The Magicpie Power Rankings

Well it's been about a month since the season's started. Time for more power rankings. As always the West leads off:

1. Detroit. Every year I predict that this is the year they drop off, and every year I'm wrong. As a side note, I've thoroughly enjoyed Thomas Holmstrom's career progression so far: from random fourth liner, to good checking line forward, then legitimate secondary scoring threat, and now to playing with Zetterberg and Datsyuk on the first line. All this happerning slowly over about 10 years, not within his first two years as he was breaking into the league. Good to see someting like that. Also, doesn't it seem that Detroit is one of the only teams in the league on which things like this ever happern happern?

2. San Jose. Good teams know they're good, allright? They don't need to actually start off the season well to prove that to people. They're not insecure like that. They leave that stuff for the Minnesotas of the world.

3. Minnesota. Started the season 7-0-1, went 0-3-1 over their last 4. I'd still pick them over anyone in the NW though.

4. Calgary. They've scored the second most goals in the conference as of today. They've also allowed the third most, with 37 (two teams have 38). What the fuck has happerned to the Calgary Flames??? It seems to be working for them, though. At least for now.

5. Columbus. Allright you caught me. I just go by the standings. I'm as disturbed at having them here as anyone else, and I'm not even sure there aren't laws against this, but how much lower can I reasonably put them?

6. Colorado. This is the only team in the NHL from which you can pick second line players on your fantasy team and have absolutely no fear that they're not gonna produce.

7. Los Angeles. They're a good team, damnit.

8. St. Louis. They're no Columbus, but they also get the job done.

9. Vancouver. Of the three Western playoff teams currently underachieving horribly (Dallas and Anaheim being the others) they probably have the best chance to turn things around as things stand right now. But the expectations for the season have officially been lowered significantly. Sixth seed here we come.

10. Anaheim. The biggest thing I want to know about them is how much of this is due to the Stanley Cup Hangover, and how much of it is due to Scott Neidemayer and Teemu Selanne being MIA. I'm saying it's more the hangover.

11. Chicago. They've got a pretty good (for them) record of 6-6-0 so far, but they pulled this crap last year too and still ended up at the bottom of the league in the end. The future certainly looks bright with Towes and Kane, but the future's not here yet.

12. Dallas. Everyone predicted their colapse this year, but they're still clinging to a .500 record, refusing to go gently into that good night. It's coming though. Sticking them down here in anticipation.

13. Edmonton. The league's most entertaining train wreck. Lots of teams fail, but no other team's failiure is so entertaining to watch.

14. Phoenix. At 4-6 they're probably overachieving. At least we get to find out what it would be like if an AHL team was allowed to play in the NHL for one year. For some reason I really want them to do well, though. This team having a movie-script-type season and somehow finishing third or fourth would be a really cool thing to see happern. And you know what, I don't rule it out. They're so bad, and expectations for them are so low, that in a weird way it kind of makes you feel like anything's possible. Yes, I know that makes no sense. Stop looking at me like that.

15. Nashville. Assuming that the team would be moved in the end no matter what, do you think Nashville fans would have chosen "slow protracted struggle spanning years, with the team essentially tanking the whole time" or "just get it over with as fast as possible"? Me too. Look, I know what's gonna happern, you know what's gonna happern, everyone knows what's gonna happern. Why are we torturing these people like this?

I would do my Eastern Conference power rankings now, but I don't really care about the Eastern Conference. There I said it.

They don't have it this year

Bill Simmons, one of my favourite sports writers, used to have a running story in his column about a yearly ritual between him and his dad. A few months into every baseball season, after yet another losing streak, and Bill would ask his dad what he though about the Red Sox that year. His dad would respond with "They don't have it this year." and they'd start talking about something else. Over time this yearly pronouncement came to mark the unofficial end of the Red Sox season for Bill, the point at which he kind of accepted that, while there were still games to be played, the season was done.

So what does this have to do with the Canucks? Well, ten games into the season there's a defenite sense of "they don't have it this year" about this team, what with the weird snap personel moves three games into the season, Markus Naslund's emergence as media whipping boy, and the lack of a full 60 minute effort during any game so far. The "20 guys who genuinely got along and played hard every night" vibe that this team gave off last year doesn't look like it's there this time.

