When I proposed to Matt that we do an NHL preview for this blog I figured it would be easy. I figured I had pretty good understanding of the NHL. I had played in several fantasy hockey leagues during highschool, check the standings in the league every once and a while during the last several seasons, and watched a couple games a year. I listened to Matt talk about hockey all the time and I read about it in ESPN the Magazine and on Yahoo Sports. Probably most importantly, I had played lots of NHL 2003 on PS2, and I mean lots. Plus I would be doing the easier of the 2 write ups. I was in charge of predicting the worst 5 teams (See Matt’s post for the 5 best). Predicting bad teams is easy. Bad teams don’t change that quickly. Think about baseball and the Pirates, Orioles, and Nationals or football and the Lions, Bills and Raiders, these teams have been bad for a very long time.
Well as it turns out I under estimated how hard it would be to pick bad teams in the NHL. First off The Mag’s NHL preview was only 34 pages out of the 128 in the October issue. Of those 34 pages only 5 are advertisements, 5 cover Patrick Kane, and 6 talk about Zambonies. I already knew Patrick Kane was good at hockey and Zambonies were cool. That leaves me only 18 pages of new useful information, most of which focuses on the good teams. On top of that NHL teams fluctuate more year to year then other sports. Sure the Red Wings are good every year, but I had to write a post about bad teams. Take a look at this list that shows each team that ranked in the bottom 5 of the NHL at least once over the last five seasons. There are 16 teams on that list. Of those 16 teams at least 6 are legitimately good now.
All that means I had my work cut out for me. So I scoured NHL previews from ESPN the Magazine and Yahoo Sports. I put together information in excel and learned more about hockey then I had since the Olympics. After all that work I determine that these are the 5 worst in the league (Ranked from bad to Worst).
5. The Atlanta Thrasher 09-10 record 35-34-13
To start with, 2 of the 3 Atlanta point leaders from last season, Maxim Afinogenov and Ilya Kovalchuk, are gone. Afinogenov, who ranked second on the team in pts with 61, bolted to the KHL. The franchise’s best player ever, Ilya Kovalchuk (58 pts in only 49 games), got traded to the Devils and then signed with them. These losses are going to be hard to overcome. Although the team is hopeful that Nic Antropov and the young Evander Kane can pick up the slack.
In an attempt to try and help the team and provide veteran leadership the Thrashers signed four players from the Championship Blackhawks: Ben Eager 16pts, Andrew Ladd 38pts, Brent Sopel 8pts, Dustin Byfuglien 34pts. If you are someone that believes in that sort of intangible these signings are a good thing. Personally I don’t think it matters.
The Atlanta Thrashers finished last season with 83 pts last year good enough for second in their division, but bad enough to miss the playoffs. I expect them to be worse this year. They went 0-5-1 in the preseason and they lost more in players then they gained.
4. The Florida Panthers 09-10 record 32-37-13
Some things never change. This team was bad when I played NHL 2003 and they are bad now. They are like the Pittsburgh Pirates of Hockey.
The best player on the team is goalkeeper Tomas Vokoun. He was third in the league last year with a 0.925 SV% while facing the 5th most shots. In 08-09 he was second in the league with a 0.923 SV%. Any shot this team has at being good relies on Vokoun playing stellar. Although he doesn’t appear to be slowing down, Vokoun is 34 now.
To put even more pressure on Vokoun, this team really, really struggled to score last season. I don’t expect them to be much better this year. They had 0 players score 30 goals and 3 players score 20. One of those guys, Nathan Horton, is now with the Boston Bruins. The Panthers are relying on forward David Booth to come back from injury, pick up where he left off in 08-09 and score 30+ goals this season.
Much like their loser baseball brethren in Pittsburgh I see the Florida Panthers continuing their streak of bad seasons. I can’t see their quality goaltending offsetting their lack of offense.
3. The New York Islanders 09-10 record 34-37-11
Remember that list from earlier in the post? The Islanders are listed in first with 3 appearances in the bottom 5 over the last 5 years. On top of that, the Islanders have finished in the bottom 5 in the Eastern Conference 4 times in the last 5 years. They also finished the NHL preseason with only 2 pts. All that is no coincidence.
The Islanders are bad. Thanks to the fact that they have been bad for a long time they have some really promising young talent. The best of that bunch is John Tavares. He scored 24 goals last year, his first year in the league. Unfortunately for the Islanders he was one of only 2 players to score over 20 (The other is Matt Moulson who scored 30). If all those young promising player pan out that should change this year, that is a big if though.
