchor, Zdeno Chara, but unlike past years, there seems to be a changing of the guard with young guys taking on big-time roles. They will have to hope that guys ike Johnny Boychuk, Matt Hunwick and Adam McQuaid can handle the extra responsibilities.
The goaltending seems to be set with Tuukka Rask coming off a career year in which his GAA was 1.97 and he stopped 93% of all shots taken. However, didn’t we say this last year with Tim Thomas? Not suggesting that Rask is going to drop off like Thomas did, but just pointing out how things ended up.
Two players to watch out for in camp are Thomas and Tyler Seguin. Thomas is the back-up for this club, but you don’t usually have a former Vezina winner, an older guy and a well-paid guy as your backup. How much longer does Tim Thomas wear a Boston uniform? We haven’t even talked about the second overall pick from this year’s draft, but the question is simple: How much of an impact does he have with this team? We haven’t heard much about him during training camp like we have other rookies.
What’s the old saying about fooling people? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me? Didn’t the Calgary Flames get fooled by believing that Alex Tanguay and Olli Jokinen could be the answers to their offensive woes a couple of years ago. After jettisoning them, at least people could feel a little bad for the Sutters since they made the wrong choice.
But there will be no sympathy for the Sutters this time around if Tanguay and Jokinen fail as members of the Flames one more time. It’s really been an odd calendar year for Calgary fans with the signing of underachieving defenceman Jay Bouwmeeseter and the surprising multi-player trade with the Leafs at the trade deadline that gave Dion Phaneuf his walking papers and handed a jersey to several underachieving Maple Leafs forwards.
With so much negativity surrounding the Flames, it will be a very pleasant surprise for the people of Calgary if they can get back to the top of the Western Conference standings, but they will need a lot of things to change in order for that to go from being a pipe dream to being a reality.
First of all, they need to find a way to get consistent production out of their 12 forwards. Jarome Iginla led the team in points with 69 in a full campaign, but with 98 points and 89 points the two years previous, does this mean we’re in the middle of a decline for the one guy that could always be counted on by the Flames?
But after Iginla, Tanguay and Jokinen, they really don’t have a lot of depth at the forward position and they will have to rely on guys to play above their capabilities and expectations. Rene Bourque had 58 points in 73 games, but the next closest scorer for the Flames last season was Daymond Langkow with 37 points in 72 games. There’s a serious lack of talent with the forwards on this team.
Defensively, they should have a great first pairing with Bouwmeester and Robyn Regehr, but both of them battled through some inconsistency last season. After the top pairing, there are serious questions about the other two pairings. Would you have full confidence in Ian White, Corey Sarich, Mark Giordano and Steve Staios as your bottom two pairings?
The one player and aspect of the team that they count on is the goaltending of Miikka Kiprusoff. Having played 72 games last season, he managed to win 35 games, have a 2.31 GAA and a save percentage of 920.
Two players to watch out for in camp are Matt Stajan and Ian White. The former Maple Leafs were pretty impressive for the Flames in the short time they were with Calgary last season. If it wasn’t for their production, that trade would have looked even worse than it already did for the Flames. Stajan scored 16 points in 27 games and White had 12 points in 27 games from the back-end. Will they duplicate their production?
I’m guilty of this as much as anyone that looks at the peaks and valleys of a franchise in any sport with a salary cap. We simplify it too much by not taking into account aberrations in either a bad or good way. We just figure that a team has a few years to progress before they make it to the top of the league and then have a few years of regression before hitting the bottom, then starting the cycle all over again.
The St. Louis Blues seemed to progressing through their years of maturity as they were on the road to being a top team in the NHL. However, the Blues hit a bump in the road by having not improving on their 2009-2010 campaign. Can new head coach Davis Payne get the most out of his players now that he’s the head coach and has lost the interim tag?
He’ll have to try and get the young core of this team back on track again after there was so much promise for the individual players. Guys like TJ Oshie, David Backes, David Perron and Brad Boyes have to pick their games up to propel this team from a team full of promise to a team that is playoff-bound. The Blues cannot afford to have Andy McDonald as their leading scorer with only 57 points. That’s simply not good enough to be a playoff team.
Defensively, the Blues have a lot of guys that were full of promise and had big expectations coming out of junior, but at some point, these young guys are going to have to show the maturity and growth in their game in order to elevate the Blues to be a playoff team. Eric Brewer and Barrett Jackman are solid vets that aren’t game-changers, but won’t do anything to cost them a game either, but they need more from Erik Johnson, Carlo Colaiacovo and Alex Pietrangelo.
But the big news of the off-season involving this team comes with the arrival of Jaroslav Halak from the Montreal Canadiens. Everyone knows about his magical run during the playoffs last season, but with that run comes expectations that he can elevate this team in a way that Chris Mason couldn’t.
Halak represents one of the two players to look out for in camp alongside Patrick Berglund. The question is obvious for Halak. Can he duplicate that magic from the playoffs and stretch it out for an 82 game season? It’s one thing to be lights-out for a couple of months, but doing it for a full season is another story.
Berglund was left out intentionally from the young guys that have not lived up to expectations because he has had the worst struggles out of all of the young guys. With only 26 points in 71 games last season, that would usually be enough to be sent packing to the minors. However, with how young this team is, Berglund may still be counted on to not only produce for the club, but to play Top 6 minutes.
Having spent a couple of days in Anaheim last year, I can tell you personally how sleepy of a suburb it can be. There’s nothing going on there except for Disneyland, the Angels and the Ducks. Well, the Ducks must have fallen into the same trap I did as for most of the season, they looked like they were asleep most nights and in the process, were wasting the numerous amount of talent they have on paper.
A team that can put out a line combination of Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf and Bobby Ryan should not find themselves in 11th place of the Western Conference. The only excuse that they could come up with would be a lack of depth outside the top line. However, the Ducks could put out a second line out of four talented players: Teemu Selanne, Saku Koivu, Joffrey Lupul and Jason Blake.
The problem for this team was not an inability to score goals. They finished 7th in the league in goals scored and received good production from their top forwards. Their problem was an inability to stay out of the penalty box and a lack of productivity from their defence corps. Not offensive productivity, but just a lack of ability to keep opponents from scoring.