In my oppinion chemistry, or "a team working together" or whatever you want to call it, is a huge factor in hockey, more so than the other 3 major sports (just look at how a 6th or 7th seed gets hot for 2 months and makes it to the cup final every year). Comparing this year's team with last year's kind of provides an example of that. I think most people would agree that this year's team's got a better overall lineup, but for whatever reason they just don't have it together the same way they did in 06/07, and the result has been a far worse team on the ice.

This isn't to say I'm writing off the season. Just the first half. Every year there's always a couple teams that aren't quite up to snuff during the first half of the season, but get their shit together right about the time of the all-star break and finish things up on tear. Here's hoping that happerns.

(And yeah, I know this is exactly what happerned last year: crappy team hovering around .500 for the first half, awesome team tearing up the league in the second half. The difference, though, is that last year's team was playing hard from the begining. The issue for them during the first half of the season was just everyone learning their roles and overcoming huge scoring slumps from a lot of the forwards. This time around it's the playing hard that's the problem.)

Yet Another Random Thoughts Post

• Does anyone else get the impression that the whole point of those "after hours" interviews at the end of Hockey Night in Canada is to dig up as many embarrassing pieces of information from the past of the person being interviewed as possible? Last night it was Willie Mitchell and they had: a picture of him as a wrestler when he was like 11 years old, the revelation that he used to take figure skating (complete with his former instructor calling in), Roberto Luongo noting how he actually has more points than Mitchell right now (he picked up an assist on friday), and like 3 other things I can't recall off the top of my head. Why do the players even subject themselves to such shabby treatment?
  


• Speaking of Hockey Night in Canada, it's good to see Sean Burke working again.
  


• That shift the Sedins had midway through the second Edmonton game, where they kept the puck in the Edmonton zone for the entire powerplay before finally scoring after 2 mins and 15 seconds, was probably the coolest moment of the season so far.
  


• Is it just me or does Roberto Luongo look kind of tentative/twitchy in net? He's getting the job done for now, but something seemed a bit off about him the past two games. I blame Aaron Miller. And society. Always good to blame society.
  


• The strangest sub-plot of the season so far? Minnesota bringing all the players moms to their games. I could actually research why this happerned and maybe find out that it's a moving and heartwarming story. Or I could just point and laugh. Hmm.
  


• As of this writing, the Canucks have the 6th best powerplay in the league. By the way, the worst pp in the league, at a woeful 4%, is Edmonton. Considering a lot of people's reaction after they brought in Pitkanen, Souray and Tarnstrom was probably "Well, at least their powerplay will be good", this is not a good sign for them.
  


• I still expect great things from the LA Kings. (Hey cool that rhymes) Just wait till they get the kinks out. Every year there's one or two teams that go insane after the All-Star Break, and this year the Kings will be one of them. This will happern. It will. I keep telling myself this.
  


• One of my favourite things about the first few weeks of the season is the yearly ritual that is the "so and so is on pace for 234 goals right now " jokes. By the way, Brendan Morrison is on pace for a 50 goal season. Just saying.
  


• Everyone who took Markus Naslund in their pool is feeling pretty smart right now.
  


• Overall for some reason I just don't feel as good about this year's team as last years. Whenever they score too many goals they make me uncofortable. That's just not the Canuck way.
  


• By the way, did you hear that Minnesota's players brought all their moms to a game? HAHAHAAHAHA.

Canucks Season Predictions

Biggest Dissapointment: Taylor "I'm not with the Sedins anymore" Pyatt. Although he still has one thing both Shannon and Raymond lack, namely size, and that may be enough to put him back in his old role this year. If he's not with the Sedins, they should consider playing him with Naslund where he can fill in as a worse version of Todd Bertuzzi.

Biggest Positive Surprise: Trevor Linden. Yes hes old, but for the love of God, he's not that bad. He's still an effective 3d/4th line player. He's still as effective as almost everyone else on the team on a points/60 mins basis, he just doesn't get the ice time needed to put up better numbers.

Biggest Surprise That's Not Really That Surprising: Ryan Shannon ends up being pretty good.

Markus Naslund Points Prediction: 75.

Kevin Bieksa Points Prediction: 35. Just have a bad feeling about him for some reason (that's my hard-hitting, in-depth statistical analysis for you).

Sami Salo Games Played Prediction: 65.

Canucks End Of Season Lineup Prediction: Sedin-Sedin-Shannon, Naslund-Morrison-Pyatt, Cooke-Kesler-Raymond, Cowan-Linden-Burrows.

