Originally printed September 6th, 2007. Without actually looking back, I was pretty much spot-on on 50% of these, and embarassingly off on the other 50%. So it goes with preseason hockey picks.
Good morning, hockey fans! Last week we learned about how athletes are all underpaid no matter what. This week I was planning on doing my annual column on how the NHL would be improve 14% if they got rid of officiating completely, when I casually glanced at my Ziggy calendar — and realized we’re just a week away from training camp! Finally, the long Summer of Sports Desolation is over, we have crossed the Barren Wastes of baseball-only deprivation, and will soon have our unquenchable thirst for real sports slaked. So as a personal favor to Tim Donaghy, I’m using complex technical and statistical formulas to break down the Leastern Conference this week, and will consult the ZuboZen Koanator 3000 for quick Zenarrific gaze at the Bestern Conference next week, since that’s the only conference that really matters anyways, as the entire Eastern regular season and playoff race is held solely to determine which overrated offense-only gaggle of me-first prima donnas will inevitably collapse in the Stanley Cup Finals.
My extremely complex formula for determining the future successes and failures of the 2007-08 hockey season is this: if their goalie is good, they will be good, if he sucks or if there is two of him, they will suck or have twice the losses. As Pat Burns once said before getting fired once again, “Goaltending is 95% of hockey. Unless you’re losing, in which case it’s 100%”. Truer words have never been spoken: a great goaltender will make a mediocre team good, while a bad goalie will make a great team average. An average goaltender makes a bad team slightly better, but a really crappy goaltender makes a terrible team even worse, unless he plays for a really good team, in which case, I guess, he gets better. Or if a really bad team leaves a great goalie out to dry, I suppose the team will eventually suck. Some teams have six goalies on the ice at all times, like Vancouver, while other teams don’t put any effort into capitalizing on their goalie’s success, like the Stars in the playoffs. And some teams “protect” their goalie’s frequent mistakes, like how the Detroit Red Wings cover for their aging, vastly overrated Dominik Hasek. Actually, come to think of it…
Goalies suck! Goalies have little to no influence on the outcome of hockey games. Forget everything I’ve just written, and file it away under the list of “Todd’s Unprovable Bullshit”, right alongside “The Less Sex You Have, the More Religious You Are, and Vice Versa” and “Only Black Guys and Gay Guys Actually Use Their Gym Memberships”. This is hockey, after all, and no simple-minded sweeping generalization is going to help you, the readers, get the straight dope on the facts. Goalies! Pshaw! What was I thinking?? Besides, everyone knows that hockey is 99% coaching.
So now without any further ado for real, here’s my breakdown of the 2007-08 standings. I’m including point totals for no apparent reason, other than it was better than my original idea of actually using win-loss-OT loss records –something no sane person would ever attach their good name to. I’ve included each teams’ weaknesses (“Goofus”) and strengths (“Gallant”) to make it a quick and easy read. And of course I invite all comers that want to argue that the Washington Capitals will finish with 76 points this year rather than 73. That’s precisely the kind of productive hockey discussion we’ve all been missing this summer.
Eastern Conference Standings
Atlantic Division
New Jersey Devils — The hits just keep on coming for this trainwreck of a team, yet they consistently turn it around by December and start winning ugly games. And by “ugly”, I mean winning -1 to -4 every night. Goofus: The team’s former bread and butter, a solid defensive corps, is now a squishy offensive corpse. With Rafalski gone, the d-line is being manned by perennial turnstiles Matvichuk and Colin White, and their greatest offensive threat from the blue line is Karel Rachunek, who scored a terrifying 26 points last season. Gallant: Brodeur played balls-out hockey all of last season, posting one of his best statistical years ever, and should be slightly worse for the wear in 07-08. But this team has some decent forwards, even if guys like Elias and Madden are slowing down with age. The Devils benefit, however, from being the only team in their entire conference that willingly plays “hockey”, and not just trying to score idiotic goals so they can appear on Sportscenter alongside Michael Vick and Barry Bonds.

The Devils' team bus reflects its "winning ugly" ways
Prediction: 1st place, 105 points
Pittsburgh Penguins — Speaking of teams that don’t yet know how to play hockey, the Penguins are case in point. Too many cherry-picking forwards, no defense, an the league’s worst divers. Goofus: Team defense. Poor Marc-Andre-Jean-Luc-Pierre Fleury is left out to dry so often he’s looking like Conan the Barbarian atop the Tree of Woe. Gallant: Since their defense sucks, the Penguins rely heavily on trying to outscore the other team in bunches, which in the pathetic Eastern conference, actually works 60% of the time. Also, it helps when the NHL league office is so completely unimaginative that they decide the only way to save the sport is to give you tons of phantom penalties –another huge advantage for the star-studded lineup. But most importantly, the Penguins’ best player, Jordan Staal –who is not even old enough to get arrested at a bachelor party –kills penalties, provides timely goals and has nowhere to go but up. Barring a likely sophomoric slump, this could be an exciting year for the youngsters.
