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Surprise Teams

Kin

Kin

Active member
So far, a good chunk of the teams that have gotten off to the hottest start this year have been teams that most picked to miss the playoffs. This includes the Islanders(3-1-0), Panthers(3-1-0), Stars(4-1-0), Avs(5-1-0) and our own Leafs.

Ignoring the Leafs for a moment, which of these teams do you think has the best chance of turning their early success into something more sustained over the course of the year?

Personally, it's tough to pick against the Avs given what we saw last night. I think they may have a very, very good group of forwards.
 
The Avs look like a team that could maintain the surprise factor throughout the year.  I thought they were destined to be a lottery team, and as such trading their 1st for Varlamov would come back to haunt them, but they're not a bad team at all.  They are young with some great young talent (Stastny, Duchene, Landeskog) and have speed to burn.  Looking at their roster heading into last night's game, it was much better/deeper than I had expected.

There is something about the Panthers that makes me believe they just might click.  I get this vibe that they'll be a bunch of overpaid reclamation projects (so to speak) who collectively come together to prove the doubters wrong.  I see Weiss taking that next step that he's been unable to reach since the Panthers drafted him 4th overall.

The Islanders are going to go as Tavares goes.  Streit's back as well which will help their PP.  The wild card is their goaltending which could become one of the better tandems in the league with Nabokov and Montoya. 

Dallas is the one team I can see falling back to the pack quite quickly ending up at the bottom of the league.
 
Peter D. said:
Dallas is the one team I can see falling back to the pack quite quickly ending up at the bottom of the league.
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While I don't think the Stars will make the playoffs...bottom of the league?
 
I must admit, I was one who thought Tallon made some great moves this summer (though paid too much in general).

I think the Panthers will be a good team, challenging with the Leafs for a playoff spot.

Colorado had impressive speed yesterday, and does have good forwards, however I thought they were outplayed for a good portion of the game yesterday and benefitted from Leaf turnovers and a couple weak goals from Reimer. More often than not I think they'd lose that game, so I can't really pick them for much this year. I do think they'll be a very interesting team next year though.
 
ModanoMan said:
Peter D. said:
Dallas is the one team I can see falling back to the pack quite quickly ending up at the bottom of the league.
Click to expand...

While I don't think the Stars will make the playoffs...bottom of the league?
Click to expand...

They did lose a major piece of their offence in the summer and, without replacing him, their secondary scoring looks pretty woeful. Combine that with a starting goalie who is very injury prone, and, yeah, being at/near the bottom of the league is a very real possibility.

The Stars are an interesting situation, though. They're so close to the cap floor that, if they fall out of it, they'll actually have to add salary before they can start selling off assets for picks and prospects. I wouldn't be surprised if the situation arises that the Stars feel they're out of if by New Year's or so and they look to pick up someone like Jeff Finger just to have his cap hit on the books to they can start discussing moving guys like Morrow or Ribeiro.
 
ModanoMan said:
While I don't think the Stars will make the playoffs...bottom of the league?
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I could see them ending up in the bottom 5 to 7 of the league.  Losing Richards on a team whose depth has declined over the years is going to catch up to them as the season progresses I feel.
 
Busta Reims said:
They did lose a major piece of their offence in the summer and, without replacing him, their secondary scoring looks pretty woeful. Combine that with a starting goalie who is very injury prone, and, yeah, being at/near the bottom of the league is a very real possibility.

The Stars are an interesting situation, though. They're so close to the cap floor that, if they fall out of it, they'll actually have to add salary before they can start selling off assets for picks and prospects. I wouldn't be surprised if the situation arises that the Stars feel they're out of if by New Year's or so and they look to pick up someone like Jeff Finger just to have his cap hit on the books to they can start discussing moving guys like Morrow or Ribeiro.
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I like to think of their available cap space as a precursor to a run at Parise. :D

I don't want them to trade either of those guys.  I would assume (hope) Morrow will retire a Star and trading Ribs doesn't help anything except tanking this year and sucking next year.  But I'm not sold on Niewy yet so who knows what he has up his sleeve.
 
