On the 2011-12 Northwest Division

With training camps around the NHL set to open in less than a month, the time seems about right to examine some of the offseason moves within the Northwest division, and there have certainly been a lot of them, to see how the Edmonton Oilers stack up against their rivals. The Oilers will play 24/82 games this seasons within the division, meaning there are 48 potential points to be won or lost, not including 3 point games. With the return of the Winnipeg Jets and likelihood of realignment next summer, this may be the last season with the Northwest division as we know it. So here's the breakdown on the five teams in the order they finished last year.

Vancouver Canucks
This summer has been more about subtraction rather than addition for the team that made it to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final this past season. The biggest loss for the Canucks this summer was Christian Ehrhoff to the Buffalo Sabres, which came at the cost of re-signing Kevin Bieksa. A 50 point defenceman is hard to come by in the NHL and the Canucks will have to look within to replace the lost offense. Up front the Canucks also lost Raffi Torres, and while he was streaky offensively, the grit and energy he brought to the lineup will be missed, though retaining the services of Chris Higgins will help.

Up or Down?
Considering this team lead the league last season in Wins, Points, Goals For, Goals Against, Powerplay %, tied for second in Penalty Kill %, and went to the final round of the playoffs, there's really no place to go but down. Given their new reputation as an NHL powerhouse they can expect the oppositions' best effort night in and night out this season. There should be no easy games this year and the Canucks will be hard pressed to repeat their incredible season, especially given their shortened offseason. Finally if Ryan Kesler is not 100% to start the season, that will be another setback the Canucks will have to overcome. Regardless, they should still easily capture the Northwest division and compete for top seed in the West again.

Calgary Flames
The Flames basically decided to stand pat this summer and hope that their veteran core of Jarome Iginla, Alex Tanguay, and Olli Jokinen can lead them back to the playoffs. This Flames did make a major move this offseason in trading away Robyn Regehr, probably much to the delight of Ales Hemsky and Oilers fans. While he didn't contribute a lot offensively, he was a reliable, physical force on the Calgary blue line every night. Replacing him will be Scott Hannan, who Jay Feaster recently signed to a low risk deal of 1 year/$1 million. The blueline will now have to be lead by Jay Bouwmeester and Mark Giordano. Up front, younger forwards like Curtis Glencross and Rene Bourque will provide some depth beyond the big three veterans, but they will need to keep producing as there is not much else behind them.

Up or Down?
While every other team in the Northwest made significant moves to try and get better, the Flames have stood still. Jarome Iginla is coming off another impressive season in which he scored 43-43-86 but at 34 years old those type of seasons will be harder to come by. In net Mikka Kiprusoff is still an elite goaltender but he will need to steal a lot of games if the Flames are going to stay in playoff contention. The Flames fell short last season, and made more subtractions than additions this summer, so they are likely on their way down this year.

Minnesota Wild
The Wild made arguably the biggest moves in the division this offseason by acquiring former 50 goal scorer Dany Heatley and former 30 goal scorer Devin Setoguchi. Moving out in exchange for them was the teams best defenseman Brent Burns and Martin Havlat, who never quite found his offensive stride in Minny. While the roster took a hit on the blue line, they've added to their depth up front by adding two established NHL goal scorers. Although Heatley and Setoguchi haven't scored those career highs in goals again in recent history, the potential for big offense is still there. The Wild also added two first round prospects in the Setoguchi deal, so they have made moves to try and improve their roster for now and for the future. While the Wild will need to look from within their system to replace Burns on the blue line, they still have a rock in net in Niklas Backstrom to rely on.

Up or Down?
The Wild have upgraded a bit this summer. Lack of offense has plagued this franchise for years but with their new forwards and a new coach, they now appear to be moving away from their defense first mentality. Depth of scoring beyond their top line will still be a problem for the team that scored the second fewest goals in the Western conference last year. The upgrade this team made on offense however, came at the expense of defense as the blue line is left quite thin. Niklas Backstrom will need to be very good if the Wild are to move up in the standings this season.

Colorado Avalanche
The Avs made big moves at the trade deadline last season bringing in former first overall pick Erik Johnson and moving out a big scorer in Chris Stewart. To offset the loss the Avs brought in a potential replacement for Stewart at the draft by selecting Gabriel Landeskog, who is expected to make the team this year. The biggest move was trading for Semyon Varlamov and signing JS Giguere for insurance in net. Those two moves represent a big upgrade for the Avs as they suffered through the leagues worst goaltending last season. The team moved offensive defenseman John-Michael Liles but managed to add to their blueline by signing Jan Hejda and Shane O'Brien.

Up or Down?
The Avalanche are clearly on the upswing. Bringing in Semyon Varlamov to be the number one goaltender was a huge move, as the drop off in goaltending was the big difference between the team that made the playoffs in 2010 and the team that missed in 2011. The play of Varlamov will factor in largely to where the Avs finish this season. While it would be unfair to expect a rookie like Landeskog to immediately make an impact this season, he will still fill the power forward role that Stewart previously had and should provide a good two-way game. The Avs are also still very strong down the middle with Matt Duchene one year older and Paul Stastny likely to rebound from a down season. Shipping out Liles was a bold move, but having Johnson for the full season should help with the offense from the back end. This team could make the biggest jump in the standings this season.

Edmonton Oilers
The moves by the Oilers this summer have already been covered extensively around the Oilogosphere so I'll spare you the analysis again. In are Ryan Smyth, Eric Belanger, Ben Eager, Darcy Hordichuk, Cam Barker, Andy Sutton, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Out are Andrew Cogliano, Zack Stortini, Jim Vandermeer, Jason Strudwick, Colin Fraser, and Kurtis Foster.