Aspect of the Team That Will Be Better Than People Think Prediction: Secondary scoring.

Aspect of the Team That Will Be Worse Than People Think Prediction: The Bulis-less PK. No seriously. Shut up. Stop laughing.

Playoff Finish Prediction: Third Round Exit.

Division-Adjusted NHL Standings

Ever wonder how much playing in a strong/weak division has affected your team in the standings? Well here's what the Western conference standings would have looked like last year if you ignore divisional play (taking only the 50 non-division games each team played and expanding the rate at wich they gained points in those 50 games into a full 82 game schedule). Sorry, my excel/word are currently messed up, so I couldn't put these into a graph.

Team Actual Points Division Adjusted Points Difference
Detroit..........113.......103....-10
Nashville.......110......107.....-3
Anaheim.......110.......110......0
San Jose........107.......115.....+8
Dallas.............107.......95.....-12
Vancouver....105.......115.....+10
Minnesota.....104......102....-2
Calgary..........96..........97....+1
Colorado........95..........92....-3
St Louis.........81..........87...+6
Columbus......73..........77....+4
Edmonton.....71..........80....+9
Chicago.........71..........69....-2
Los Angeles..68.........72....+4
Phoenix.........67.........72....+5

So, if you don't like looking at that graph type thing up there, here's what the Western Conference standings would have looked like if you ignored divisional play:

1. Vancouver (115)
2. San Jose (115)
3. Anaheim (110)
4. Nashville (107)
5. Detroit (103)
6. Minnesota (102)
7. Calgary (97)
8. Dallas (95)
9. Colorado (92)
10. St. Louis (87)
11. Edmonton (80)
12. Columbus (77)
13. L. A. (72)
14. Pheonix (72)
15. Chicago (69)

As expected, Detroit benefits quite a bit from its easy division, getting roughly an extra 10 points from facing its easier division opponents. Dallas is the team most helped by its weak division (or strong divisional play, depending how you want to look at it) gaining a whopping 12 points. In contrast, Vancouver, Edmonton and San Jose are all hurt the most by their division schedule, losing 10, 9, and 8 points because of their divisional record. Despite changing teams' point totals by up to 12 points, though, division schedules did not change who made the playoffs. Every team that made the playoffs using the regular points sytem still makes it using their division-adjusted point totals.

DISCLAIMER- What I did is only meant to compare how well teams did within and outside their divisions. It is in no way meant to provide a fairer version of the standings that ignores differences in schedule (instead of playing Columbus twice as much as a regular team, Detroit doesn't play them at all in these standings, so we're not improving things just moving them to the other extreme). This is meant as a fun little exercise and nothing more.

One thing these numbers are good for, however, is figuring out what the best division in hockey was last year, basically by adding up the points that the 5 teams in each division had versus non-division opponents (adjusted for 82 games). Here are the results:

Northeast: 494
Northwest: 486
Pacific: 464
Central: 443
Atlantic: 441
Southeast: 413

It seems that the Northeast did in fact have the Northwest beat just slightly as the best division in hockey last year, although I guess you have to take into account that they play in the weaker Eastern conference.

The Magicpie Power Rankings

Time for my first edition of the power rankings. Because I'm a lazy, lazy man this first batch of power rankings will also double as my season predictions. I'll do a separate set of power rankings for the A.L and N.L....I mean Western and Eastern conferences because they barely play each other anyway so there's no point trying to rank Western and Eastern teams against each other. For all we know the west might have 8 of the league's 10 best teams or something. Anyway, first the Western rankings:

1. San Jose. By default. Every team that finished ahead of them in points last season has taken a step back, they're the only ones that haven't. Should be a fun year for them.

2. Detroit. I only have them this high because I still think they'll win their division, and will have more points than whoever comes out on top in the Northwest. Other than that I'm predicting a major step back for them this year. Once the inevitable Hasek injury strikes all bets are off. I'm not even that sure they'll be able to hold off St. Louis and win the division, but I'm not quite at point where I'm willing to predict that.

