Our nightmare continues.



We're looking down the chute at yet another championship for Detroit.

How the fuck do they do it? Well, the good news for Blackhawks fans is that the primary reason is now sitting in an office at the United Center. Scotty Bowman excelled all these years at keeping the high-end salary (Nicklas Lidstrom) relatively low, so he could fit more quality people under the salary cap. They will still have issues with the Blackhawks this season, since their skate-and-attack style is not as effective against a team with as much speed as the Hawks.

They have a roster full of Cup winners, and now they have one of the best regular-season players (Marian Hossa) on their roster. A lot of guys, including Lidstrom, have had too many birthdays to think they'll continue being a championship team much beyond this season. How does the rest of the West stack up?

Minnesota will once again be in the 100 point range, mostly by virtue of 1-0 and 2-1 games. I don't think they rver had to change the bulbs in the goal lamps at the Xcel Energy Center. Marian Gaborik is the only player on the team capable of 30 goals. Maybe even 20.

San Jose has the goods, they just crap out in the playoffs. Maybe we can ship the "It's Gonna Happen" douche out to the west coast. The Sharks are also largely a one-man offense, but when that one man is Joe Thornton, you're going to win some hockey games. They really need Patrick Marleau to bounce back.

The Chicago Blackhawks? We'll cover them in more depth later this week, but suffice it to say that while there's no doubt we'll see more offense from Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, were Patrick Sharp's 36 goals a fluke? They didn't upgrade their forwards much, but the calendar will do some of that. The blueline improved exponentially with the addition of Brian Campbell, and Cristobal Huet is certainly un upgrade in net.

Dallas is one of those teams that really doesn't do anything poorly, but they're not really great at anything either. They might wind up near the top in goals against, but they won't score enough to make a huge impact. And they still have Marty Turco in goal, so second round is about all you can expect out of them. Maybe.

Anaheim had their moment of glory. There's only so many shorthanded goals a team can score. Remember when I said Gaborik was the only guy on Minnesota capable of 30 goals? That's one more than Anaheim has.

Calgary has talent. They may start to see Mike Keenan's act wear thin this year. Jerome Iginla continues to just be a fucking great player, and Mikka Kiprusoff still has nights where he's the best goalie on the planet. Just not as many as before. Still, expect Keenan to implode some time aroune New Years.

Edmonton is right behind the Blackhawks in terms of young players spurring a turnaround. They are also smaller and softer than the Hawks, which will certainly get exploited by teams like Anaheim. Also like the Hawks, they have new ownership in place who has stated their intent to spending the necessary money to put a contending team on the ice. Sam Gagner could wint up challenging Patrick Kane for an Art Ross Trophy one year.

Vancouver is a bunch of fucking psychos. They made their goalie captain.

Phoenix is intriguing. While everyone has gotten all dewy over the thought of Steven Stamkos, I'm guessing Kyle Turris will wind up being a better player. Both players get to take over from Toews in getting the Yzerman/SAkic comparisons. Wayne Greztky also pulled off the Olli Jokkinen deal, which was huge. They might make more noise than anyone expects.

Los Angeles has a lot of good young players who aren't making much money. They could have easily filled out their cap space with enough quality veterans to become a playoff contender, but chose not to. They're still a couple years away, unless they can figure out how to play every game against the Blackhawks.

Nashville squeaked into the playoffs yet again last season. They seem to be in it every year, but nobody can figure out why. The franchise is under new ownership, so they can at least be pretty sure they're staying put in Nashville...yay?

Columbus has Rick Nash. They also picked up Kristian Huselius and Fedor Tyutin, to help out up front and on the blueline, respectively. Pascal Leclaire looked good in the pipes, we'll see if he keeps it up. They night surprise.

Colorado needs to rebuild. It's nice they gave Joe Sakic a shot at a farewell tour, but they're going to be playing some bad hockey this year.

The Blues are expected to play 82 NHL games this season.