Prediction: 2nd place, 102 points
New York Rangers — This used to be the biggest joke of a team in hockey, with its huge payrolls and crappy players. Then Glen Sather got rid of the overpriced veterans, brought up new guys from the farm system, and they became a feared hockey team once again. Unfortunately, this past offseason they seem to be heading back down the Road of Suckage, signing even more free agents to ridiculous sums of money that they cannot possibly justify. Goofus: Scott Gomez and Chris Drury. I actually feel sorry for the guys, I really do. They’re not bad players by any stretch of the imagination, and any team would love to have them. But they’re getting set up if anyone thinks they can repeat the success they had in the team-first environments of Jersey and Buffalo. They may score more points in New York, but ultimately when the team collapses, once again, in the playoffs a billion hack writers will fill the two players’ ears with undeserved venom. Tsk! Gallant: Other than a couple of old guys, this is still, technically, a young team, and should be fun to watch when Jagr and Shanahan are not on the ice.
Prediction: 3rd place, 97 points
New York Islanders — Talk about your typical Eastern Conference catastrophe of a team: team leaders vanishing, Smyth and Yashin gone, and nothing to show for it but a few crappy free agent signings over the summer. However, with one of the most underrated coaches in the NHL at the helm, anything is possible. Goofus: Quite possibly the worst front office management in the East. Gallant: Ted Nolan. Cardinal Rule #1 About Sports: a team of nobodies working together will always defeat a team of superstars in it for themselves. Nolan knows this and consistently gets great performances from his guys. Unfortunately, Goofus may rear its ugly head halfway through the season and fire Nolan for a perceived slight –and also to shift the blame of yet another mediocre season from themselves– and the team will tank.
Prediction: 4th place, 82 points
Philadelphia Flyers — It’s a good thing the Eagles are going to march to the Sueprbowl, because the Flyers are clearly one of the worst teams in hockey, if not all professional sports. Not only were they the laughingstock of the entire league, but they couldn’t even get the draft to go in their favor. A decade of mismanagement from uber-suck GM Bobby Clarke will have this team reeling for another half-decade. Goofus Pretty much the entire team. Gallant: With nothing to lose, the Flyers ought to start their entire farm system now in hopes they can be a halfway decent team by 2012.
Prediction: 5th place, 55 points
Northeast Division
Ottawa Senators — Despite their embarrassing performance in the Cup Finals, this is still, on paper, a decent team with strength all across the board. If they can’t repeat as Eastern Conference champs this year, it’ll be because their coach told them to skate in a line towards their own net and kick pucks in for 60 minutes. Even then, they should have a winning record. Goofus No player likes to be called “soft”: however, all of this team’s skill forwards are a bunch of softies. I think I saw Spezza in a tutu at my four-year old niece’s ballerina recital the other day. Gallant: Amazing defensive core, among the top three in all of hockey, makes up for the moronic mental gaffes of the “skilled” forwards and makes this a truly elite team.
Prediction: 1st place, 115 points
Buffalo Sabres — Yeah, yeah, so they lost their top two centers. So what? Buffalo plays a unique style of hockey in which every player is interchangeable with every other player on the ice. Expect whoever fills those top two slots to have career years, and get signed to a huge contract by some mouth-breathing GM in 2008. Goofus: No centers! The Sabres are doomed! Doomed!!Gallant: Coach Lindy Ruff will have a tough first 40 games, until his fast, young team gets the ball rolling once again and catapults through the league in the second half.
Prediction: 2nd place, 100 points
Montreal Canadians — This team has way too many French-sounding names on its roster to even hope to be competitive, but hey, this is the East and there’s plenty of margin for error, even for a team on the decline. Goofus: Hamrlik, Kovalev, Dandenault, Markov… the list of overpriced free agents is almost laughable, and sadly, reflects poorly on former Stars GM Bob Gainey. I can only hope he’s a figurehead and not making these terrible decisions. Gallant: Coach Guy is a true mensch, and single-handedly keeps this team from falling off the same precipice the Flyers and Maple Leafs so eagerly plunged into.
