Just like Matt did with the football league, here is my analysis of everyone's teams and where I think they'll finish. Of course I could be completely wrong and you can laugh at me at the end of the year.
Helton Penguins Looks like Helton will be relying more on his defense that his offense. Nathan took the leagues best goaltender in Marty Brodeur and also has a great 2nd goaltender with Henrik Lundqvist. As long as these guys can stay healthy, hell be fine. There was some issues with Lundqvist knees following the NY Rangers playoff run, but they shouldnt be bothering him too much. Brodeurs a bit long in the tooth now but is still considered the leagues best goaltender. Jason Spezza, Martin St. Louis and Daniel Sedin will produce some good numbers, but he might struggle against some of the more high scoring teams.
Southern Pucks Looks to be the favorite for the big offense every week. Matt Got lucky again with the first pick and took goal scoring machine Alex Ovechkin. Combined with Marian Gaborik and Vincent Lecavalier, Hell be tough to beat. His 2 goalies of Cam Ward and Jean-Sebastian Giguere are more than adequate and should provide him some decent defense and wins for the week. Could be considered the favorite for the title again.
Rockwell Storm Devils Drafted Jarome Iginla which some people argue could be the 3rd best player in the league right now. Iginla will be leading the way each week for Jay. He also has Jokininen and Nash which are great secondary players. Evengi Nabokov is a great goaltender to have, he led in most wins last year. Looks like hell have to rely on him every week as his other 2 probably wont amount to all that much.
Marlton Rangers Has a pretty well rounded team with great producers like Pavel Datsyuk, Ryan Getzlf and Dany Heatley. He has goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury who carried the Pittsburgh Penguins all the way up into the Stanley Cup finals last season. Buffalos Ryan Miller is a decent secondary goaltender as well. While Lou probably wont be dominating in one specific category each week, he might have a well balanced team just like his baseball one. Hopefully it wont collapse at the end.
Lefflerfan Drafted the very powerful Evengi Malkin, someone that I was very happy with last year on my team. Malkin is a goal scoring machine, I would rank him right behind Ovechkin. Combined with Daniel Alfredson and Erik Staal, Stephen should be putting up some big numbers each week. His main goaltender is Roberto Luongo. Luongo is very good, even though he started off slow last year. I had him on my team and I wanted to drop him in the first month or two, but he got very strong as the season rolled on. Hopefully he can remain as strong otherwise he might be looking to make some changes in that department.
N. Dakota Warriors A rookie to the whole NHL scene, should be interesting to watch. Wendal picked up Sidney Crosby, the kid phenom. Crosby was injured for about half of last season. This could be the year when Crosby really breaks out and puts up some monster numbers. If that happens, should be an interesting race between Crosby, his teammate Malkin and Ovechkin. Hopefully Crosby stay healthy for Wendal, because other than possibly Thomas Vanek, I dont see any other huge goal scorers. It does help that he has the best defensive man with Nicklas Lidstrom. Listrom should provide plenty of assists. Hes a bit weak in the goaltending department, relying on Carey Price from Montreal.
JT_Habs4Cup Henrik Zetterberg and Marian Hossa will be the main guys on Jessys team. Both are elite goal scorers out there and should provide some nice numbers. Also, an interesting pickup by JT late in the draft, that I missed was Teemu Selanne. Selanne returns to the NHL this season, signing back with Anaheim. If Selanne can put up the kinds of numbers that we are used to, these three guys will provide Jessy with some big time offense. Chris Osgood and Marty Turco are 2 goaltenders to have. If anyone is going to beat Southern Pucks, this could be the team.
Black+Gold Yatesfan Marty missed the draft, but ended up with some decent players. Thornton and Kovalchuk will be his go-to guys for the offense and has some good defensive players in Chara and Niedermayer. Mike Richards will also give him some good numbers as well. Richards was on my team last season which I benefited from. His main goaltender is Miikka Kiprusoff which hell need to carry the load since DiPietro is coming back from injury and will probably be very rusty. Theodore, while ok, isnt the same he used to be years ago.
Thanks for the feedback Lou. I have no clue about hockey so I'd be happy with 4th place! Maybe doing a competitive league like this will get me more interested in the sport.
As a Canadian, I have always been a fan of hockey. I'm watching this sport since several years and I hope my knowledge about the sport and the players will benefit me. I was drafting 7th so I didn't have the chance to draft Ovechkin or Crosby but I think Detroit are going to be stronger than last year so Hossa and Zetterberg will bring me precious points.
