'Nucks and Pucks' preseason prediction off to a roaring start

Regular readers, all six of them, will recall that I made three sets of preseason predictions (well, only sort of "preseason" in one case): order of finish in the Eastern and Western Conferences and Conference and Cup Finals/major award winners. So far they are looking as conclusive as Thomas Dewey's victory in the 1948 Presidential election.

The Flyers, my Eastern darlings, are entrenched in 15th spot in the conference - a place in which they clearly feel comfortable after the 06-07 season. The Dallas Stars, my choice not only to win their division but also the Stanley Cup (!), are kicking around at 12th in the conference.

And the Canucks, my heart-not-head favourite to win it all this year? They're a middling 10th in the West.

Fortunately for my ego the Red Wings are in second in the West, while the Canadiens (who I predicted to make it to the Stanley Cup Finals) are tied for second in points in the East.

Things are not much better on the individual awards front. I was apparently prescient to choose Alex from the Capitals to be among the league's best in scoring - too bad I picked Alex Ovechkin and not Alex Semin, as the latter has 2.5 times as many points as the former.

Marty Turco, who I picked to win the Vezina Trophy, is not off to a hot start and was pulled in yesterday's 5-0 loss to the Devils after some fairly brutal goaltending (start watching at 32 seconds for the worst of it):



Other predictions are looking slightly better: Stars rookie Fabian Brunnstrom has four goals in 5 games, a pace which would likely easily secure him the Calder. And Ryan Kesler's solid defensive play and point-per-game average would place the Canucks forward in good standing in Selke Trophy voting - assuming he can overcome the East Coast bias that potentially robbed Evgeni Nabokov of the Vezina Trophy last year.

Ultimately prognostocation is an inexact science - just ask the now-panicking bookies who gave 150:1 odds on the Tampa Devil Rays winning the World Series. But it's still fun both to make the predictions, and to look back and laugh when they're proven horribly incorrect.

So, while there is still a lot of time for my NHL preseason predictions to come true (after all we're not even through the first month of the season), it is still entertaining to assess the non-success of my forecasts thus far. Maybe I should become a weatherman. Or a bookie.