Prediction: 3rd place, 87 points
Toronto Maple Leafs — Average age of the 07-08 roster: 63 years old. Enough said. Goofus: I’m curious, but also too lazy to find out: just how many players on Toronto’s roster actually were drafted by the Maple Leafs? My guess would be “in the single digits”. Gallant: At least they finally have a quality netminder in Vesa Toskala. Toskala was a wall in net for San Jose, and was tempered in the unforgiving hockey forges of the West. This is Toronto, however: the over-under on Toskala’s career there is 41 games, before the Canadian media overreacts and drives him out of towne.
Prediction: 4th place, 80 points
Boston Bruins — A team with no where left to go but up… or they can just stay the course, play uninspired hockey and get their paychecks all the same. Goofus: Behind the towering figure of Zdeno Chara, the Bruins’ d-line is remarkably thin. And when you watch them on Versus, this is painfully, gut-wrenchingly obvious. Also, they have a bunch of “pass-first” forwards that refuse to go into the corners to retrieve a puck, enjoy making dipsy-doodle stick-trick turnovers in their own zone, and cry when someone is mean to them. Gallant: Many Fernandezes have tried, but only Manny Fernandez has succeeded where others have failed. I know that grammatically makes no sense, but any true hockey fan knows exactly what I’m talking about. Fernandez is a mensch.
Prediction: 5th place, 68 points
Southeast Division
Carolina Hurricanes — This is a fast, hardworking team with strengths in all three areas of the ice. Yet, they always play down to the level of their opponents, which, in the Southeast, is like picking fights with five year olds and then getting your ass kicked. This should be the year the Hurricanes use a stellar divisional record to climb back into hockey respectability. Goofus: Cam Ward? Seriously? Wait–really? Gallant: It’s unlikely that Rod Brind’Amour has any years like he had last year left in the tank, but behind that legendary nose could well be a fountain of eternal youth. Also, the Hurricanes, on paper, have one of the best defensive cores in the NHL. This year will prove if any of that matters.
Prediction: 1st place, 101 points
Tampa Bay Lightning — Holy crap this division sucks, again. The NHL could swiftly and effortlessly improve the quality of its product by axing these five teams in the middle of the night, and only Sidney Crosby’s inflated stat lines would notice it. Tampa is not a good team, but they will compete in this division because no one else wants to. Goofus: Although goaltenders are indeed overrated (see: rant above), having five or six that can’t play doesn’t necessarily make one Voltron Goalie that can. Gallant: The Lightning have a solid defensive group, which should hold down the fort long enough for their one effective forwards line to score a few goals every game.
Prediction: 2nd place, 100 points
Atlanta Thrashers — If this team knew what it was doing, it would change its name to the Atlanta Slayers. Or the Atlanta Berserkers. I wouldn’t want to play a team called the Berserkers. Goofus: It’s great to have a bunch of top-flight snipers and all, but when 98% of the salary cap goes to three forwards, the defense is going to suffer. And hockey viewers will suffer even more, having to witness the Thrashers non-existent defense artificially inflating the East’s top scorer’s statlines. Gallant: This team has an excellent, if usually unmotivated, group of forwards and no defense. If they adapt my Berserkers nickname and the style of play to go with it –non-stop attacking offense all the time, no one is allowed to skate backwards (as it is a sign of weakness)– then I would quickly become a Thrashers fan. As it is, a bunch of guys hanging out at the center stripe waiting for their overmatched defense to get them the puck makes for crappy hockey.
Prediction: 3rd place, 93 points

Hey, Kovalchuk, your ride is here
Florida Panthers — This is a bad, bad team that just signed a good, good goalie. Unstoppable force meets immovable object? Goofus: Do I really need to waste my breath on this team? I guess if I talked about the Flyers earlier, I’m legally obliged to mention something about the Panthers –although don’t think I wasn’t tempted to delete the entire Flyers prediction just for that very reason. Gallant: Tomas Vokoun will now backstop a team that can’t score, or skate, or even block shots. But anything is an improvement over Eddie “Elderly” Belfour, whose 6.88 GAA will surely be improved upon this year, if nothing else.
Prediction: 4th place, 74 points
Washington Capitals — Any team where John Erskine and Tom Poti are playing significant minutes on the blueline is in serious trouble. Goofus: The Caps’ starting goalie is 37 years old. His backup? Brent Johnson, who couldn’t even make it in Saint Louis. Gallant: Ovechkin’s long, long tryout for the Rangers or Flyers will soon be at an end, as he becomes a restricted free agent soon and can get the heck out of Washington.
Prediction: 5th place, 69 points
So there you have it: pretty much the exact same predictions as anyone else is going to make in the hockey world, minus the Penguins winning the Cup, since actual hockey games are played on ice rinks and not in fantasy hockey drafts (are you listening, Sports Illustrated??). Tune in next week when I write a column thirty times as long, with one tenth the content!