Like a lot of bad teams that Islanders are also weak at the Goalie position. They do have their starter signed for another 10 years but based on how often he is hurt that will only be about 2 years of ice time for Rick DiPietro. Assuming DiPietro gets hurt again, which he will, the Islanders are stuck with Dwayne Roloson and his 0.910 SV%.
If everything goes in their favor the Islanders have the potential to be good this year. Of course that can be said for almost any team in the preseason.
2. The Columbus Blue Jackets 09-10 record 32-35-15
Gamblers really don’t like the Blue Jackets odds this year. According to Yahoo they set them at 100/1. The only other team that bad is the New York Islanders and that is just east coast bias, they always have to lead everything.
The majority of the negativity surrounding the 10-11 season for the Blue Jackets focuses on the fact that they finished with the fourth worst record in the NHL (tied with NYI by the way) and didn’t add any players of note this offseason. The roster only has one new player, Ethan Moreau, who played for Edmonton last year. It isn’t good when your only new player is form the team that finished dead last in the league the year before.
On top of a weak roster, Columbus has the unfortunate disadvantage of playing in the same division as both Chicago and Detroit. Being forced to play each of these teams 6 times is bad news for anyone. It is even worse news when you are a bad team with a bad defense. Expect stars like Patrick Kane (thanks ESPN Magazine for those 5 pages!) and Henrik Zetterberg to tear apart the Blue jackets weak D.
Columbus has finished among the bottom 5 teams in the Western Conference 4 of the last 5 years. Unless, their players all get a lot better and fast expect to make it 5 of 6. In better news for the fans Rick Nash still plays here for now.
1. The Edmonton Oilers 09-10 record 27-47-8
This team is young. They have an average age of only 26.11 compared to a league average of 28.02. A lot of the players are in their first of second seasons. After finishing dead last in the league last year with only 62 points, it is a lot to expect all these young kids to do well so soon.
Not making life any easier on those young kids are the goalies in Edmonton. ESPN the Mag rates their goaltending as a 3 out of 10. Looking at the goalies on the roster it is easy to see why. The best save percentage on the team belonged to Nikolai Khabibulin at a measly 0.910%. The main starter was Jeff Deslauriers who came in at 0.900 %. The good news for Deslauriers is there is room for improvement, right? With bad goaltending like this the Oilers are going to be playing from behind frequently.
The really young unproven team and awful goalies all adds up to the worst team in the NHL. The goal for this team should be to finish better then last year, try for 63 pts.
Sources: Yahoo Sports, ESPN, NHL
Well as it turns out I under estimated how hard it would be to pick bad teams in the NHL. First off The Mag’s NHL preview was only 34 pages out of the 128 in the October issue. Of those 34 pages only 5 are advertisements, 5 cover Patrick Kane, and 6 talk about Zambonies. I already knew Patrick Kane was good at hockey and Zambonies were cool. That leaves me only 18 pages of new useful information, most of which focuses on the good teams. On top of that NHL teams fluctuate more year to year then other sports. Sure the Red Wings are good every year, but I had to write a post about bad teams. Take a look at this list that shows each team that ranked in the bottom 5 of the NHL at least once over the last five seasons. There are 16 teams on that list. Of those 16 teams at least 6 are legitimately good now.All that means I had my work cut out for me. So I scoured NHL previews from ESPN the Magazine and Yahoo Sports. I put together information in excel and learned more about hockey then I had since the Olympics. After all that work I determine that these are the 5 worst in the league (Ranked from bad to Worst).
5. The Atlanta Thrasher 09-10 record 35-34-13
To start with, 2 of the 3 Atlanta point leaders from last season, Maxim Afinogenov and Ilya Kovalchuk, are gone. Afinogenov, who ranked second on the team in pts with 61, bolted to the KHL. The franchise’s best player ever, Ilya Kovalchuk (58 pts in only 49 games), got traded to the Devils and then signed with them. These losses are going to be hard to overcome. Although the team is hopeful that Nic Antropov and the young Evander Kane can pick up the slack.
In an attempt to try and help the team and provide veteran leadership the Thrashers signed four players from the Championship Blackhawks: Ben Eager 16pts, Andrew Ladd 38pts, Brent Sopel 8pts, Dustin Byfuglien 34pts. If you are someone that believes in that sort of intangible these signings are a good thing. Personally I don’t think it matters.
The Atlanta Thrashers finished last season with 83 pts last year good enough for second in their division, but bad enough to miss the playoffs. I expect them to be worse this year. They went 0-5-1 in the preseason and they lost more in players then they gained.
