11/12 NW Preview: Vancouver Canucks
Kent Wilson
October 07 2011 05:07PM
10/11 finish: 117 points, First overall
Playoffs: Game 7 heartbreak
Key Players: Sedins X2, Kesler, Malhotra, Hamhuis, Luongo
Additions: Sturm, Weise, Bitz, Ebbett,
Subtractions: Ehrhoff, Glass, Torres
Cap Position: About $1.3 Left
Projected finish: top three in the conference
Last season was a play of three acts for the Canucks. The first act, the regular season, was mostly comedy in which the Canucks ran roughshod over their opponents and their fanbse further cemented themselves the least favored in the league. The second, the playoffs, was more tragedy where despite being heavy favorites the club once again failed to grab the ultimate prize, falling in seven games to the upstart Boston Bruins. And finally, there was the game seven riots; a farce if there ever was one.
Season Preview: Flames Defense Reasonable Expectations
Kent Wilson
October 07 2011 03:44PM
This is the companion piece to my reasonable expectations for Flames forwards. We're talking about point totals here which are even worse at capturing a given players true value when it comes to defenders, but it's an interesting line the sand nonetheless.
I repeated the process I used for the forwards here: averaging each guy's scoring rate at both ES and on the PP from the last three seasons and then making some educated guesses about his ice time and extrapolating from there. Like the previous posts, I assumed about 48 ES minutes per game broken up between the six primary skaters, as well as six minutes on the PP.
State of the Nations - 2011-2012 Season
Kent Wilson
October 07 2011 11:56AM
The new season is finally upon us. The sun rises on 2011-12 and with it a new dawn for the Nations Network. We've added some new sites and new faces this summer and are currently working away in Wanye's secret hide-out on future various plans and schemes. Here's a little of what you can expect from us this season:
Flamesnation 2011-2012 Season Preview Rountable
Kent Wilson
October 07 2011 09:33AM
Old face, new faces, different management, same coach. It's a cross-roads season for the Calgary Flames with the organization wriggling itself clear of Darryl Sutter's long shadow. Jay Feaster pruned two of the more expendable members of the former "core" in Daymond Langkow and Robyn Regehr this summer, but is still apparently set on battling it out amongst the Western Conference's middle class for a post-season berth.
The rebuild, or retool, or whatever you want to call the post-Sutter efforts is likely to be done in degrees rather than a single, purifying conflagration, so the team and we the fans will be caught between worlds this year. Here's how Flamesnation sees things as we head into the unknown:
Nation Network Projected Finishes, 2011-12
Jonathan Willis
October 06 2011 04:28PM
We've gone from one end of the Nation Network to the other, polling writers from Canucks Army on the West Coast to Leafs Nation in the East (readers of the latter site, please feel free to substitute "Universal Center" for "East" in your minds) and everywhere in between.
What we've come back with are the Nations' projected NHL standings for 2011-12.