And if you think the Ducks were able to make their defence any better by moves in the off-season, you’re completely wrong. Their defence corps took a big hit in the off-season with the loss of Scott Niedermayer due to retirement and James Wisniewski to the New York Islanders. The two of them were the two highest scoring defensemen for the Ducks last season.
They did try to cover up the holes by bringing in Toni Lydman and Andy Sutton through free agency. But the former Buffalo Sabre and Ottawa Senator are just not enough to make them a competent defence corps. It’s debatable that Lydman, Sutton and Lubomir Visnovsky represent the only NHL-calibre defensemen on this hockey club.
This does not bode well for the hockey club, but specifically Jonas Hiller or any other goaltender that’s between the pipes for the Ducks. Hiller was so good for the Ducks last year despite being on such a bad team that he took the starting spot away from J.S. Giguere. Hiller won 30 of 59 games last season with a 2.73 GAA and a 920 save percentage.
Two players to look out for in camp are Teemu Selanne and Jason Blake. Selanne had a great season despite being at an age where players are supposed to be broken down. Selanne scored 27 goals and 48 points in 54 games last year, but can he possibly duplicate that kind of production? He has to hit the veteran wall at some point. Many people were shocked to see Blake be picked up by another team after his lack of production with the Leafs, but Blake scored 15 points in 26 games for the Ducks. If he could offer consistent production, it would be a nice bonus for a club that will need all the help it can get.
The only team that can say its run in the playoffs was more magical than the Canadiens are the Philadelphia Flyers. I know, the Chicago Blackhawks will say that their run was more magical than the two of them because they won the Cup, but they were expected to be there...just work with me on this one, ok? :-)
Anyways...despite all the positive energy that should come with an appearance in the Stanley Cup finals, there’s always concern that the disappointment of losing and the grind of playing a much longer season than the rest of the conference will come back to haunt the Flyers, but that may not be the case this time around. The Flyers were very active in the off-season to not only tinker with the lineup, but to bolster it so that they can set themselves up for another run at making the finals.
The biggest change and improvement for the club was on defence. Throughout the playoffs last season, the Flyers were exposed as a team that had 4 great defensemen in Chris Pronger, Kimmo Timonen, Matt Carle and Braydon Coburn, but their bottom pairing was exposed over and over again and really hurt their team’s chances.
The Flyers made sure that it wouldn’t be a problem this year by adding Andrej Meszaros from Tampa Bay and former Stanley Cup champion Sean O’Donnell as their third pairing. These 6 men could very well represent the best defense corps in the NHL and will certainly help to shield a goaltending tandem that still has a lot to prove.
Since we brought up the goaltending, we might as well talk about them now. Many believed that the Flyers were also going to bolster their line-up by finding a goaltender that everyone could have full confidence in. Instead, they decided to stick with Michael Leighton and Brian Boucher. Both helped in getting the Flyers as far as they did, but how long can the magic continue between the two of them?
The forward group is also very talented and could be even better because of a couple of additions and a couple of guys that emerged during the playoff run. The additions include Nikolai Zherdev and Bill Guerin (if he’s offered a contract). Zherdev doesn’t fit the mold of a typical Flyers player, but they can use someone that is as naturally gifted as Zherdev since Mike Richards was the team’s leading scorer with 62 points. Guerin can bring a veteran presence and some depth just in case of injury.
The two players to watch out for in camp are the guys that emerged during the playoff run. Ville Leino and Claude Giroux were tied for third in team playoff scoring last season, so the future is now for the two youngsters. If they can continue the kind of pace that they showed in the playoffs, it might be enough to put this team over the top and make them a true winner.
Out of all the teams that I’m curious about, the one that has be the most curious is the Montreal Canadiens. Anyone looking at things with a glass half-full mentality would tell you that the Habs can build off their magical playoff run from a year ago and avoid sneaking into the playoffs like they had to last season. The glass half-empty person will tell you that the Habs were an 8 seed for a reason and will be hard-pressed to even duplicate that.
Usually I would start by talking about the forwards, then the D and finally the goaltending, but the biggest story for the Canadiens this season will be the man between the pipes, for better or for worse. It was set up to be that way after Pierre Gauthier stunned the hockey world by trading away Jaroslav Halak instead of Carey Price.
Price is now the guy that the Canadiens will either sink or swim with. The obvious question is whether or not he can handle the immense pressure that is going to be thrust upon him because of the circumstances in which he received the starting spot. If he can’t, the Habs will have to rely on either Alex Auld or Curtis Sanford. For the sake of Habs’ fan, hopefully it doesn’t get to that point.
The magical run allowed for the emergence of not only Halak, but also the big three signings of this team: Mike Cammalleri, Scott Gomez and Brian Gionta. After sub-par regular seasons, the three just about carried this team to the Stanley Cup finals. All three found their touch when needed the most, but can they keep this up for the 2010-2011 regular season?
The problem with the group of forwards is that it lacks natural talent past the top line and Tomas Plekanec. Andrei Kostitsyn was the fifth-highest scoring foward with 33 points last season. They will need to find some production from someone outside the Top 4 in order to have a chance to repeat their magical run.
Defensively, Montreal looks to be set up pretty well, so they’ll just have to hope for some good fortune with the injury bug. They have a good mix of talent and experience with Andrei Markov and Hal Gill leading the way. We’ll also get a chance to see what PK Subban can do as he should be in a position to play a full NHL season for the first time.
Two players to watch out for in camp are Price and Plekanec. It can’t be overstated enough. Price is the one guy that will be in the headlines every single night. Is he in the right frame of mind to handle this massive challenge? Plekanec led the team in points with 70 in the regular season last year, but wasn’t consistent enough to be a constant threat throughout the playoffs. Can he find that consistency this season to continue to be a scoring threat alongside the Big 3 to help the Habs?
For those of you that go to hockey games on a regular basis, how many of you grab the nightly program to see what the opposition line-up looks like? You might know enough about NHL hockey that you don’t need to, but with this year’s version of the Dallas Stars, I wouldn’t blame you if you had to cheat a little to figure out what players you were actually watching.