4. The Florida Panthers 09-10 record 32-37-13
Some things never change. This team was bad when I played NHL 2003 and they are bad now. They are like the Pittsburgh Pirates of Hockey.
The best player on the team is goalkeeper Tomas Vokoun. He was third in the league last year with a 0.925 SV% while facing the 5th most shots. In 08-09 he was second in the league with a 0.923 SV%. Any shot this team has at being good relies on Vokoun playing stellar. Although he doesn’t appear to be slowing down, Vokoun is 34 now.
To put even more pressure on Vokoun, this team really, really struggled to score last season. I don’t expect them to be much better this year. They had 0 players score 30 goals and 3 players score 20. One of those guys, Nathan Horton, is now with the Boston Bruins. The Panthers are relying on forward David Booth to come back from injury, pick up where he left off in 08-09 and score 30+ goals this season.
Much like their loser baseball brethren in Pittsburgh I see the Florida Panthers continuing their streak of bad seasons. I can’t see their quality goaltending offsetting their lack of offense.
3. The New York Islanders 09-10 record 34-37-11
Remember that list from earlier in the post? The Islanders are listed in first with 3 appearances in the bottom 5 over the last 5 years. On top of that, the Islanders have finished in the bottom 5 in the Eastern Conference 4 times in the last 5 years. They also finished the NHL preseason with only 2 pts. All that is no coincidence.
The Islanders are bad. Thanks to the fact that they have been bad for a long time they have some really promising young talent. The best of that bunch is John Tavares. He scored 24 goals last year, his first year in the league. Unfortunately for the Islanders he was one of only 2 players to score over 20 (The other is Matt Moulson who scored 30). If all those young promising player pan out that should change this year, that is a big if though.
Like a lot of bad teams that Islanders are also weak at the Goalie position. They do have their starter signed for another 10 years but based on how often he is hurt that will only be about 2 years of ice time for Rick DiPietro. Assuming DiPietro gets hurt again, which he will, the Islanders are stuck with Dwayne Roloson and his 0.910 SV%.
If everything goes in their favor the Islanders have the potential to be good this year. Of course that can be said for almost any team in the preseason.
2. The Columbus Blue Jackets 09-10 record 32-35-15
Gamblers really don’t like the Blue Jackets odds this year. According to Yahoo they set them at 100/1. The only other team that bad is the New York Islanders and that is just east coast bias, they always have to lead everything.
The majority of the negativity surrounding the 10-11 season for the Blue Jackets focuses on the fact that they finished with the fourth worst record in the NHL (tied with NYI by the way) and didn’t add any players of note this offseason. The roster only has one new player, Ethan Moreau, who played for Edmonton last year. It isn’t good when your only new player is form the team that finished dead last in the league the year before.
On top of a weak roster, Columbus has the unfortunate disadvantage of playing in the same division as both Chicago and Detroit. Being forced to play each of these teams 6 times is bad news for anyone. It is even worse news when you are a bad team with a bad defense. Expect stars like Patrick Kane (thanks ESPN Magazine for those 5 pages!) and Henrik Zetterberg to tear apart the Blue jackets weak D.
Columbus has finished among the bottom 5 teams in the Western Conference 4 of the last 5 years. Unless, their players all get a lot better and fast expect to make it 5 of 6. In better news for the fans Rick Nash still plays here for now.
1. The Edmonton Oilers 09-10 record 27-47-8
This team is young. They have an average age of only 26.11 compared to a league average of 28.02. A lot of the players are in their first of second seasons. After finishing dead last in the league last year with only 62 points, it is a lot to expect all these young kids to do well so soon.
Not making life any easier on those young kids are the goalies in Edmonton. ESPN the Mag rates their goaltending as a 3 out of 10. Looking at the goalies on the roster it is easy to see why. The best save percentage on the team belonged to Nikolai Khabibulin at a measly 0.910%. The main starter was Jeff Deslauriers who came in at 0.900 %. The good news for Deslauriers is there is room for improvement, right? With bad goaltending like this the Oilers are going to be playing from behind frequently.
The really young unproven team and awful goalies all adds up to the worst team in the NHL. The goal for this team should be to finish better then last year, try for 63 pts.
Sources: Yahoo Sports, ESPN, NHL
To give some perspective on the Florida Panthers, they currently have the longest streak in NHL history of missing the playoffs since the 16 team format was introduced. So a high quality team there. The only argument i can make is that the Rangers could challenge for the top five worst, thanks mostly to Glen Sather's incredible GMing (Derek Boogaard, he of 14 points in 255 games, just got a 3 million dollar contract).
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