|
 After
pretty much ripping the heart and soul out of the franchise with the trading
of Joe Thornton to San Jose two years ago, the rebuilding process for the
Bruins has not been too successful to date. The team has a solid nucleus of
players in Patrice Bergeron, Phil Kessel, Marco Sturm, Marc Savard and Zdeno
Chara. The problem is that the supporting cast has not been good enough to
grow this team into one that can compete on a daily basis. This season, the
Bruins will have a new face patrolling the crease in the enigmatic Manny
Fernandez. Last year, goaltending was not the team’s biggest issues. Instead
it was special teams and the recent addition of Peter Schaeffer should give
them a boost on the both the PP and PK. As it is, the Bruins are close to
the cap right now and won’t likely make many moves prior to the start of the
season.
 We’d
love to ask Sabres management how they feel about the impact of the salary
cap and how the lowered age designation for UFAs has affected their team.
The short answer would likely be a loud expletive. This off-season, no team
felt the pain of free agency loss more than the Sabres. Not only did they
lose Daniel Briere, Chris Drury and Dainius Zubrus, but they also had to
match the Oilers huge contract offer to Tomas Vanek, making Vanek the
highest paid Sabre in the team’s history. As a result, the Sabres will be
filling roster spots internally…fortunately their replacements are going to
be pretty good. Young prospects like Drew Stafford and Dan Paille will be
relied upon to pick up the offensive void along with promotions for Derek
Roy and Tim Connolly. The bad news is that the Sabres won’t be as good or as
successful as they were last year. On the blue line, the team could use a
little more veteran leadership, but that said Campbell, Spacek, Numminen,
Kalinin, Lydman and youngster Nathan Paetsch are better than average.
Between the pipes, Ryan Miller is still the team undisputed #1 goaltender,
but we are a little concerned that Miller has missed time with injuries over
the past three season.
 The
Habs enter their training camp having made some changes, but nothing to the
degree that loyal Canadiens fans would have hoped. Perhaps the biggest
addition to the team, will be one of subtraction as the team moved
disgruntled Sergei Samsonov and the remaining two years on his large
contract to the Blackhawks. Further, the team was unable to re-sign Sheldon
Souray (who went to Edmonton) and David Aebischer (who signed with Phoenix).
Alexi Kovalev still remains grumpy and now another year older and recent
press reports from captain Saku Koivu have stated that he believes the
Canadiens are not a Stanley Cup contender. The team is still desperate for
more scoring punch and it appears that it will rely on the development of
young players like Andrei Kostitsyn, Guillaume Latendresse, and Tomas
Plekanec. The prognosis for poolies is not great. The blue-line addition of
Roman Hamrlik will help the team’s overall defence, but it won’t replace the
offence lost with Souray’s departure. In goal, Cristobal Huet appears to be
the #1 incumbent, but he is going to be pushed by last year’s injury call up
Jaroslav Halak and rising junior star Carey Price. The three of them will
compete for the two net-minding jobs.
 There
could not have been more turmoil and uncertainty for a Stanley Cup finalist
as there was for the Sens at the end of last season. Management decided that
a change in direction at the top was necessary and one has to wonder whether
the team’s signing of now albatross Martin Gerber and not picking up an
impact forward at the trade deadline were the factors that sunk former GM
John Muckler. As a result, the team’s attention has been focused on trimming
salary and trying to make personnel changes internally. The team allowed
recent acquisitions Mike Comrie and Tom Preissing to leave via free agency
and moved Peter Schaeffer for Shaun Donovan. Christophe Schubert will fill
the void on defence and the team will be relying on talent like Antoine
Vermette, Mike Fisher and Patrick Eaves to participate more in the offense.
Ray Emery appears to be on the cusp on ascending to the upper echelon of
goaltending elite; however he is still recovering from a nagging wrist
injury that plagued him last season. The team looks poised to make yet
another run at the Stanley Cup, but the window of opportunity is closing.
That, and the team’s attempted trade of Wade Redden just prior to this
year’s draft is going to be more than an awkward issue to deal with this
training camp.
 It’s
coming up on two generations of Leaf fans that are waiting for their team to
hoist the Stanley Cup. The Leafs were close to making it into the playoffs
last year, and this year the team is hoping another year with the same core
players will actually get it done. One area that is sure to generate a
heated competition in camp is the #1 net-minding position. Last year’s
incumbent Andrew Raycroft was the model of inconsistency: when he was good,
he was great. But when he was bad, he was brutal. As a result, the team
brought in Vesa Toskala to either push Raycroft for the #1 job, or take it
outright. Another new face is veteran winger Jason Blake who posted career
numbers in goals with the Islanders. Mark Bell was brought in along with
Toskala to provide some grit and toughness, as well as more scoring along
the wall. But Bell’s DUI conviction has resulted in his indefinite
suspension from the league and created a situation he will be dogged with
for the remainder of his career. The team is going to have to rely on
another year of seasoning for Wellwood, Antropov, Ponikarovsky, Steen,
Stajan, and the injury-prone Colaiacovo. The Leafs would love to add a
serious sniper to their line-up, but they are right up against the salary
cap. Consequently, they’ll be relying on Kaberle, Sundin, Tucker and McCabe
to provide the lion’s share of the offence again this season.
...up next: The Pacific |