There’s been a major changing of the guard in the last couple of years in Big D and the final purge may have been completed this off-season with Mike Modano, Marty Turco and Jere Lehtinen not returning. There are a couple of guys that you would still recognize as veterans of the Stars, but there are also a lot of emerging players that will be inserted into important roles in this line-up.
Up front, everything will revolve around Brad Richards again as he looks to build off his best season in the NHL. After struggling for a couple of years before last season, Richards rebounded to score 91 points in 80 games. The thought is that he’ll need to score as much, if not more, in order for the Stars to be a playoff contender.
Richards will be looking for some help from a trio of young players who are all coming off career seasons as they continue to develop their NHL careers. Loui Eriksson was second in team scoring with 71 points, James Neal was third with 55 points and Jamie Benn was sixth on the team with 41 points in his rookie campaign. Can they all score at the same pace or even higher? If they can, it will help in their quest to be squash the low expectations from the prognosticators.
Defensively, this group is young and was exposed often last season. This forced them to be near the bottom in goals against. Stephane Robidas and Karlis Skrastins offer veteran experience, but the Stars will have to hope that the younger guys like Trevor Daley, Matt Niskanen and Nicklas Grossman can step up to handle the pressure of key situations. However, it might be asking a lot for a group that doesn’t have the natural talent that other defense corps have around the league.
The goaltending is very shaky as well with Kari Lehtonen and Andrew Raycroft pegged as the 1-2 combo to be between the pipes. Lehtonen's problems with his back are well-documented, so can he stay healthy? Raycroft is the backup, but he should be ready to start since Lehtonen could get injured at any point.
Two players to watch out for in camp are Mike Ribeiro and Brenden Morrow. A couple of years ago, Ribeiro was positioning himself well to be one of the key members of this hockey club, but he had a down year with 53 points in 66 games last season. What kind of production do they get out of Ribeiro this season? Same question can be asked of Morrow, but not because of a lack of effort. The grinding and physical style that Morrow plays with seems to have finally caught up with him. He just didn’t look like the same guy we’re used to seeing. How much does he have left in the tank and can he contribute consistently anymore?
As the number of previews grows, the closer we get to talking about playoff-calibre teams. Last season, this team came within a shootout loss of making the playoffs in the Eastern Conference. However, with the moves that they made in the off-season, I truly believe that the New York Rangers are going to be a playoff team this season.
For the first time in a long time, the Rangers decided to avoid the temptation of making the big-name signing and added to their team by bolstering the depth of their backups and lower lines. It’s not like the Rangers to avoid the summer spotlight and let other franchises get more of the publicity, but after many failed summer signings, they may have finally learned their lesson.
However, with all the talk about their additions, the Rangers have to solve their inability to score goals last season. Marian Gaborik was a big surprise by playing 76 games and picking up 86 points last season, but the next highest point total on the team belonged to Vinny Prospal with 58 points. They have to hope that someone else can step up to be an elite scorer alongside Gaborik. The forward lines have more depth and balance with the additions of Alexander Frolov, Tim Kennedy and Derek Boogaard.
Defensively, the Rangers have a good young core of guys that they are going to rely on for the next handful of years. Michal Rozsival and Dan Girardi may be listed as the top pairing on this hockey club, but the Rangers defence will be better because the young trio of Marc Staal, Dan Gilroy and Michael Del Zotto should be more mature and more prepared to handle NHL competition for a full season.
The goaltending is always going to be solid as long as Henrik Lundqvist is between the pipes, but the Rangers made another under-the-radar move right at the start of the free agency period as they picked up Martin Biron at 12:01 p.m. on July 1st to be the back-up to King Henrik. Lundqvist had to play 73 games last season and picked up 35 wins, a 2.38 GAA and a .920 save percentage. But they had to do something to get his minutes and games played down.
Two players to watch out for in camp are Alexander Frolov and Wade Redden. Remember the question of whether someone could elevate their game to score as many points as Gaborik did last season? Well, if Frolov can find his game on Broadway, he would be that guy to help out the offense. Frolov had a career-high 71 points in 2006-2007, but his numbers have declined ever since. As for Redden, there are rumours that he has to show enough in training camp to avoid being dropped from the big club in one way or another. His best days are clearly behind him, but has he dropped off so much that they’re willing to pay him to go away?
Whether you’re talking about a group of 5 people that are trying to get a group project done for a university class or a corporation of hundreds of people trying to work its way up the Fortune 500 rankings, every group or team relies on a few superstars to work their magic and boost their chances of doing well.
It’s no different for a hockey team as a couple of guys per team are designated as difference-makers. For the most part, they will make a positive difference because they have the natural ability to handle the task better than others. However, if they can’t live up to those expectations, the organization is sunk and will find itself in trouble.
That’s what happened to the Minnesota Wild last season. They had the names in place to be a playoff team, but the difference makers failed to elevate their games in order to elevate the results of the franchise. At the forward ranks, the disappointment starts with Martin Havlat as he was only able to pick up 54 points in 73 games. Mikko Koivu held up his end of the bargain by leading the team in points. Havlat simply needs to be better.
The top two lines on this team is full of experience and talent, but the problem lies with the bottom two lines that are full of youth and inexperience. Except for John Madden, the Wild will rely on former first-round picks that have failed to live up to expectations and young guys looking to get their feet wet.
Defensively, they’re going to have to hope that a couple of guys that were can’t-miss prospects a couple of years ago become solid NHL d-men. Brent Burns had a ton of trouble with injuries last season and only played 47 games. Cam Barker is a former 3rd overall pick, but has never really showed off why he was projected so high coming out of junior. Marek Zidlicky leads this group and had a very solid season a year ago, but he’s hoping that he doesn’t have to do it all himself again this year.
Everyone thought goaltending would be an after-thought after Niklas Backstrom put up three straight seasons with a .920 save percentage and signed a massive contract, but he under-performed last year. He’ll have to pick up his game to regain the respect that he had gained throughout the league.
