On Saturday the new NHL season starts with the Ducks and Kings having a pair of games in London, England. It's funny because when they annouced that it seemed like the two teams were picked kind of willy nilly, though probably the idea was to pick two teams in the same market so neither benefits from the loss of a home game. But the Ducks managed to win the Stanley Cup last season so the NHL is, by fluke, sending the champs to England. Seems like such a brilliant choice of teams now in retrospect, doesn't it?
As usual I'm rooting for my local Vancouver Canucks. They seem like a shoe-in for the playoffs but didn't really address any of the scoring problems they had last year. The best goalie in the conference and and having huge depth at defense got them to the second round last year but with no change to the forwards I don't see how they'll do any better. Next year is more what I'm looking forward to when Naslund's and Morrison's inflated contracts are up and we have some actual cap room. Still I'm usually content with a playoff team as it makes the regular season worth watching.
My predictions are that the Anaheim Ducks will win another cup. Maybe not this year but this lineup will win another one and hell it could be this year. I don't see anyone better. Though the New York Rangers are pretty much last year's team with Gomez and Drury so they're my top pick for the East. The Penguins are close though.
Oh and you know those new uniforms that I ranted about a few months ago? Turns out some of the players are complaining that they suck too.
Because the new jerseys are water proof the sweat doesn't soak into them. So where does it go? Into the players skates and gloves of course! Did anyone even TEST these things in a game environment?
So the new unis:
1. Look like sh!t.
2. Have a major problem that makes them hard to play in.
So my prediction that by next year some teams will change remains though now it won't just be from lower jersey sales. Though it wouldn't surprise me if legal mumbo jumbo allowed the league to prevent teams from switching back and that like the horrible schedule that every fan hated (which they will finally get rid of NEXT YEAR) they will stick to this dumb idea as long as they can.
Man that Gary Bettman sure was accomplished a lot, eh? The NHL on Versus instead of ESPN, the lock-out, expansion teams in non-traditional hockey markets that struggle to attract fans, new rules seemingly every year, a league-wide change to new ugly uniforms that apparently were never tested for a very major problem until all teams switched over. Has this guy done ANYTHING good for the league? Considering the league was more popular prior to him becoming comish one might argue that DOING NOTHING would have had better results.