3. Vancouver. They won the division last year and remain innocent untill proven guilty, but I'm not that confident about this pick. Arguments in their favor: the first few months of last season, when they were playing .500 hockey, were a feeling out period, and the real Canucks team we're gonna see this season is the one that had the best record in the league after Christmas. Markus Naslund is in a contract year. They haven't lost anyone significant and have added a few pieces, so if you go by the whole "if a team stays together they play slightly better each season because of some crazy synergy" theory then they should be better. Arguments against them: everyone in their division improved (even Minnesota improves by having a healthy Gaborik). They were lucky in OT/the shootout last season (17-7, best record in the league), and might not be able to keep that up this time around. Last season was one of those feel-good seasons where everyone buys into the team concept and plays hard every night, and you don't get two of those in a row very often. It could go either way but I'm leaving them here for now.

4. Colorado. They were one of the best teams in the league to finish last season and they've made some significant improvements. Goaltending's still a problem but I don't think they plan on winning many games 2-1 this year.

5. L.A. Kings. For the record I've been saying this long before they beat the Ducks in the season opener(besides, as I write this Anaheim's leading the second game 1-0). They're my favourite sleeper team this season. They have one of the best defenses in the league, and one of the best groups of young forwards in the league (at least 4 guys on that team could average one point per game this season). Best of all they didn't make any major "let's save our season with this one move" type signing/trade last season, instead choosing to bring in a few medium names to fill holes as neccesary. I love it when teams do that. Mark my words, they'll be up there this year.

6. Minnesota. This might actually be a bit low for them but I'm not confortable putting 3 NW teams in a row on top of these standings. Last year was kind of an off-year for them, and they didn't make a single major move this off-season because they know they have a solid team. They should be much better playing one complete year without major injuries. Maybe the most underrated good team in the league.

7. Anaheim. That's right, behind the Kings. Never, ever underestimate the power of a Stanley Cup hangover.

8. St. Louis. Finished the season up strong last season, and made lots of improvements. I'd be surprised if they didn't make the playoffs.

9. Nashville. Up until writing this I actually thought they still had enough to make the playoffs. Then I changed my mind. So there. I really can't think up a scenario where they manage to sneak in, aside from one where St. Louis and L.A. aren't as good as I thought they would be...but that would be crazy. Their crappy division saves them from going any lower.

10. Calgary. One really good team had to get left out of the playoffs in this preview and they were the odd man out. This is mostly because what they did this summer is more of a sidegrade than anything, and Mike Keenan is not the coach you bring in to turn your team into a winner, he's the coach you bring in to punish them for slacking off last season (which they did). Also, I couldn't have 4 Northwest teams making the playoffs, as cool as that would be if it happerned.

11. Dallas. This has all the makings of turning into a rebuilding year for them. After however many first round exits in a row, they probably know that they don't have enough to go far with their current team. Look for them to make some major shake-ups at the first sign of trouble this year.

12. Columbus. They were actually a fairly good team on paper last year, and a full year with Hitchcock will likely improve things (just don't pick anyone except their goalie for your fantasy team). The only problem is that the teams in front of them are pretty good too.

13. Chicago. Maybe next year.

14. Edmonton. The sad thing is that they actually improved (at least on paper) this off-season. Being in the most competitive division in hockey doesn't help.

15. Pheonix. The only teams that I'm truly confident will not make the playoffs this year are Edmonton and Pheonix...and I'm not so sure about Edmonton.

And now for my Eastern power rankings:

1. Pitsburgh.
2. Ottawa.
3-15. Everyone else, in no particular order.

The Don Taylor Play-By-Play Drinking Game

Well as you all likely know by now, the most notable thing about last night's Sharks-Canucks pre-season game was that Don Taylor was doing the play-by-play. I thought he settled in pretty well after some early jitters, but judging by the Canucks.com boards oppinion was more mixed than that. One brilliant idea that made its way out of there, though, was that of a Don Taylor drinking game. Every time he says one of his regular Sportsnet News lines as part of the commentary you have to take a drink, with more unusal lines requiring more drinks. For example:

Refferences to players' old jersey numbers ("and there goes so-and-so wearing so-and-so's old number 22")-1 drink

"Brouhaha"-1 drink

"Boondoggle"-1 drink

"The _______-ian spinorama"-1 drink

"With a rapier-like glove hand"-1 drink

"In _________-ian fashion"-1 drink

"They're loving it in _______" 1 drink

"Gingerly"-1 drink

"Bulges the twine"-2 drinks

"Ripples the mesh"-2 drinks

"Top shelf where mom keeps the peanut butter"-2 drinks

"Markus Naslund skating like a modern day _________."-2 drinks

(in Marv Albert voice)"And it WAS a GORGEOUS move"-3 drinks

"Nyayahay"-down the whole bottle. Seriously, if he lets one of these out randomly during a play-by-play it will be one of the greatest moments in Canucks announcing history.