Up or Down?
The Oilers are definitely on the way up. With the rookies one year better and a number of holes in the roster filled with role players, there should be improvement over the past few seasons. The key issue is still goaltending and team defense, but this team will not be picking first overall again at the 2012 NHL entry draft.

Putting it all together
So how will the Northwest division shape up this season? Given how competitive the Western Conference has become it is still very likely that only one team from the Northwest division will finish in the top 8 again this year. Here's how I see the Northwest finishing:

1. Vancouver Canucks
2. Colorado Avalanche
3. Calgary Flames
4. Edmonton Oilers
5. Minnesota Wild

Care to discuss?

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On Finishing Last in the West

Today The Hockey News began their series of 2011-12 NHL regular season predictions and have selected two Canadian teams to finish last in their respective conferences. In the East the rebuilding Ottawa Senators have drawn the short straw, and in the West they've predicted none other than the Edmonton Oilers to finish 15th for a third consecutive season. This came as perhaps a bit of a surprise considering the rebuild in Edmonton is already entering its third year, and THN is suggesting with their choice that essentially no progress has been made with this franchise.

Here's their reasoning behind not moving the OIL up in the standings just yet:

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was added to the exciting core of youth in Edmonton, but like the Senators, the Oilers still have a couple years of bumps and bruises ahead of them. While the prospects should have fans giddy with excitement, the fact is Edmonton is buried in a deep conference full of Stanley Cup contenders, so expectations have to be tempered. Once their prospects earn some experience, the Oilers will be off and running.

The Western conference has certainly become more and more competitive these past few seasons. Looking at last years standings, the Columbus Blue Jackets finished with nearly a .500 record (34-35-13) and 81 points and still only managed to place 13th. From there however, it was a large drop off in points to 14th with the Colorado Avalanche finishing with 68 points on the year. While the Blue Jackets have definitely improved this off season, the direction the Avalanche are headed this season is not as obvious. Although Semyon Varlamov is an upgrade on Craig Anderson and a full season of Erik Johnson and adding Gabriel Landeskog should yield some positive results.

So if the teams directly above the Oilers have improved, what are their chances of moving up this year? Clearly the Oilers have done some upgrading of their own this offseason, which should bring improvement assuming the injury bug doesn't bite as bad as it has in recent history. But will that improvement be enough to catch the Avs and Blue Jackets? Adding to this debate is the fact that while number of teams in the West did get better this summer, some have also managed to get worse, with the Phoenix Coyotes being the standout. The Coyotes had the 8th best offense in the Western Conference last season scoring a total of 231 goals. However, with the exit of Eric Belanger and Scottie Upshall this summer, the Coyotes lost 35 of those goals, which they will likely be hard pressed to replace. Without the offense those two players brought, the Coyotes would have been only 3 goals better than the Oilers. The biggest departure from the roster though is of course Ilya Bryzgalov. Phoenix won 43 games last year (36 from Bryzgalov) and 20 of those came in 1 goal games. The goaltending of Bryzgalov certainly played a big part in a lot of those victories. Replacing him with the tandem of Mike Smith and Jason Labarbera, who together only have just over 300 games in the NHL, is a downgrade to say the least. If Oilers fans think that entering the season with Khabibulin and Dubnyk is questionable, then consider what Coyotes fans must have on their minds. Dave Tippett will have his work cut out for him this year, and short of a stroke of genius on his part, the Coyotes are poised for a tumble down the standings in 2011-12 and are my early pick to finish 15th in the West.

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On Two Franchises Headed Down the Same Path

In the 1980's, both the Edmonton Oilers and the New York Islanders were on top of the hockey world. Of the 10 Stanley Cups awarded that decade, 8 of them were won by these two teams, forming two of the great dynasties in NHL history. Fast forward to today and these same two teams find themselves in the NHL's basement, with the Oilers and Islanders having missed the playoffs for the last 5 and 4 seasons respectively. Earlier this year, Hockey Night in Canada and the NHLPA conducted an NHL player survey and one question asked was what team would you least like to play on? Perhaps not surprisingly, the overwhealming majority of players answered with the New York Islanders and the Edmonton Oilers, combing for 47% of responses. So just as they were in the 80's, the Oilers and Islanders again find themselves in the same position, only this time rather than hockey supremacy, it's respectability they're after, as they both try to rebuild their franchises and get back to the top.

The Oilers and the Islanders had similar beginnings with both franchises finding success relatively early, winning multiple championships within the first decade of their existence in the NHL. Both teams established themselves as NHL superpowers by building rosters littered with future Hall of Famers, 14 of them to be exact. But over the years as these players moved on, both teams found limited post season success. In the case of the Oilers it was poor drafting and poor development, and for the Islanders it was poor asset management. These factors combined with tight budgets in both cities ultimately landed the Oilers and Islanders in the rebuilding state they find themselves today.

While fans in Edmonton and Long Island have had to endure a number of tough seasons in recent history, they are now beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The Oilers have built up a strong core of young skill over the last few years via the NHL entry draft, and have now begun adding established NHLers to help fill specific roles to support the roster. Meanwhile the Islanders have also built a roster with a number of talented young players, including 2009 1st overall pick John Tavares, recent 30 goals scorers Matt Moulson and Michael Grabner, top-10 draft picks Josh Bailey and Kyle Okposo, and not to mention top prospects such as Nino Niederreiter, Travis Hamonic, Calvin de Haan, and Ryan Strome. While both rosters are still lacking in some areas, the depth on offense is clearly beginning to show. Though they may not be competing head to head for Stanley Cups again in the near future, it is obvious that better days are on the horizon for both clubs. So given their current state of affairs, which team do you think is better poised for success?

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