An Off-Season Look at ... The Columbus Blue Jackets

by Jes

The Columbus Blue Jackets finally got it right and canned Doug MacLean this summer. Thanks to his lack of direction, and buy-high, sell-low philosophy, the Blue Jackets were hamstrung with a bunch of expensive veterans and short on actual talent.

Unfortunately, it will take a year or two for Dougie's mistakes to be off of the books for the BJs, and the dearth of prospects in the organization makes this team's future less than bright.

Here is the BJs roster as of today ... lots of expensive, old crap.


Amazingly, the BJs have lots of room under the cap, and will shed the contracts of Fedorov, and Foote after this season.

The BJs could be better, but they are beset by organization-wide underachieving.

Nik Zherdev - Signs a lucrative deal, and then sleepwalks through the season with 32 points. The BJ's are thinking of trying him at center, and it seems he'll pout if that happens. What a baby!

Rick Nash - 27 goals at that salary? Yeesh...

Sergei Fedorov - Perhaps he should play back at defence, because 42 points in 73 games is just awful.

Really, there isn't anyone on the roster, save for the surprising Norrena and hard-working Chimera, that really give you good bang for their buck, and play to their full potential. Even with the coaching change, Columbus still sucked eggs last season.

This season? It'll be more of the same. The BJs have one of the worst defence corps in the league, and shaky goaltending.

The forward corps LOOKS to be fairly decent and balanced, and will need to play up to its potential for the BJs to have a sniff of success.

In the end, this club will be fighting with the Hawks and Oilers for dead last in the conference.

An Off-Season Look at ... The Anaheim Ducks

by Jes

Being the Stanley Cup champs, the Anaheim Ducks were obviously in the spotlight a lot more than they are used to.

What should have been a quiet summer of celebration turned interesting with the whole Scott Niedermayer mess, the Dustin Penner fiasco, and the big ticket signings such as Todd Bertuzzi and Mathieu Schneider.

The Ducks are certainly big spenders, but Niedermayer's absence, combined with Selanne not showing up for camp, means that the Ducks are well under the salary cap, surprisingly.



Without a doubt, the Ducks aren't as good as they were a few months ago. Scheneider is an excellent Power Play defenseman, and a fine 2-way defender, but he's not quite Scott Niedermayer. That said, Schneider is generally underrated, and the downgrade is small. If Niedermayer comes back at all during the season (very likely), this D core will be the awesomest.

Few seem to know just how much of a positive contribution the renewed Teemu Selanne gave to the Ducks, and how much he pumped up line-mates Kunitz and McDonald. Those two players will not be nearly as effective as they were last season, and Bertuzzi won't give the Ducks anything but headaches and some 'decent' offensive production.

The Ducks will also face some trouble next summer, when Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf will have their contracts come up. Will we see some more free agent poachers?

Also, Kunitz will get a nice raise against the cap next season, and the Ducks won't have any big contracts coming off of the books until 2009.

That said, the Ducks are still a very powerful squad, and are certainly a favourite to take the West. I wonder just how much the Stanley Cup hangover will affect the squad, and I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't take the Conference crown. San Jose will provide stiff competition within their division, and Detroit will get a lot of easy wins over their divisional rivals. It's going to be an interesting 3-way race.

Ph33r the quack!

An Off-Season Look at ... The Minnesota Wild

By Jes

Over at Das FanHaus, I have a capsule preview of the Minnesota Wild, a team which will give the Canucks a great deal of competition in the Northwest division.

Just like the Canucks, the Wild pretty much stood pat, and did very little other than trade Manny Fernandez for Petr Kalus.

I know it's hard to believe, but Marian Gaborik has never had more than 40 goals or 70 points in a season.

He's got Pavol, he's got speed, he's got health (I hope), so now is the time to break the 40-50 goal plateaus and show us that he's a true star. There has been so much potential for this guy to skate circles around the league, but various factors, self-induced and not, have held this guy back. Really, he's got a huge salary, and needs to start earning it.

Here's the salary structure for the Wild.

It wasn't so long ago that the Wild had a pretty decent roster chalk full of cheap guys. Now? They are a fairly expensive roster, with few bargains to be found. Johnsson is pricey, Parrish is overpaid, and the rest of their stars are well compensated.

The Wild still have some room to add another piece or two, especially at RW, where Parrish isn't so productive any longer, and Koivu is playing out of position.

