by Terim » Sun Dec 30, 2007 11:35 pm
O.K., so we’re just about half way through the season, and it’s looking really good.
Things are playing out just about the way that you would expect in a league with a (relatively) hard salary cap. The gap between teams at the top and the bottom has narrowed considerably. As a result at the half way point there is really only one team (out of thirty) that is really out of contention for a playoff position (see ya next year Kings!).
There have been a few teams that have really surprised me (on the upside!). I thought Phoenix would be memorably (expansion team) bad, but they have been respectable. The kids in Chicago have the Blackhawks playing really fun-to-watch hockey (the best game I have seen all year was Detroit/Chicago, real up-and-down, free skating game!).
The Sens have been solid in the East, but I sure wouldn’t call them dominant (even if the 9 points they lead the second place Devils by are more than separate 15th place from 5th). More proof that hockey is a team game; the teams that are out-of-the playoffs in the East have some of the best individual players (or at least scorers). This does not seem to be the case in the West.
I’m guessing that Buffalo & Pittsburgh will start to move up in the second half in the East. In the West, San Jose might learn to play at home, and Anaheim and Calgary will settle in.
It has been interesting hearing the talk about HD being good for the NHL, as the speed of the game will really be presented well (and non-fans might be able to follow the puck).
There are (of course) a few things that could really be improved as the playoffs approach:
[b]1)[/b] More diving penalties should be called. Sigh, in some games it is just ridiculous
[b]2)[/b] Maybe this is related to above, but inconsistent refereeing from game to game. You watch one game and it is a return to “old time hockey” the Hanson brothers would have been at home in, the next game a penalty is called every time a player falls down. Must be driving the players crazy!
[b]3)[/b]Whining about the salary cap in a small market town. Some people here in Ottawa seem to think that now the Sens have a deep pockets owner that they would have been able to keep all of their players, forgetting that in a non-cap world certain deep pockets, large market, teams would already have payrolls well over $100 million and the NHL would be headed into the same idiocy as MLB. Of course it would be nice the Sens could have been given a mulligan for choosing Redden over Chara.
All-in-all, really looking forward to the second half!