Atlanta Thrashers Strengths: -Top end talent in Kovalchuk and Hossa -Excellent young goalie in Kari Lehtonen Weaknesses: -Lack depth and secondary scoring -Just an OK defence and not deep. Question Marks: -Is Lehtonen ready to take his game to the elite level? -Will Atlanta re-sign Hossa or be forced to trade him before he becomes [...]
Based on the same forumula as the western conference ratings, here are the eastern conference ratings. As usual, if you disagree feel free to post your thoughts and if you can back up your arguement, who knows, maybe you can get me to change my mind. Forwards Defense Goaltending Total Talent Depth Exp. Talent Depth [...]
Ok, it’s time to get back in hockey mode and start looking to the upcoming season which is less than a month away. But first, let me look at a handful of good and bad off season moves. The Good Ryan Whitney: While Whitney doesn’t get the media attention of his teammate forwards Crosby, Malkin [...]
When writing up these first round matchups I realized that not one of them features a divisional rivalry. I am too lazy to check but I am not sure that has ever happened before. Anyway, here are my eastern conference predictions. NY Islanders at Buffalo NY Islanders (road) Buffalo (home) Predicted Winner Buffalo (Good) Fair [...]
Before the season began I picked Atlanta as a team who could surprise people and possibly even unseat Tampa at the top of the Southeast division. Early in the season this looked like a terrible prediction but the Thrashers are on a roll and look to be reaching the quality of play I thought they [...]
Pittsburgh Penguins: The only direction they could really go was up, but they have gone up by quite a large margin. They haven’t really lost any significant players but have added Sergei Gonchar, Mark Recchi, John Leclair, Zigmund Palffy, Jocelyn Thibault and of course Sidney Crosby. Due to their weak defense I am still not [...]
With all the player movement since the NHL last played we can’t be sure if all of these lines will be used by the coaches of the teams but here is my list of the best possible first lines teams could use if desired. Be sure to also vote for your top line in the [...]
The free agent frenzy is mostly over and teams are getting ready to open their training camps. It’s time to really start looking at the upcoming NHL season. Today I am going to look at a team that I think could really surprise people this upcoming season. No, I don’t think they can win the [...]
other
David Johnson