Two players to look out for in camp are Andrew Brunette and Guillaume Latendresse. At 37 years old, Brunette just continues to defy the critics and put up big seasons. He quietly scored 25 goals and 61 points last year to have his best year since 2006-2007. Can he continue to produce first-line numbers or will he hit the wall this year? Latendresse was considered a bust as he moved from the Habs to the Wild, but in only 55 games, he scored 25 goals and 37 points. Is this the start of a stretch of big seasons for Latendresse or was it just an aberration?
Do you remember how in high school that everyone seemed to be a part of a group? Whether you were a part of the popular group, the nerds or the band, at least you represented something when you walked down the halls. But there were a few kids that just sort of floated through with no group, no friends and really, no identity whatsoever. That’s the way I’ve always looked at the Atlanta Thrashers, until this season.
The Thrashers were always a team that floated through a season, mainly because there were so bad and so irrelevant. They had no direction until this off-season when they decided to raid the Stanley Cup champions and take several of their players through trade. New GM Rick Dudley made his mark in his first off-season with the franchise and new head coach Craig Ramsey will have the first crack to coach “Chicago Blackhawks South”.
There’s so much change within the forward lines because of the trades for the former Blackhawk players and several other moves made during a busy summer. Just with the forwards alone, the changes are plentiful. The new forwards are: Dustin Byfuglien, Frederik Modin, Andrew Ladd and Ben Eager. Gone are: Maxim Afinogenov, Colby Armstrong, Slava Kozlov, Clarke MacArthur and Todd White.
Finding chemistry during training camp will be so vital for this team to get off to a good start. They will have to hope that Nik Antropov and Rich Peverley can repeat or better their career years from a year ago. They will also look for Evander Kane and Niclas Bergfors can be much better in their second seasons.
The Thrashers may not have major names on the backend, but they certainly have an under-rated defence. They have a good mix of youth and experience now. The youth is represented by Tobias Enstrom and Zach Bogosian, while the experience is led by newcomer Brent Sopel and Johny Oduya. It could be even better if the rumours are true that the Thrashers want to put Byfuglien back on defence.
The goaltending should be improved as well with the addition of Chris Mason from St. Louis. Ondrej Pavelec just never showed enough to solidify the number one position, so Mason comes in to take a crack at it. Mason had 30 wins last season with a 2.53 GAA and a .913 save percentage.
Two players to watch out for in camp are Dustin Byfuglien and Frederik Modin. We just touched on the big story in camp for the Thrashers. Does he stay as a forward or go back to his natural position of defenseman? Reports suggest that he’s unhappy with the idea of going back to defence. What do the Thrashers do? As for Modin, he comes over from the Kings after an injury-plagued season. In fact, Modin has had injury problems for the last 3 seasons. The most games he’s played in a season in the last 3 years is 50 and he’s missed a total of 129 games in three seasons. What does he have left at this point?
With the news this morning that the NHL chose Ottawa to host the 2012 All-Star Game, it’s only fitting that we talk about the team that will be hosting the 2011 All-Star game, the Carolina Hurricanes. The way things are shaping up for this franchise, that could be the only bright spot on what could a very long year in Raleigh.
It’s hard to imagine that this team made it to the Eastern Conference final only a couple of years ago, but this roster has certainly made major changes in order to be younger and in rebuild mode in Tobacco Country. They will need their top players to be spectacular throughout the season and will have to hope that a couple of youngsters step up and surprise the prognosticators.
Up front, everything will revolve around their top-line centre, Eric Staal. In past years, he would have had a couple of other forwards that he could rely on to help with the offensive production, but not this time around. Ray Whitney was let go and veteran players that the Canes relied on in the past have seen their numbers go downhill.
The only other forwards that could have a chance of producing numbers equal to Staal would be Jussi Jokinen or Brandon Sutter. Jokinen broke out to be second in team scoring with 30 goals and 65 points and Sutter scored 21 goals and 40 points in his second NHL season. Every other experienced forward on this team suffered a letdown as Erik Cole, Sergei Samsonov and Tuomo Ruutu all struggled last season.
Defensively, the Canes have a group of 6 that can really move the puck and offer some production from the back end led by Joni Pitkanen and Joe Corvo. But an offensive d-corps is high-risk, high-reward and that doesn’t usually bode well for an 82 game season.
It certainly won’t help a guy that is looking to get his game back on track after a season plagued with injury and inconsistency. Much like Steve Mason, Cam Ward was good enough a couple of years ago that his name was thrown around to be the 3rd goaltender for Team Canada at the Vancouver Olympics. But after a freak injury early in the year, Ward could never get things going and he went from 39 wins to only 18 last season.
Two guys to look out for in camp are Erik Cole and Anton Babchuk. Cole has seen his point total drop consistently over the last 5 seasons and he laboured through the worst season of his NHL career in 2009-2010 by scoring only 16 points in 40 games. Injuries have really slowed down Cole, so the obvious question is: What does he have left in the tank? Babchuk had his best NHL season two years ago when he picked up 35 points in 72 games. Despite the strong season, Babchuk found himself in the KHL last year. Babchuk will be relied upon to be in the Top 4. What will we see from him after a 1-year hiatus?
After a couple of years of putting together terrible teams on the ice and having the most embarrassing owners in the league, there is so much optimism for the Tampa Bay Lightning this season. It’s rare to see a franchise go through such a positive transformation from top to bottom, but it happened and many believe that the Lightning are going to reap the rewards of that immediately.
It all started at the very top with Jeff Vinnik becoming the new owner of this team replacing the comedy duo of Oren Koules and Len Barrie. Vinnik was insistent on creating a ladder structure of management, which would then create the kind of organization that this franchise was sorely lacking. Vinnik eventually got his general manager with the addition of Steve Yzerman, who then hired Guy Boucher as his new head coach.
All of a sudden, the franchise had some credibility and legitimacy up top, so it made it easier to trade and bring in some name free agents to improve the on-ice product. Among the new faces include Simon Gagne (via trade with Philadelphia), Pavel Kubina (via free agency: Atlanta), Dominic Moore (via free agency: Montreal) and Dan Ellis (via free agency: Nashville).
