Video of the Week: Scott Stevens Hit Parade

Easily the most intimidating player this league has seen in the past 20 years.

Ottawa's Woes

Boy, have they fallen. The Ottawa Senators now dwell alongside the Thrashers and Islanders at the bottom of the standings. There was at a time the Sens looked like a juggernaut of a team, but people shouldn't be so surprised at their sudden struggles. It wasn't a sudden fall from grace. This team has slowly been picked away to it's current state. In the last 3 years, they've lost the likes of Chara, Havlat, Hasek, Pothier, Redden, and Meszaros. They've locked up their top line to huge contracts, while players like Fisher and Gerber recieved inflated contracts that somewhat forced a few free agent departures.

So why aren't the Sens as good anymore? I don't think the forwards have gotten worse, I'd blame it on the defense.

With the loss of Redden and Meszaros in the off-season, Ottawa basically lost all of it's offensive defensemen. Filip Kuba has stepped in and played admirably, but has done little to replace the firepower of the departed players. Right now, the Sens are rolling with Philips, Volchenkov, Bell, Lee, Smith, and Kuba. None of these guys can be counted upon to carry, move, and distribute the puck.

People may be getting on the forwards for their lack of production, but it really is hard to produce when you're not getting the puck at full speed up the ice. You're seeing a lack of production throughout the roster, and it's something that can be fixed with the acquisition of a legit puck-moving defenseman: not exactly something that's easy to acquire in today's NHL.

There's a lot of talk about moving Jason Spezza, which would be a pretty drastic step for Brian Murray to take. They're in quite a conundrum, none of their players carry too much value due to the lack of output, so teams are going to be asking for a lot in any deal.

If the Sens are in fact looking to deal one of the big-3, then they're going to have to ensure they get help on the back-end in return. I know they have goaltending problems, but that's nothing compared to the sorry stats their skaters are putting up. Compare it to Edmonton in 2006-2007, without any puck movement from the backend, scoring went down monumentally for that team.

Here are, in my mind, potential takers for Spezza in such a deal:

Edmonton: Visnovsky, Nilsson, pick
Islanders: Streit, Okposo, pick
Columbus: Leclaire, Voracek, pick
Florida: Bouwmeester, Campbell
Thrashers: Enstrom, Little, pick
Predators: Suter, Legwand, pick
Wild: Zidlicky, Miettinen, pick

State of the NHL

I'm no Gary Bettman, so I'm not going to make this some 1-hour long press conference.

I think the NHL's in good shape right now, it's a league in transition. Of the four main professional sports leagues in North America, it's the league that is most dependent on it's young talent right now. And I think that bodes well for the future.

As a fan, I got worried as the lockout approached. As the stars of the 90's began to hit the twilight of their careers, I was wondering who was going to carry the torch for this league in the future. There really were no young superstars in the league under the age of 24, and with a disastrous lockout imminent, I thought the future of NHL hockey was in serious danger.

But hey, I think the league's made a huge leap forward since the "new NHL" was introduced. As guys like Sakic, Modano, and Sundin (I've heard his name too much not to mention it) get set to retire, the NHL has it's own set of young stars. Crosby, Malkin, Ovechkin, and Kane have emerged as the league's new superstars, and I think this youth movement sets the tone for a high quality on-ice product in the future. And it's nice to see that all this hub-bub about dealing with overseas players is virtually gone now. It's now possible to bring over legit talents like Malkin and Ovechkin without worrying about the litigation involved. The KHL has come and gone, in my opinion, as a threat to the talent pool of the NHL, and now the NHL is undoubtedly the best league for professional hockey in this world. It's the "underdog" of professional sports in North America, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it claw back to it's early-90's status as the "model league" for sports on the continent.

That being said, let's get to the hockey part of all this.

As much as it was promised, there is no way you're going to have parity in on-ice product in this league. And we're seeing it in the standings. At the very top, you have your Stanley Cup Contenders. San Jose, Detroit, and Boston are all playing a dominating style of hockey that is absolutely stunning the hell out of their opponents. You have the succesful turnarounds in cities like Washington and Chicago, where each team is being led by their young superstars to great records. Teams like Montreal, Calgary, Anaheim, and Philadelphia continue to be perennial playoff teams, while there's a dogfight in both conferences for the final few playoff spots.

What's got to be worrying is the perennial disappointments developing with the Islanders, Lightning, Panthers, Blue Jackets, Kings, Blues and Coyotes. These teams have tried re-building repeatedly in the past few years, and still struggle to be competitive in this league. With sensitive fan bases and dwindling revenue, Bettman's gottabe losing hair over the future of these franchises in their respective cities. Then there are the teams that have fallen from their thrones, teams that until this season had been considered some of the elite organizations of the league: Dallas, Pittsburgh, and Ottawa. With the plethora of star talent on these teams, it's going to be disappointing to see some familiar names missing from playoff contention this season.

I've been rambling, and I'm going to stop. God Bless the United States of America.

New Kid on the Block

I'm not normal with my hockey obsession. I talk about it nonstop, with anyone, at any time, for countless hours. I realized I might as well do something useful with all this, and decided to start this blog. I don't really know how many people will read this, nor how they will respond. I want something I can look back on some time from now and say to myself, "well at least I had it all down in words".

I'm from Edmonton, I'm an Oilers fan, so don't be surprised if there's any bias in my posts. But I'm a fan of the game in general, and I'm going to try to be as honest and objective as possible. I love all feedback, be it positive or negative, just say what's on your mind.