Any I missed? Thanks to the guys at the canucks.com message boards for reminding me of many of these.

Jan Bulis We Hardly Knew Ye

This is my farewell post to Jan Bulis. It was actually one of the items in the "random thoughts" post before this one, but it ran a little long so I decided to make it its own post.

Well anyways, as was expected, Jan Bulis is now officialy gone. He signed with a Russian team for about the same ammount he was getting with the Canucks last year. You may not have heard about this because it was hardly mentioned even among the Canucks blogs, and the only official article relating to his deparutre was from a Russian website (and thus written in Russian...I don't exactly know what people were trying to accomplish by linking to it).

Count me among the people who are actually sad he's gone. I actually bought the story he told in that Province article, the one about him calling his dad for advice after making his trade demand and his dad basically telling him, "It's not them, it's you", with that being the reason he straightened up. Bulis's whole problem, as many have pointed out, was that he wanted to be more than he is. He had the ability to be a very solid defensive player, but he wanted to put up big numbers, so instead of playing like a very good 2-way forward he ended up playing like a very bad scorer for most of his career. During the second half of last season, after the whole trade demand episode and the call to his dad, though, he surprised pretty much everyone by turning things around. He didn't put up big points, but he played good, effective two-way hockey, earning the praise of the same people in the media who were his biggest detractors two months before.

I actually think we saw a fundamental change in Bulis'mindset in those last few months. It looked like he was done trying to be a scorer and had instead decided to accept the role given to him and contribute that way. One other quote that stuck out at me from that same article was Bulis saying that he used to actually want to play for a bad team, so that he'd get more ice time and have a better chance at putting up points, but by the end of the season he didn't really think that way anymore. Maybe I haven't yet grown jaded enough about the questionable pronouncements of hockey players, but that actually rang true for me. Besides, I don't think a player would actually admit to something like that if he hadn't made a serious commitment to change his ways.

I think it's pretty true that in life people almost never change. If someone was lazy 20 years ago, they're probably still lazy. If someone was an ass 20 years ago, they're probably still an ass. It's pretty rare to see someone actually make a fundamental change to how they approach any aspect of their life, and even more rare to see them actually stick with this change in the long term. That's why I would have really wanted to see Jan Bulis in a Canuck (or failing that any NHL) uniform this year, to see wether he'd be able to keep up the same kind of play for the entire year or if he'd go back to being the old Jan Bulis.

It may be worth mentioning at this point that, as far as I know, most European contracts do have an out clause if the player wants to go back to the NHL, and Nonis has said that if his other moves don't pan out before the season starts, bringing back Bulis is still an option. So maybe all is not lost. Here's hoping.

Random thoughts

Twenty-five posts in 2 and a half months isn't that good is it? Time for some filler.

If I ran the NHL my first act would be to decree that all rookies are to be reffered to only as noobs.

Second act: the game will now be played in a completely dark arena with a glow-in-the-dark puck.

As you may have heard, the New England Patriots got into a lot of shit this week for taping their opponents' signals from their own sideline. Why exactly is it illegal to do this? If they just had a guy with binoculars writing everything the other team did down instead of taping it would that be illegal too? How about just casually looking over at the other team's sidelines? Where do you draw the line?

It appears that the whole "Let's make a drinking-related joke whenever one of the Staal brothers comes up" thing has really taken off throughout the blogs/newspaper columns (I will never, ever in my life use the phrases "blogosphere" or "mainstream media"). My personal message to those making these jokes: Where the fuck were you people when Keith Tkachuck showed up for camp 30 pounds overweight a couple years ago? That was supposed to be a source of comedy gold for years and years. Instead here we are three years later and most people have forgotten that even happerned. There need to be some strict guidlines for what is and isn't made fun of so this kind of thing never happerns again.

Remember when I used to actually talk about the Canucks on this blog? Those were the days...

