After a long session with the Ouija board, here are predictions for the 2006-07 NHL season:
Shaky sellout streak
The Avalanche sellout streak will officially end, prompting many scribes and other media members to opine that it proves this wasn’t “a hockey town,” after all – just a bandwagon tied to a successful franchise. Of course, these will be the same folks who wouldn’t have dreamed of saying Denver was no longer a bona fide “basketball town” when the Nuggets were drawing tiny crowds. It seems likely that even if the Avalanche slips on the ice and at the gate, the hockey team will still outdraw the basketball team. But those who denigrate hockey to rationalize their ignorance of the sport won’t point out any of that.
Scoring takes a hit
After last season’s increase, NHL scoring will flatten or slightly decrease. The problem won’t be enforcement as much as it will be the creeping back of the mind-set – especially among coaches – that it’s acceptable to clog and obstruct, and especially to get away with as much as possible. It’s easy to say they would have to back off if the calls are made, but it can’t all be left up to the referees. If everyone in the game isn’t buying into the program, there will be some backsliding.
Eyeing the Lightning
The Tampa Bay Lightning, until last June the reigning Stanley Cup champions for two years, will be watched closely because it decided to concentrate so much of its cap space on three forwards – Vinny Lecavalier, Martin St. Louis and Brad Richards. Richards signed a five-year, $39 million deal in the offseason. Lecavalier is in the second season of a four-year, $27.5 million contract. St. Louis’ $31.5 million, six-year deal also will be in its second season. Bottom line: The three forwards’ combined cap numbers this season will be around $20 million. That raises the possibility of whether the Lightning eventually will consider trading one of them, both for cap and roster balance reasons.
Black days for ‘Hawks
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s greatest accomplishment would be to convince the Wirtz family to sell the Blackhawks, but he again won’t have the nerve to try it this season. The Wirtzes have turned Chicago from a great hockey market to a moribund one, with many hockey fans swearing they won’t return to the United Center until the team is sold. (They still sometimes go, but hope their friends don’t see them.)
Dead money walking
The Avalanche will regret not buying out Patrice Brisebois and the now-injured Brad May. Yes, it would have created more dead money under the cap, but astute teams are figuring out that from here on, they must avoid offering multiyear deals to declining or suspect players. And if mistakes are made, it’s better to admit them with two-thirds buyouts than to compound the mistakes by keeping the unproductive players around. The trick is to minimize the dead money, but accept that there is going to be at least some on the books every season.
Blame the instigator
Fighting will continue to drop, but fighting’s proponents will continue to blame everything bad – including gas prices, insider trading and “negative” campaign advertising – on the instigator rule.
Where’s the TV Guide?
Just when we figured out the NHL games were on OLN, the name has changed to “Versus,” but that won’t make it any easier to find or stumble across on the cable box.
And the award goes to …
Calgary’s Jarome Iginla will win the Hart Trophy as the league’s most valuable player. New Jersey’s Martin Brodeur will win the Vezina as the best goaltender, and Ottawa’s Wade Redden will be the choice for the Norris Trophy as the top defenseman. If he gets and stays healthy, Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin is a lock to win the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year.
Dual role for Crawford
New Los Angeles coach Marc Crawford will make a guest appearance on “Days of Our Lives” as character Steven “Patch” Johnson’s former hockey coach. (We’ll finally learn that “Patch,” once a promising prospect in the Toronto system, lost his eye when accidentally struck by a stick in a minor-league game.) And within a week, Crawford will have a standing offer to play Susan Lucci’s next husband on “All My Children.”
And finally …
* The Oilers will discover that Dwayne Roloson wasn’t the second coming of Grant Fuhr, after all.
* The hockey-savvy fans in the Twin Cities will finally start questioning whether the Wild is doing enough to earn their unwavering support at the box office.
* Only 11 of the 30 coaches will be fired during the season, and nobody will be able to come up with a simple explanation for that kind of stability.
* When Florida’s Todd Bertuzzi is booed in Denver on Feb. 6, Joe Sakic will have to explain to the rest of his teammates what the heck is going on.
This story has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to an editing error, it described the Tampa Bay Lightning as the reigning Stanley Cup champion. The Carolina Hurricanes are the champions.