Peter D. said:
I could see them ending up in the bottom 5 to 7 of the league.  Losing Richards on a team whose depth has declined over the years is going to catch up to them as the season progresses I feel.
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5-7 sure but when I saw "bottom" of the league I assumed that meant last place.  Sorry for any confusion.

I'm not sure Richards' loss will be felt completely on even strength if Benn continues to progress and the they can get 20-25 from Ryder, but Brad was beastly on the PP.  Ribs is capable in that regard, but he's not quite as smart as Richards. 
 
ModanoMan said:
I like to think of their available cap space as a precursor to a run at Parise. :D

I don't want them to trade either of those guys.  I would assume (hope) Morrow will retire a Star and trading Ribs doesn't help anything except tanking this year and sucking next year.  But I'm not sold on Niewy yet so who knows what he has up his sleeve.
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Well, as things stand right now, without picking up salary, they can't trade anyone who has a contract with an annual value greater than $1M per at the deadline.
 
I like the Avs forward group quite a bit, and I think their goaltending won't be too much of an issue but where I think they sorely lack is on defence.  They (the defence as a whole) may surprise, but I don't really have faith in that group past Erik Johnson and even he isn't a bonafide #1.

Now Nik, come in and tell me how under valued Kyle Quincey is, and how Jan Hejda had just as many blocks/hits as so-and-so and how Hunwick and O'Byrne are actually good and how whoever is developing well, yadda yadda, at the end of the day, that group doesn't strike me as a playoff group (here's where you tell me the Hurricanes won a cup with a defence much like this patch-work one ;)).
 
Erndog said:
Now Nik, come in and tell me how under valued Kyle Quincey is, and how Jan Hejda had just as many blocks/hits as so-and-so and how Hunwick and O'Byrne are actually good and how whoever is developing well, yadda yadda, at the end of the day, that group doesn't strike me as a playoff group (here's where you tell me the Hurricanes won a cup with a defence much like this patch-work one ;)).
Click to expand...

Well, we've established one thing. If they're looking for defensive help, their first phonecall should be to a certain Braves/Pacers/Leafs fan, wokka wokka wokka.

I don't particularly disagree with anything you said. They're not great defensively. But the question here is who has the best chance of having actual success this year. I don't know that even the Avs would be an even money bet at this point, I just think I could find even more flaws with the Panthers, Stars and Islanders.

Of course, nobody else is answering that question so fair goes.
 
I think the Avs will be like us a couple of years ago or even last year.  They roar out the gates but are too young to be consistent throughout the year.  I think a couple losses in a row and they won't have the experience to overcome that adversity and will drop down the standings. 
 
Team            Win%
TORONTO    0.750
DALLAS        0.727
EDMONTON  0.700

Those would be my biggest surprises.

Boston and Vancouver struggling after the Cup final isn't a total surprise but the Bruins at .300 is worse than I would have predicted.

Mild surprises would include Colorado, Florida and Ottawa doing as well as they have to start the season. The Rangers offensive woes are also a little surprising to me.
 
Bender said:
Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate said:
What surprises me is that, as of now, there are only 6 teams in whole league with losing records:

http://www.nhl.com/ice/standings.htm?type=con#&navid=nav-stn-conf

OK, I'm not really surprised.  Parity and OTLs account for it.
Click to expand...

True... but I'm a little bit surprised. I didn't think it'd be this close right off the bat.
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It finished that way in 2008 (? one of the years since the lockout). Since the lockout (shoot outs = no ties), it ranges between 6-9 teams below .500 win% because there are no longer any ties. 0.500 hockey today compared to when there were no 3 pt games is closer to roughly .550 pts win% because of 3 pt games.

This record deserves an asterisk for example:
Wings set new standard for 100-point seasons
http://redwings.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=467737
 
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