Sleeksays

LA Kings (8-8-2) vs. Colorado Avalanche (8-10) 7:30 PST, Fox Sports West The Stars have imploded and just lost their best player. The Coyotes haven't sparked offensively and their youth hasn't quite lived up to the height so far. The Ducks look to be rounding into shape after a slow start but aren't quite the dominant team they've been in years past. The Sharks... well, the Sharks are amazing. But after them, there isn't a team that has really made its mark in the Pacific Division. Why not the Kings? They're sitting at .500 right now despite losing their best defenseman in the 2nd game of the season. Their top scorers from last year have underperformed, their goaltending in the first 10 games of the season was subpar, and they just now put together a legitimate top scoring line. And yet they're right there. The Kings have a legitimate shot to make the playoffs, assuming the Stars continue to fall apart and need to use the next month to build up poi...

Yesterday, I joked with Earl Sleek that tonight's Sharks/Stars game seemed like the perfect storm for the Sharks to get their first loss at home. After all, Evgeni Nabokov is out, Sergei Zubov is in, the Stars have been trying to figure out something to inspire them to a win (signing Mark Parrish, obviously, is the key), and it's a big Saturday-night tilt between conference rivals. Seems like just the type of situation that used to drive Sharks fans nuts. The team probably had a 30/70 percentage split of meeting the challenge of an occasion last season versus appearing listless and confused. Now? Maybe the NHL's scheduling staff is on the team's side. First Detroit comes to the Golden State to face Anaheim, then less than 24 hours later, skates out on HP Pavilion ice. Now the Stars have to do the same thing. Instead of using my "Oh crap!" negative thinking that still lingers from the Ron Wilson era, I'm going to look on the brighter side of things (don...

Edmonton Oilers (1-0-0) at Anaheim Ducks (3 opportunities for improvement!) There's no choice except better results, right? What I was originally going to write about. Look, I know the Ducks have been horrible lately, but I've caught onto a pattern. For game one, I wrote about how scared I was about Jonathan Goddamn Cheechoo , and he killed us. For game two, I wrote nothing, and that didn't help. For game three, I wrote about a pattern of 1-goal deficits turning into 3-goal deficits , and the Ducks watched their deficit grow like clockwork. My problem? I'm way too psychic. And I've been focusing entirely too much on the negative. Tonight? In the spirit of "the first 3 games are irrelevant in the scheme of an 82-game schedule", I'm instead imagining some good results. Is this the game where the Ducks get goals from their actual goal-scorers * ? Is this the game where the Ducks enter the penalty box at a slightly lesser rate ** ? Is this the game wher...

Los Angeles Kings (o-o-o, not last!) @ San Jose Sharks (1-0-0, booooooo) 7:o0 PST, FSN West & FSN Bay Area The Kings are not going to make the playoffs. Theirr defense is too young and their goaltending is not quite good enough. Still, I feel better about this team than I did about the one last year and I felt better about that team than the one before that. That's progress, right? Offensively, I think the Kings are going to score a pretty healthy amount of goals. Last year the Kings played 24 games against the Stars (6th best team defensively) , the Ducks (3rd best) , and the Sharks (2nd best) . They still finished 12th in goals scored. The Kings are playing less games against the Pacific and more against the rest of the league so I imagine just that factor will allow them to score more goals. The Kings also improved their 2nd line center with the addition of Jarret Stoll and have better players at every bottom-6 position except for 3rd line center and 4th line right ...

We may disagree on who our favorite team is (Kings) , who's better between Ovechkin and Crosby (Crosby) , who the best looking CBC commentator is (obviously Kelly Hrudey) , or whether Rob Blake is a weiner or not (well, apparently not, everyone knows he is) , but I think we can all agree that hockey is awesome. And it's back.

Poor Bobby Ryan. The kid picked one slot behind Sidney Crosby hasn't had much opportunity to shine on an NHL stage. He played in his first 25 NHL games last year , including 2 in the Dallas series, and after a strong camp this season, was demoted yesterday to the AHL Chops mainly for salary cap reasons . This is a situation that it's a bit tough to write about, because there's several unknowns at work here: (a) Bobby Ryan's bonus clauses -- thanks to NHL secrecy, I have no idea what Ryan would need to do in order to earn his $1.1 M in bonuses, though I'd guess they pertain to NHL-level achievements. If Ryan started on the Ducks, though, the $1.1 M would count against the cap as potential achievements, and I can't say at what point these bonuses become unachievable. (b) Bobby Ryan's potential -- I've liked what I've seen out of the kid in limited exposure thus far, but Ryan's played most of his hockey completely off my radar. I assume the kid is...