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Random fantasy
thoughts:
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Pittsburgh Penguins are doing it with mirrors. No Mario
Lemieux. No Alexei
Kovalev. No Martin
Straka. No Darius Kasperitus, Hans
Jonsson or Janne
Laukkanen. Amazing. The team is sitting at .500 and if the season were
to end today they'd be pretty darn close to a playoff spot. Rumour has it
that Lemieux and Kovalev will both return next week.
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Ok the Islanders
can return to normal anytime now. It was funny after 10 games, but the
team is 11-1-1-1 after 14 and there's no sign of them stopping. Chris
Osgood is a major reason, but the Isles have done something few of us
would have expected. They are getting amazing defensive play from their
blueliners. If there was a seemingly glaring weakness on this team coming
into the season it was defensive d-men (especially after the team dealt Zdeno
Chara at the draft). We still maintain they will slide down the
standings, but we may have to admit that they're almost a lock of the
playoffs. Even if they go .500 the rest of the season (29-29-7-3) they'll
still have 92 points which would have been good for 7th overall in the
East last season.
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Where oh where are the Capitals this season? How
can a team that ADDED a career 100+ points/season guy without subtracting
anything be scoring a pitiful 2.27 goals per game (good for 8th in the Eastern
Conference)? There are two reasons for this. The first is injuries. Jaromir
Jagr hasn't really been healthy all season and Adam
Oates is now hurt. But this is really a cop-out. The real reason is
absolutely horrible team chemistry. Here we have a team has had two key players
ask for trades in consecutive years ( Peter
Bondra last season and Oates this year), they bring in a top offensive
player (Jagr) to play for a defense-first coach, AND that same coach is widely
despised by his players. There will be changes in the US Capital very, very
soon. And coach Ron
Wilson will probably be where the axe falls first.
Last
Week's Fantasy Tidbits
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