And punditry though shalt have;
The Bladerunners:
Status: Contender
How are they doing it: Malkin and Staal are elite pivots down the middle, Hossa has been hotter than a Chernobyl sauna, and the goaltending from Luongo has mostly been well above average. An above average defense corps and some timely goonery by Avery round out a potent squad.
What's wrong: Lacks punch at RW beyond Hossa (something that may well be the moral of this entire post). Also has 4 LW who are in the mix for a starting role heading into the WD, and of those, Simon Gagne the Bladerunner's top pick in the ED, is normatively speaking the worst of the crew.
Prognosis: Will be in the hunt for a while barring injuries. Malkin and Staal also represent immense possible returns if mgt deems it necessary to load up for a dash. Look for the Bladerunners to search for a pivot, and or D man early in the WD to go with the inevitable search for a RW.
The Great Whites
Status: Contender
How are they doing it: Brodeur is being Brodeur, a deep trio of offensive pivots (Marleau, Savard, Jokinen), and an elite LW with only wunderkind Semin being of less than ideal #1 quality.
What's wrong: Gaborik's injury obliterated an already weak position. Nathan Horton has been putting in a yeoman's effort, but he isn't going to win anybody anything as the top starboard gunner and is best suited to the 3 spot. Depsite initial appearances, the Marleau for Pronger deal has hurt the team badly, and Pronger's presence on the blue-line has proved irreplaceable.
Prognosis: They have the horses to stay in the race, but the disaster that is the right wing is a serious issue and they no longer have an outrageously strong D to carry them through rough spots.
The Ramapithicines
Status: Contender
How are they doing it?: Turco has had his tough nights but he has also delivered above average goaltending. Chara took a week or two to heat up but is back being a bully in his own zone and a crisp passer at the offensive end. Yashin's aberrant offensive production that saw him sit with the scoring leaders until being sidelined by a knee injury didn't hurt either.
What's wrong?: The injury gods hate this team. High picks like Demitra, Yashin, Redden and Bertuzzi have all spent large amounts of time using a bedpan. Word is they have all-star calibre wheelchair basketball games.
Prognosis: Unable to trade the injured players for equal value, they are due to suffocate slowly from the choking stench wafting off the four rotting corpses. With them alive and healthy, the knuckledraggers can compete, barely. Without them, well, it could be a long year.
The Highlanders:
Status: Contender
How are they doing it?: For the first 25 games of the year, Jeff Blake had a dead-on Teemu Selanne impression going. The centre is crowded with all-stars Thornton, Richards (was Sakic) and Crosby. The D is deep and producing, and the goaltending albeit shakey at times has settled down with prospect Miller tabbed as the long term and short term solution.
What's wrong: Blake and his fluke production are now gone, leaving the wing to be run by Nagy (healthy scratch twice this year), and Minnesota's Brian Rolston. With the strength of many LW's in the league being good to excellent, having a weak crew at portside like this will be a concern. The right side isn't much better. Alfredsson has been underwhelming as a first round pick, not even reaching ppg stats, let alone threatening to bust the 100 point barrier. Selanne will help ease the pain, but he is 37 now and has a lot of hardmiles on the chassis. A breakdown could be fatal.
Prognonsis: The wings are bad, but the centre and D are good enough to compensate - definitely in the mix.
The Edge
Status: Survivor
What happened?: The Devil's Advocates Elias and Gionta has failed to explode with timely offense. The Boston Boyz Murray and Boyes at RW has also been less than advertised, but the biggest reasons would lie with Kari (Don't Call Me Fisher) Lehtonen's sporadic netminding (I'm an all-star! No, wait, maybe I'm an ECHLr...) and what is historically the Edge's worst collection of defenseman in at least a decade.
Prognosis: Unlike previous years, the Edge are now simply too good to compete for the Herbivore, but while Ovechkin is God, they are nevertheless out of site of the Predator Cup. Amassing assets is the name of the game now.
The Lost Boys
Status: Survivor
What happened?: Kovalchuk has been his routine amazing self, but the attempts to locate a serviceable second FP have been frought with difficulties. Hasek has been the Hasek of old (that said, he will still turn into a pumpkin by February) but the D is now thinned by trades, and the centre and rightwings are no better than average and most nights not even that.
Prognosis: Kovalchuk should keep them from sinking out of sight alltogether, but a scramble to avoid the Herbi is not out of the question.
The Personal Vendetta
Status: On the bubble
How are they doing it?: It would seem the mirrors have finally cracked along with Forsberg's ankle. Briere has lost the MVP stride he had early on, the goaltending has been inconsistent at best, and Lidstrom's Norris/MVP performance simply isn't enough. The LW is almost a complete write off, with only Milan Michalek (P2) and his injured wrist to bolster it moving forward. In contrast, the D is excellent, boasting both the aforementioned Lidstrom but also top pp qb's McCabe and Timmonen, and the right wing, which on paper should be much worse, has been bolstered by the unexpectedly high rate of production provided by Petr Sykora.
What's wrong: A lot of question marks now dog this team, like say, Forsberg's health, what team he will play on, and whether or not this is the year he decides to uproot and return to Sweden. Heavy existential stuff. More importantly, unlike previous years, PV draft wizardry didn't produce several top line performers from late in the draft, and Darrell's roulette wheel approach to selecting late round starting goaltenders has finally landed on double green.
Prognosis: There isn't much help on the farm except at RW which doesn't need any, and the team has some simply gaping holes to fill. Forsberg could go nuclear at the drop of a hat though, so for the moment, the PV are still in it. But the pack is pulling away....
