2011-12 NHL regular season predictions

I can't help but notice that last paragraph has a racist spelling mistake.

Required Fields wrote:

I can't help but notice that last paragraph has a racist spelling mistake.

Fixed.

woops

I went to art school, okay?

I actually used to live near the guy in the shades in this video:

MN Wild in first place in the Western Confrenece I'm surprised with a 13-5-3 record with a 5 game winning streak. Didn't expect that but I'll take it. MN needs a winner after all the losers like the Twins, Viqueens, T-puppies.


Wargod

Flyers are doing better than a lot of people thought too. Somehow they managed to find some offense so far this year.

I read my pre-season predictions again and obviously I was way off when it comes to certain teams.

Yes, it's early, and the best teams only start to push hard later in the season, but so far:

Better than expected:

Minnesota - I don't understand how. They lost Burns and Havlat and two thirds of their first line. Great performance so far and #1 in the league. They didn't play the Hawks yet, so I haven't watched any of their games.

Pittsburgh - they lead the East, playing without Crosby, mind you. Now that he's back, you wouldn't think they'd at least get any worse! I honestly thought they'd struggle early on and ranked them 6th in the conference, but the sky's the limit for this team.

Florida - "The Blackhawks South". Versteeg and Campbell have been great so far.

Toronto - aka The Phil Kessel Show.

Worse than expected:

NY Islanders - they are absolutely awful. And I thought this was the year Tavares will break through big time. I thought they'd be battling for a playoff spot, but how wrong was I?

Washington - I had them at #1 in the conference, but they are a mess. Great skill on paper, but Ovechkin is a shadow of his former self and Semin is a healthy scratch. Good thing for them is that they have time to turn it around and are still at least 6th in the East.

Tampa Bay - I hate that anti-hockey they play down there. They have the skill to light up any defense in the league, but choose to not even try and forecheck.

Anaheim - the "best line in hockey" play damn lazy at times.

As for my Blackhawks, they are pretty much where to be expected. 22 games, 27 points. Battling for the division title with Detroit. Just in the middle of a three game skid. Tomorrow they'll play the Ducks and hopefully break out of the funk.

Sharks, back on top of the Pacific. Must stay on top of the Queens, Lame-Ducks and Dawgs.

Caps fire Bruce Boadreux (or whoever you spell his last name! LOL!) and hire former Cap Dale Hunter as coach. Hopefully he's able to get the team to play better than the former coach!

I like Boudreau, but a change for all is probably for the best at this point. My guess is he'll do better wherever he lands.

I wish Dale Hunter could still play.

jstate wrote:

I like Boudreau, but a change for all is probably for the best at this point. My guess is he'll do better wherever he lands.

I wish Dale Hunter could still play.

I am sure some other team will hire him. Heck, he rebuilt the Caps. Unfortunately, the team no longer respected him nor listened to him so there had to be a change.

Boudreau did extremely well during his tenure as the Capitals coach. He will definitely be hired by another NHL team soon.

When a coach and players can't get along anymore, change is needed. When the players have massive contracts like Semin and Backstrom and are practically unmoveable, it's easy to understand why it's easier to just change the coach.

Boudreau hardly "rebuilt" the team. He is just a coach. Building a team falls on the general manager, George McPhee, who now thought the best way to help them was to bring in a fresh attitude in the form of a new coach.

Boudreau was successful in the regular season, but failed in the playoffs. Never went beyond the 2nd round with the Caps. The Capitals have supreme talent, so you'd expect a coaching record like 200-88 in regular season play, but you've got to be able to win two playoff series. Especially if you get four attempts at it.

T-Roy wrote:

Sharks will start slow. Then kick ass. Then finish strong. Probably 1 or 2 in the West. They will barely win round 1 against the 7th or 8th seed (siting an anemic powerplay that was tops during the regular season). They may make it to the Conference final where they will clam up and go into shell-mode and lose the series.

2012-2013 Prediction:
Sharks will start slow. Then kick ass. Then finish strong. Probably 1 or 2 in the West. They will barely win round 1 against the 7th or 8th seed (siting an anemic powerplay that was tops during the regular season). They may make it to the Conference final where they will clam up and go into shell-mode and lose the series.

2013-2014 Prediction:
Sharks will start slow. Then kick ass. Then finish strong. Probably 1 or 2 in the West. They will barely win round 1 against the 7th or 8th seed (siting an anemic powerplay that was tops during the regular season). They may make it to the Conference final where they will clam up and go into shell-mode and lose the series.


2014-2015 Prediction:
Thornton is long gone, Marlaue lingers and has had his "C" stripped and replaced now 17 times but is now too old and slow and unproductive to trade, which we should have done when he was 20 something...like we did with Pat Faloon. Doug Wilson is fired, Berry Melrose is hired to be the Sharks new coach and "rebuild" the team....mullet and pinstriped suits come back in style. Putin becomes President of the United States and Arnold Schwarzenegger is now married to Kim Kardashian.....love child on the way.

Bumping....to show my hockey prophet brilliance. I was off by a couple rounds of playoff success...but overall, I pretty much nailed the Sharks outcome.