I fear the Avalanche' offence, but their goaltending is suspect. The Wild have a well-balanced team, a great coach, and good goaltending. It will certainly be a tight race between the Canucks/Wild/Avalanche, and I expect many great divisional matchups throughout the season.

An Off-Season Look at ... The St. Louis Blues

by Jes

Given how well the St. Louis Blues did after hiring Andy Murray last season, and the splash the club made in free agency this summer, there is reason for Blues fans to be optimistic about the upcoming season.

After two very craptacular seasons, with craptacular attendance, the club needed an injection of exciting offence (Paul Kariya), a top-notch prospect to show that future is bright (Erik Johnson) and, of course, free food!

Here is how the Blues roster looks like as of right now ...



I like the offensive depth up front, as the Blues have two legitimate scoring lines in play, along with some relentless checkers (Mayers, McClement, etc).

The problems?

1. No offence from the defence. Brewer led the Blues D in points last year with a putrid 29 points. Yipee!

Doug Weight will probably have to keep playing on the point, as none of Brewer/Backman/Woywitka have proven they can do well on the Power Play. I'm hoping Erik Johnson can improve this aspect of the blues defense, or maybe Backman can bust through with 35 points.

2. Few bargains. Look at the Blues roster, and ask yourself if the team is really worth $45mil? A $45mil team should be a top contender, not a team fighting just to make the playoffs. Guys like Brewer, Hinote, Rucinsky, McKee, and Mayers are all overpaid for what they produce, and Weight/Tkachuk are still an expensive, and aging, duo. Erik Johnson is pretty much the only bargain, depending on how he performs.

3. Lee Stempniak is one of the better hockey players you've never heard of. After scoring 52 points in 82 games last season, Stempniak has proven that he's a legitimate NHL producer, and he's only 24 years of age. He plays a straight-forward game, works hard, and has more potential to untap.

4. Manny Legace - He has had spurts where he's been an all-world goaltender, but then he's run into mental and physical problems that have prevented him from being a true dependable #1 goaltender. Who can forget his playoff mental meltdowns?

Legace had a league-average 90.7SV% last season, but played only 45 games. I like him in the nets for the Blues, but he's very risky.

Even with Murray's coaching, and the signing of Kariya, this club is going to need everything to go right to just squeak into the playoffs. The defence lacks an offensive edge, Cajanek/Boyes/Rucinsky are complete wild-cards, and there is very little offence after the Top 6.

I predict an improvement in the standings, but the Blues will still miss the playoffs.

An Off-Season Look at ... The Vancouver Canucks

by Jes

It's about time that I whip out the EXCEL spreadsheets and have a look at how certain teams look heading into the season.

The Vancouver Canucks have had a very quiet off-season, which can be good or bad, depending on your point of view.

Other than parading out new uniforms, signing Aaron Miller, and not re-signing Jan Bulis, the Canucks and GM David Nonis have been content to sit back and let the other teams go insane in the free agent market. Sure, Nonis did spend money on Bieksa's extension, but that was money well spent.



Instead of fixing the woeful offence, Nonis focused on making the defence stronger. Looking at the Canucks, they have exceptional goaltending, and one of the best 1-6 defence corps in the league. No superstars on D, but slots 1-4 are well above average, and Krajicek/Miller are no worse than average.

The Canucks' problem is that they have a lot of forwards who can't score consistently at the NHL level (Burrows, Isbister, Kesler) and guys like Cooke and Morrison who don't justify their ice time and salaries.

The Canucks do have some room for a 2nd line scoring winger type, or Jan Bulis, but not much else. Unless Forsberg would take a massive discount, or play for just 10 games, he's not going to come north of the border.

Last season, the Canucks vastly outperformed their Pythagorean record.
With 222 goals for, and 201 goals against, the Canucks had a pythag record of .550 win percentage (222GF-201GA), yet finished with an actual win % of .64! Teams that perform so far above their pythag records can expect a regression to the mean, although the Canucks perchant for defensive hockey could easily skew such a thing.

I don't expect a Division title this time around, especially since we're in a tough division, but I do expect a playoff spot. It'll be a tight race between an improved Colorado squad, and those damn Wild. Calgary will be tough, but I expect Keenan will do more harm than good, and the revamping of 4/6 of their defence will hurt.