However, despite all the changes, they need their top three players to continue to put points on the board. It all starts with Steven Stamkos and his 51 goals and 97 points from a year ago. After a sub-par rookie campaign, Stamkos quickly lived up to the hype with an incredible sophomore campaign. What can he do for his third NHL season?
On the other side of the age spectrum, Martin St. Louis continues to steal from the fountain of youth and put up big time numbers when people are just waiting for him to hit the wall. After a couple consecutive years of dropping numbers, he rebounded last season to put up 94 points. The third guy may be hitting the wall early though as Vincent Lecavalier has had seasons with 67 and 70 points respectively after a 92 point effort in 2007-2008.
Defensively, the Lightning have a good amount of talent and a nice mix of young and experienced. Victor Hedman is the future of this defence corps, but for now, he’s going to be joined at the hip by his countryman Matthias Ohlund and new addition Pavel Kubina.
In goal, Dan Ellis will battle Mike Smith for the number one spot, but everyone expects Ellis to win the spot. Having signed for only 1.5 million this season, Ellis could prove to be one of the best values in the NHL this year.
Two players to watch out in camp are Simon Gagne and Teddy Purcell. When healthy, Gagne can still be very productive, but having missed an average of 28 games a season over the last three years, will he be durable enough to give this team consistent scoring? Big things have always been expected of Purcell since entering the league with the Kings a couple of years ago. With the Lightning expected to give him a shot at Top 6 minutes, can he finally breakout with the Lightning?
Maybe it’s the fatigue setting in from a long day or I poisoned myself by undercooking my chicken dinner tonight, but I don’t quite see the gloom and doom that a lot of people are already putting on the Islanders for another season. They may not be a playoff team this season, but unlike a lot of teams in the NHL, the Isles are heading in the right direction with a good, young core already contributing and a few more younger players ready to join this team in future years.
First of all, the Islanders showed major improvement thanks to the debut season of John Tavares. They couldn’t do any worse than their 61 points in 2008-2009, but by picking up 79 points last year, they’re showing progression and proof that the rebuild is on the right path.
Secondly, the team is just so young that you have to expect more of these youngsters will continue to progress as opposed to hitting a wall or regressing. Of course, everyone will be looking to see how Tavares does in his second NHL season. After leading the team in points with 54, how many more can he get in his second season? The optimist will point to Steven Stamkos as proof that Tavares could do so much better in his second season. Stamkos went from 46 points in 2008 to 51 goals and 95 points last season.
The Islanders will hope to also see progression from guys like Kyle Okposo, Matt Moulson, Blake Comeau and Frans Nielsen as well. You could really name half the team in this category because they are just so freakin’ young. Isles fans just have to hope that they can all keep progressing and do it at relatively the same pace.
Defensively, the Isles improved with the addition of James Wisniewski via free agency from the Anaheim Ducks. Combined with Mark Streit, the Islanders have a decent top pairing that gives a good mix of offence and defence. After the top pairing though, the Isles are really thin with the second and third pairings.
The goaltending is shaky again this season with a 1a/1b scenario looming between veteran Dwayne Roloson and former Islander poster child Rick Dipietro. Based on game performance alone, Roloson deserves the spot over Dipietro, but we all know that professional sports is never only about on-ice performance. With so much money invested in Dipietro, the Islanders will give every single chance to Dipietro to take the spot and earn his massive paycheque.
Two players to watch out for in camp are Matt Moulson and Kyle Okposo. Both of them are expected to be on the top line again with John Tavares. Both are coming off of career years and Moulson came out of nowhere to be a 30-goal scorer last year. Can both of them continue to progress and can Moulson possibly match the lofty numbers that he put up last season?
After a breakout season in 2008-2009 that saw the Columbus Blue Jackets make the playoffs for the first time in franchise history, much was expected of them last season. After all, the Jackets went from 73 points in 2006-07, to 80 points the next year, to 93 points a couple of seasons ago. There were some who even believed that the Jackets could be a 100 point team. Uhhh...not quite...The Jackets regressed last season to 79 points, finish last in the Central and 14th in the Western Conference.
The bad vibes began with their number one goaltender, Steve Mason. Remember when we were talking about Mason as a possible candidate to make the Canadian Olympic team in Vancouver as a third goalie? It was understandable at the time since he was a 2008-2009 Calder Trophy candidate, but he was a shell of his former self last season. He went from a 2.29 GAA to 3.05, his save percentage went from .916 to .901 and he had half the shutouts from the year before. He needs to get back to his rookie numbers in order to give this team the best chance to rebound.
Some people will say that Rick Nash regressed as well and they are technically right as he went from having 40 goals and 79 points two years ago to recording only 33 goals and 67 points last season. He may have had fewer points, but he was able to mesh well with former Senator Antoine Vermette and Kristian Huselius. All three players were able to put up over 60 points and Vermette had a career year.
The problem with this team is that they have a lack of depth past the first line and will have to rely on career years from a trio of young guys. Jakub Voracek showed positive signs of progression in the first couple of years of his NHL career. The big question mark will be the kind of production they can get from Derrick Brassard and a returning Nikita Filatov, as he returns after being loaned to the KHL for a season.
Defensively, the Jackets are pretty thin as well as none of the Top 6 are game-changers. Fedor Tyutin is starting to develop into a very solid defenceman and Kris Russell is slowly working his way up the depth chart as well, but simply put, the talent just isn’t there. This is why it’s so imperative that Mason finds his form again between the pipes.
Two players to watch out for in camp are Derrick Brassard and Rostislav Klesla. Brassard had a great sophomore season as he put up 25 points in only 31 games, so he was expected to pick up even more points last year. But in 79 games, he only managed 36 points. Can he find his form from two years ago? Klesla had a solid 2007-2008 campaign for the Jackets and was on his way up the depth chart. But injuries have hampered his career in the last couple of seasons limiting him to only playing 60 games in 2 years. Can he stay healthy long enough to give some depth to an already weak defensive corps?
It’s a tough time to be a fan of the Florida Panthers. The team has been so bad for so long that you have to believe that any Panthers fan that’s still around has the patience of a saint. However, in order for them to head in the winning direction, Panthers fans will have to wait a few more years because the cleansing process of new GM Dale Tallon has begun.