With that in mind, Luongo took a shot in the neck today at practice, and didn't come back to the ice. The guy needs to start wearing a neck protector. Remeber in Montreal last year when he spent the night in the hospital for the same reason? I know he finds them uncomfortable, but getting hit in a neck by a puck going 100 mph is uncomfortable too.

Also, get this, Sami Salo is injured. His wrist is apparently in a cast right now, and they don't know if it's broken or not. I know, I know, I never saw something like this coming either. It's like Jan Bulis trying a spin move. (I know I've used that before, I'm trying to get all the mileage I can out of this joke before people forget who he is) Also, sorry Sami, you're actually one of my favourite players, that's why I want to see you play a full season one of these years.

I think this post officially makes "random crap" the second most used tag on this blog. I'm trying to decide wether this is a good or a bad thing.

NHL Stock Watch

Allright it's time for the first installment of what I hope to be a running segment: NHL stockwatch. Basically this section asks which NHL teams/players/executives you should be buying and selling assuming they were stocks. As with stocks, you'd want to sell assets that have reached their peak value and are on the way down, and buy those which are undervalued and look to be on their way up. (allright, fine, so this whole thing is basically a convoluted version of those "hot and not" sections every magazine in the world has, except its focused on the future not the present)

First, the sell section. These are "stocks" which have reached their peak value and you should be selling...if they were actually stocks.

Brian Burke. If Brian Burke was a corporation right now I'd be shorting his stock like crazy. He's turned into the man who can do no wrong in the past two years, with the Pronger trade, winning the cup, and everything else. At this point there's really not much higher he can go. He does have plenty of room to fall, however. Picking up Bertuzzi for 1 mil per season would have been a great move. Picking him up for 2 years at 4 million per, not so much. He's now put himself in a position where a hell of a lot of things have to go right for this signing to be regarded as a sucess. Combine this whith the downgrade the Ducks upcoming stanley cup hangover season, which might have seen the team take a sep back even if it was kept entierely the same from last season, and lingering resentment from other managers for his decision not to match the offer sheet to Penner, and I see Burkie taking a lot of crap from a lot of people this year.

The Detroit Red Wings. Ever since the lockout at the beginning of every season I've been asking the same "is this the year that Detroit finally falls off?" and each time the answer has been no. But, well, it's gotta happern some time and this year looks as to have as big a chance as any. Other than that, there's also other factors, like the fact that the entire city of Detroit is falling apart, and that the team's bajillion-game sellout streak actually ended last season in the first round of the playoffs(with the Michigan economy being blamed). That can't be a good sign. Eventually it all has to come apart for a few years. It may not happern tommorow, but the weaknesses are already starting to show.

Daniel Briere, Chris Drury, Sheldon Souray. Way, way overvalued because of this last free agent season. All three of these guys are non-elite players who are coming off one good year, and all three got way more than they should because the teams apparently said "hey, someone's gotta get 6 mill per year this free agent season" and these guys were the best players available. A lot of people are gonna feel pretty stupid when these guys go back to their regular selves.

And now for the buy section. These are undervalued "stocks" that are on their way up.

The Kings, Caps and Blues. My three sleeper teams this season. The Avs aren't a sleeper because everyone's expecting them to do well this season. Of these three the Kings are my personal favourite. They have what may be one of the best defences in the NHL (seriously, look it up, they have 5 guys who've had at least a 39 point season in the last 5 years and the other one's Jack Johnson). They have one of the best group of young forwards in the league (Frolov, Kopitar, Calimaneri), and solid depth with Nagy, Hazndus and Calder. On paper this is at the very least a playoff team, and I really dont get why they're not getting more recognition aside from the fact that they sucked last year and did not make any single major move in the off-season (although this may be a point in their favor). The Blues were already good for the second half of last season, and only got better in the off-season. I'd be surprised if they dont contend this year. The Caps made a few good moves, but more than that just have "feel-good season" written all over them this year.

The NHLPA. Getting their shit back together at last.

The New Jersey Devils. Entirely because of the new arena. One of the most depressing recurring NHL stories of the past 15 years has been how the Devils have always been one of the best teams in hockey, but didn't have the fan support to match their on-ice performance. A lot of people, rightly or wrongly, blamed this on their former arena's proximity to MSG(apparently it's literally half an hour away). The new arena solves this problem and, aside from that, is probably just plain nicer than their decrepit old haunt. There's no guarantees here but it should probably do a lot to the franchise.

California Hockey. Ok maybe not.