The Knights Templar
Status: Survivor
What happened?: First an update on Daniel Sedin. Initially viewed as likely to be a legendary bust pick, he blew everyone's mind (except Mike's) by going off like Peter North geeked on Viagra, only to flame out just as opinions on our draft predictions were set to be pitched completely into the trash. Which is to say, all in all he's been Ok. Ditto brother Hank and FP Naslund. But this is creating a truly scarey situation - you own the top line in Vancouver, and suddenly, they are all just mediocre. Uh oh. Worse, FP Hejduk isn't carrying an FP game these days. He's still good. Good enough to play on a two line even. But not good enough to be an FP that is expected to carry a team forward. Defense is a mix bag of performers (Ohlund) and occasional performers (Berard), highlighted by the presence of rookie Shea Weber. It's not terrible, but it's not good enough. Cam Ward's sporadic goaltending let down the Highlanders, and is now letting down the Knights Templar.
Prognosis: Unlike some teams nearby the KT don't have any magic beans that might grow into a healthy and motivated Peter Forsberg proving everyone wrong in Detroit. A resurgence by Naslund to top dog status at LW would help, but won't be enough. Watch for a large player trade involving St Louis as he is one of the few RW of any decency that could be available when the KT's decide to pitch tent.
The Wolves
Status: Surprisingly, Survivor
What happened?: Prior to the draft, I had the Wolves as having some of the best weapons and even the Wolves GM took notice of the unusually (for me) high ranking of the team. See, here's the thing, those weapons that I noticed before; Iginla, Niedermayer, Kopitar, and Phaneuf, are all doing pretty well. Iginla dropped some weight to speed up and the change has been noticeable in his early totals which typically start off sluggish before picking up - so better than usual for Igster. Niedermayer has been everything the Wolves dreamed of, even a potential +/- threat, and Kopitar and Phaneuf as products of the farm have also held their own, with Kopitar anchoring the pivots as Phaneuf anchors the D.
So if the off-season core is still good, what gives?
To be blunt (sorry Rob) the results of the Wolves ED are a horror show. Zetterberg's dissapointing play can only be characterized as approaching full-blown catatonia. He's AWFUL. Forcing your hand to play him because of hist history for big games, and the cost of his investment (and lack of injury), so weekly you go with your list and dress him only to watch as he drifts aimlessly between the blue-lines a step behind the play Once thought a threat to snipe 50 goals, at this point he's a 50/50 bet to reach even 50 points.
Compounding the miserable play of Zetterberg, neither Giguere nor Lundqvist provided the team with steady goaltending, and yet they were almost back to back FA round picks. That move in particular is a throbbing draft day migraine that, like Adam Sandler movies, never seems to completely go away. Worse, by not having a clear starter, the team frequently missed good weeks from their backups, so now your coach looks like an idiot.
Prognosis: The earned promotion of Ryan Suter to the teams defense corps, and a general house cleaning excepting the core: Iggy, Nieds, The Koping Mechanism (do you like that? I just made it up. I also like; 'Koping Skills', and 'Good Kop/Bad Kop', as well as 'ANZE!' shouted/sneezed like 'BANZAI'. Like I said, I'm working on it) and Master-Blaster Dion. Outside of them, it should be a yard sale.
The Scourge
Status: Critical, approaching hopeless.
What went wrong?: Wrath of the injury gods for one (Sundin, Vokoun were both counted on to be high end producers). A brutally frigid start for FP Tanguay that was colder than Daniel Craig's smile in Casino Royale and didn't warm up till mid November and the release of the movie for two. Top pick Pavel Datsyuk vanishing from the face of the Earth for three. A lack of help from the farm for four. And perhaps worst of all, a group of unscrupulous vultures taking advantage of his kind nature, a nature previously unsoiled by such corrupt foul play and trickery that these parasites engage in, for five. Outside of those five things, it's been a pretty solid beginning.
Prognosis: With the loss of Selanne representing the departure of the last highly sought after Scourge player (including his FP's), he can try to keep the craft straight, but its essentially a free-fall from here on out.
The Shadowmen
Status: Surprisingly, Contender!
How are they doing it?: For the Shadowmen it's some sucess doing it his way - volume, volume, volume. So far, the Day-Trader trade flurry strategy has enjoyed some success as the Shadowmen have sifted towards the top using a blizzard of players (He's traded FP Brad Richards - twice), and his unorthodox any-day-any-time any-place any-where I got guys to trade operating style. It's the hall of mirrors folks, step right inside!
Thing is, he does this every year, and he's won twice doing it. Madness it may be, but however it works, right now it's working.
Prognosis: the Shadowmen are like McCoy in City on the Edge of Forever, crazy messed up, but yet also capable of operating an ancient dead alien civilzation's carved-rock time machine.
The Severed Heads
Status: Contender
How are they doing it?: Kirprusoff recoverd from his affliction (apparently it's called 'October') and has returned to posting superhuman numbers in a short time span. If he keeps up his Vezina pace of November, than the Heads are for real. The Heatley Spezza circus act is once again exciting and consistently so. The real world Jagr (as opposed to the mirror universe Jagr that inhabited our universe in the Washington years and his first Ranger season) is back. All in all, they have a deep group of elite forwards (Heatley, Spezza, Jagr, Lecavalier, and cound be adding Havlat) to fuel their drives and compliment Kipper. Once again the D is weak, but Blake is at least carrying the mail now as the top dog, with the overall weakness of the supporting cast being the greater concern.
Prognosis: October put them in a hole as two of the three top forwards struggled (Heatley and Spezza) as well as Kiprusoff. Since November the Heads have moved from 9th to 5th place and appear poised to continue in that upward trend.
In other words, all is going according to prophecy.
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