Tallon started the rebuild by shipping Nathan Horton and Gregory Campbell to Boston in exchange for Dennis Wideman and a couple of picks. In losing a couple of forwards, he replaced those forwards by trading Keith Ballard and Victor Oreskovich for Steve Bernier and Michael Grabner.
The Panthers will now rely on three former first-round picks that have shown glimpses of living up to their potential, but have mainly been under-achievers. For the Panthers to have any chance this season, Michael Frolik, Stephen Weiss and David Booth need to all improve their game. At least Booth has the excuse of dealing with concussions most of last season.
After the three youngsters, the Panthers are mostly made up of solid veterans that will put up decent numbers, but won’t necessarily do anything to scare the opposition. Because of their experience and work ethic, they’ll make the opposition earn a victory each night, but more often than not, that’s exactly what the opposition will do.
Defensively, the Panthers find themselves in trouble with talent and depth in their Top 6. Dennis Wideman takes over the spot vacated by Keith Ballard and should be on the first pairing with Bryan McCabe. Bryan Allen is now a solid veteran at this point and Dmitry Kulikov had a good first season down south, but their 5th and 6th defencemen will be young, inexperienced and possibly closer to playing at an AHL level instead.
The only solid aspect about this roster is their goaltending with Tomas Vokoun returning between the pipes to play out the final year of his contract. Despite playing on a terrible team, Vokoun put up a GAA of 2.55 and a save percentage of .920. The only question is whether or not he will last the full season in Sunrise. If the projections are correct and the Panthers are near the bottom again, does Tallon trade the expiring contract for futures to help with the re-build?
Two players to watch out for in camp are Shawn Matthias and Erik Gudbranson. Matthias has always been heralded as the possible saviour of the franchise ever since scoring 2 goals in only his second career game. It’s time to Matthias to step up and start living up to those expectations. Gudbranson must see how soft this group of defenders are and think that he’s got a great shot to stick with the big club. Kulikov made the jump last year by playing 68 games, scoring 16 points and finishing at -5 in plus/minus. Can Gudbranson do the same or even better by debuting in 2010-2011?
A message to Sens fan: I’m not previewing the Toronto Maple Leafs on Day 1 because I’m too excited to wait about writing about them. They just happened to be the second-worst team in the NHL and of course, we all know by now that they didn’t have the second pick in the draft as they drafted that away to the Boston Bruins.
I don’t want to get into my thoughts on the trade again, but you’ll never be able to convince me that they gave up too much to get Phil Kessel. The problem for the Leafs again this year is that Kessel represents the only true threat to score every single night. His 30 goals and 55 points in 70 games lead the team in both categories.
Who else is going to score for this team? Nobody else that finished the season with the Leafs scored more than 16 goals. The team seems to moving in the right direction as they continue to bring in new bodies like Kris Versteeg, Colby Armstrong and Clarke Macarthur, but none are pure scorers.
The Leafs are going to have to hope that young guys like Tyler Bozak, Mikhail Grabovski and Nikolai Kulemin can mature quickly enough to take on Top 6 minutes successfully. Averaging 2.5 goals a game and being last in the league in power play percentage is just not going to cut it.
Defensively, the focus all summer long was on Tomas Kaberle and whether he would be traded for forward help. Well, his trade deadline came and went and he’s still a member of the Leafs. Alongside Dion Phaneuf, Kaberle will look to lead this defence corps back on track after several guys had sub-par years.
Toronto will need a lot more from veterans Francois Beauchemin and Mike Komisarek and third-year man Luke Schenn. At least Komisarek could point the finger to multiple injuries throughout the season, but Beauchemin and Schenn have nothing to blame but themselves. They simply need to be better.
Their goaltending tandem is more talented than a year ago with J.S. Giguere anointed as the starter and Jonas Gustavson as the backup in his second NHL season. Giguere is past his prime at this point, but he can do a lot to mentor the young Swede as he prepares to take over the position for the long term as early as late in the season.
Two players to watch out for in camp are Dion Phaneuf and Versteeg. Phaneuf is now the captain of the team and has reportedly embraced the role during the off-seeason. How will he handle the pressure of the position during the season, especially when things aren’t going right? Versteeg may turn out to be another example of someone that is over-valued because of being a part of a Stanley Cup winner. In Chicago, he was not a top-line player ad had little pressure. In Toronto, he will be required to contribute. Is he a true first-line player or a good complementary player?
I just finished previewing 32 NFL teams, so what the hell? Why not start all over again and preview 30 NHL teams? After all, we’re less than a month away from opening night, so we begin by previewing the Edmonton Oilers. Oh, the horror of it all! Some teams are bad, but the Oilers were just horrendous and embarrassing to watch.
After a 62 point season last year, the only direction to go is up. With a young crop of potential superstars all ready to play with the big club, there’s some room for excitement with the Oilers fan base. Oilers fans have the tough decision when it comes to buying a jersey because they can choose #4 for Taylor Hall, #14 for Jordan Eberle or #91 Magnus Paajarvi. Let’s not forget youtube sensation Linus Omark on that list.
However, there are still a lot of underachievers that will either improve enough to live up to their expectations or continue to flounder while getting paid handsomely. Shawn Horcoff tops this list and will need to improve in order to keep his spot as the team’s number one centre lined up with Ales Hemsky and Dustin Penner.
They will also need to get production from the players that have been in the league for a couple of years now and have yet to find their stride. Gilbert Brule had his best NHL campaign after some awful years in Columbus. Sam Gagner is already in danger of hitting his ceiling for productivity after years with 49, 41 and 41 points respectively. Andrew Cogliano is regressing after point totals of 45, 38 and 28 in his first three NHL seasons.
Defensively, the Oilers look a bit improved after some trade deadline and Canaday Day acquisitions. Toughness won’t really be the strength for this defence corps, but they do have a good set of d-men that can create some production offensively. Ryan Whitney and Tom Gilbert lead the group here as the top pairing. Sheldon Souray could be a dark-horse for this team and Kurtis Foster comes over from Tampa via free agency on July 1st.
Who knows who will be the starting goaltender for the Oilers on opening night? The best option out of the three would be Nikolai Khabibulin, but with a possible jail sentence in Arizona still to be sorted out, the job could land with Jeff Deslauriers. However, Deslauriers really didn’t do much to show that he’s NHL-calibre. There are inklings that Sens castoff Martin Gerber could find himself in play for opening night.
Two players to watch out for in camp are Sheldon Souray and Ales Hemsky. Both are coming off years with serious injuries, but could be going in opposite directions with their respective careers. Souray had a rough 2009-2010 campaign playing only 37 games and was a minus 19. What does the future hold for Souray considering that he’s proven to be injury-prone and that he’s asked out of Edmonton multiple times now? Hemsky was averaging a point a game in the first 22 games before being knocked out for the year with a major shoulder injury. How does he bounce back? The Oilers are counting on him to be on their top line and producing again.
Well, we’ve made it to the end and we leave the best for last. The New Orleans Saints turned a franchise known more for losing and embarrassment into a team known for excitement, success and championships. There was a reason this team was referred to as the “aints.” At the same time, their success helped a community get through some really tough times by being the positive distraction they needed to forget about their troubles for a few hours every single week.
The question everyone has been asking about the Saints heading into this season is simple: Can they repeat as Super Bowl champions? They may bring back the same team on paper, but unlike last year, they will have targets on their backs as the opposition will line up to give their best shot. Can they handle that extra added pressure?
Drew Brees comes back to lead the most dynamic offence in football and with the same pieces in place from a year ago, there’s no reason why they can’t duplicate their unbelievable stats. Tops in the NFL for points scored and total yards gained. They were also Top 5 in the NFL in passing yards and first downs.
Marques Colston, Devery Henderson, Robert Meachem and Lance Moore represent the most solid group of receivers in the NFL and Jeremy Shockey at tight end gives up to five traditional weapons. Brees even has a sixth option in Reggie Bush or Pierre Thomas if needed. It’s just such a scary proposition for a defensive coordinator to have to plan against the Saints attack.
The one thing that concerns me about the repeat is the talent level on defense. The Saints were really helped by being in the top 5 for interceptions and takeaways and managed to pick up 8 touchdowns on defense, but can they duplicate that? It will be hard to do with Darren Sharper on the PUP list and missing the first half of the year. He accounted for nine interceptions a year ago.
On paper, the Saints defense is not as strong as other Super Bowl contenders, but because the offence is so dynamic, it doesn’t have to be relied on heavily. Their total numbers actually had them closer to the bottom of the league than the top, but with their offence almost scoring 500 points during the regular season, it covered up a lot of mistakes.
Two players to watch out for in camp are Pierre Thomas and Malcolm Jenkins. Thomas broke out last season and emerged as the “running” back of this offence. Despite his total rushing yards being relatively the same, his yards per carry went up significantly. Can he continue to progress so that the Saints can have a legitimate threat to run the ball? Jenkins will have to step up to cover the loss of Sharper due to injury. After a decent rookie campaign, can he elevate in his second year to become the kind of player that they expected when picking in the first-round in 2009?
2010 Prediction: 13-3
Only two teams left and we preview the team that had the best regular season record in the NFL, but came one game short of the ultimate prize by losing in the Super Bowl. The Indianapolis Colts have been the benchmark for consistency over the last decade or so. Since a disastrous season in 2001 in which Indy went 6-10, the Colts have won at least 10 games every single year.
It really can be pointed to one guy and that’s of course, Peyton Manning. He can do no wrong as a quarterback as he has the complete package of natural skill, natural leadership and the perfect temperament for the position. It helps too when you always have great receivers to throw to. It’s used to be the Manning-Harrison combination, but nowadays, it’s the Manning-Wayne combo that leads the charge.
Reggie Wayne will be the number one target yet again with Pierre Garcon, Austin Collie and Anthony Gonzalez as the other three options. Throw in Dallas Clark who caught 100 passes for 1100 yards last season as a tight end and Donald Brown/Joseph Addai catching passes out of the backfield and you have a scary offence. There’s no need to talk about the running game because this team simply doesn’t run the ball. They don’t need to as their last place finish in rushing yards will attest.
The one question mark about this offence is the talent level of their linemen. Jeff Saturday and Ryan Diem represent the two pieces left of a five-man unit that used to be the best protectors in football. Can the new guys step in and protect Peyton from unnecessary harm?
Defensively, this group has some holes, but they are protected simply by knowing that they don’t have pressure on them to try and pitch a shutout. Their offence is so good that all they need are a few stops and they will win games. The only problem they ran into last season was taking on a Saints team in the Super Bowl that had an offence just as dynamic as theirs.
The defensive line is good at the end spots with Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis, but soft in the middle with the defensive tackles. The linebackers are an OK group led by Gary Brackett in the middle and the secondary is good at the safety position with Bob Sanders and Antoine Bethea. The corners will need to be better to allow for the Colts to get back to the Super Bowl.
Two players to watch out for in camp are Donald Brown and Joseph Addai. Brown entered the league as a rookie out of Connecticut last season and quickly challenged Addai enough to make the running back situation more 1a/1b with Addai. Which one of these guys can emerge to take more of the reps? My money would be on Brown, but Addai certainly has some gas left in the tank. After all, he still is only 27 years old.
2010 Prediction: 12-4
Sometimes a team can be a victim of circumstance and sometimes a team can be a beneficiary of circumstance. We tend to dwell on the former and look for reasons to avoid pointing out the latter, but in the case of the San Diego Chargers, that might be the best explanation as to why they were able to win 13 games last season.
You can have a good debate about whether the AFC West or the NFC West was the worst division in football, but what’s not debatable is how San Diego benefitted from having Denver, Oakland and Kansas City as the opposition for 6 games. If you look at their roster and the rest of their numbers, their 13-3 record looks more like fiction than reality.
Don’t get me wrong, the Chargers are a talented team led by a great quarterback in Phillip Rivers. And Rivers had a great receiving corps led by Vincent Jackson, but with Jackson holding out for more money and suspended for the first four games anyways, how much does the offence suffer with a premier player taken out?
Malcolm Floyd and Legedu Naanee will be the starting receivers and the Chargers picked up Patrick Crayton via trade from the Cowboys to try and bolster their depth, but do they have a game-changer out of those three guys? At least they know they have a future Hall of Famer at the tight end spot in Antonio Gates.
Where the Chargers look more like a mirage than anything is with the running game. It’s hard to imagine that a 13-3 team could have the second-worst running game in all of football, but that’s what happened last year. The Chargers will look to rookie Ryan Mathews, their first-round pick from Fresno State, to fill the void left by LaDainian Tomlinson. Can he handle that kind of pressure and expectation?
Defensively, the Chargers were in the middle of the pack in all major categories, which again leads people to believe that their record may have over-inflated how good this team really is. Their defensive line is still pretty solid with Jacque Cesaire and Luis Castillo at the defensive end spots and their linebackers are also solid with Shawne Merriman and Shaun Phillips as the top guys on the outside. The duo of Quentin Jammer and Antoine Cason are a good 1-2 punch at the cornerback spot and Eric Weddle is one of the better safeties in the NFL.
Two players to look out for in camp are Darren Sproles and Shawne Merriman. Sproles lost his starting job at running back to the rookie after a terrible 2009 campaign. Was he just a one-year wonder or can he offer up enough to give San Diego a threatening 1-2 combination? Merriman was once a defensive player of the year, but after only playing one game in 2008 because of injury, Merriman looked like a normal player in 2009. Did the 2008 injury ruin him for the rest of his career or can he rebound in 2010?
2010 Prediction: 10-6
We talk about football all the time in terms of what a group of players can do as a collective unit or how a group of 11 players match up against another group of 11. Football is thought by some as the ultimate team game, but in Minnesota, one man has taken the spotlight single-handedly for the last couple of years and will be the singular reason why this team succeeds or fails.
That man is of course, Brett Favre. His annual waffling between retiring and playing one more year played out in front of the public once again this off-season. After three veterans flew to his Mississippi home to convince him to come back one more year, he felt that his injured ankle was well enough to give it “one more go.”
The Vikings simply could not go into this season with Tavaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels as their quarterbacks or else they would go from a Super Bowl contender to a playoff team. At the same time, people should not expect Favre to duplicate his magical season from a year ago. However, Favre still gives them a much better chance of winning than the other two.
There are a lot of question marks though about his receivers after Sidney Rice went on the PUP list due to a hip injury and Percy Harvin has had multiple debilitating migraine attacks in camp that will force him to be questionable for every single game. Bernard Berrian, Greg Lewis and Greg Camarillo represent the rest of the receivers on this team. They tried out Javon Walker in camp and found out quickly that he had nothing left to offer NFL clubs.
The running game is set with Adrian Peterson, but there are two questions that have to be answered this season. First, has Peterson figured out his problem with fumbling the football? He did that way too often last year and will need to cut that out if he wants to continue to be looked upon as an elite running back. Second, how many carries will Peterson get with Favre back? With Favre, the offence revolves around passing.
Defensively, the front seven may be the strongest in football with Jared Allen leading the way at the defensive end position and the Williams’ boys plugging the middle to stuff any running attack. The linebackers are solid and the secondary is improved after the acquisition of Lito Sheppard from the New York Jets to join Antoine Winfield at the corner spot.
Two players to look out for in camp are Bernard Berrian and E.J. Henderson. Berrian will be asked to be the second receiver for the first half of the year after the injury to Sidney Rice. Does he still have enough skill at this point in his career to handle the position? Henderson has recovered so quickly from a broken femur suffered last December. After such a major injury, can Henderson get back to the level that allowed him to control the middle of the field?
2010 Prediction: 12-4
As we get to the end of the previews, we really start to look at some teams that have a great chance to make it to the Super Bowl or even win the championship. At 5-1 to win the NFC championship, the Green Bay Packers have the roster to contend in what will be a very competitive conference.
It starts with the new folk hero at Lambeau Field, Aaron Rodgers. Brett who? That’s the question Packers faithful ask themselves after seeing the heir apparent put together the best season of his young career. He threw for close to 4500 yards last season and there’s no reason why he couldn’t do that again this year.
Greg Jennings and Donald Driver are just professionals that continue to put up big numbers and JerMichael Finley is everyone’s favourite pick to be the best tight end in the NFL this season. With three weapons as dynamic as that, there’s no wonder why the Packers were second in the NFL in points scored. The running game is also solid with Ryan Grant as the feature back as he ran for 1200 yards for the second straight year.
One of the biggest reasons they were so successful is because they were able to consistently produce long drives that kept the opposition’s defence on the field. They were top 5 in the NFL in third down conversions and time of possession.
For all the criticism that the Packers took after their defeat at the hands of the Cardinals in the wild-card round last season, their defence was Top 5 in rushing and passing yards allowed and were tops in the NFL for interceptions and turnovers. There’s no doubt that this starting 11 will be looking to make people forget about their ugly playoff performance.
The defensive line is solid with Cullen Jenkins, B.J. Raji and Ryan Pickett. However, their depth took a hit as Johnny Jolly was suspended for the season after a second suspension for violating the NFL’s drug policy. They’ll have to hope for some luck with health. The linebackers are solid as well with Clay Matthews, A.J. Hawk and Nick Barnett as the starters.
Where the team may run into problems is with their secondary. Charles Woodson is still one of the most feared corners in the NFL, but the rest of the secondary has already been hit with some major losses. Atari Bigby and Al Harris are both on the PUP list and Will Blackmon is already done for the season. If they can get healthy, this defence will be complete.
Two players to watch out for in camp are Bryan Bulaga and Tramon Williams. Bulaga was the first round pick of the Packers this season and is expected to be a stud offensive lineman for years to come. Does he progress enough to make an impact in his first season? Williams will be tested a ton since opposing offences will avoid throwing at Charles Woodson and instead pick on Williams. Will he be ready for the
weekly challenge?
2010 Prediction: 12-4