Good things come to those who wait

 

Hockey technically started Tuesday night, but Thursday is the night that the season started for almost everyone else. Almost everyone else. The Winnipeg Jets and Detroit Red Wings were made to wait until Friday for their first action of the season. Grueling! In other leagues, the last teams to get going are often expected to be near the top of the standings, and their games are showcased. Detroit and Winnipeg were probably just last. 

The Red Wings started their season on Friday night with the Montreal Canadiens. These are certainly Cadillacs of the NHL (to put it in automotive terms), classic teams that have name recognition. They are also not as high quality as they used to be. No real hockey fan will clamor for Red Wings and Canadiens over any other pairing of team, except for the history. The Habs are terrible, and while the Wings are rebuilding, they are certainly not there yet. 

The Jets also drew an Original 6 team, one of the teams you might want to see of that group. Perhaps not on the second half of two nights in a row. The Jets opened with the Rangers, and did so as the 2nd feature of a New York back to back. The Jets won, which is nice, but it wasn't like this was a premier game. The Rangers were already on game three after playing two good teams to start their season, and were operating at a reduced capacity. 

Fans of Winnipeg and Detroit were made to wait longer than any other organization to get their season started, and they ere given a couple of less than premier games. At the very least, let both Detroit and Winnipeg share the excitement of a mutual opening night. Instead, the two squads don't play until January, at which point I'm sure we will have forgotten what the teams have in common.

Aside from a position in the standings outside of the playoffs. I guess that is one thought. Sure, these teams got their season started last, but they will be some of the first teams to start their offseason.

At last, it is hockey season

We made it, everyone. We made it through two pandemic battered seasons, an offseason that saw the demise of the beloved Barry Melrose Rocks brand and headline after headline that exposed the gross underbelly of youth hockey, and even before the season began for everyone, headlines that exposed the grossness of current players. We made it through all that, and this week we will have the most normal seeming season we have had in multiple years. 

It's important to note that we have only made it through the headlines. The reckoning and soul searching will take time, and forgiveness and healing will take longer. Canada seems to be better at coming to grips with it's sordid history of late, and I can only hope that this means an earnest effort to hockey writ large to follow a more generous future for all who encounter the game. 

But along side this area of reformation, we get to enjoy hockey unencumbered by nearly as many world issues. Just think, two years ago, American teams couldn't even play in Canada, let alone in Prague. After the last couple of years with significant structural question marks, we can now ask questions about how the Flames are going to mesh this year, instead of how many Kings can even play the Oilers this weekend. 

I suspect that among the returns to normalcy will be a return to the difficulty in repeating as Cup champions. I would not be surprised to see the Avalanche fall flat this season, not because of a lack of talent but simply because of exhaustion. Similarly the Lightning, who have been diving deep into the postseason with regularity the last several years.

The league seems to be very Eastern Conference heavy going into the year, and picking a winner there will be tricky. I'm going to lean into the Florida Panthers, who made a leap last year, and then spent the entire summer firming up their roster. They are going to be good again in 2022, and if my hunch that the Lightning are going to be flat is correct, they should have an inside track on the Atlantic. I don't trust the 'Canes, Rangers or Maple Leafs, so I guess the Panthers are where it's at for me.

Out West, there simply isn't the high end depth that there is in East. If the Avs are down, as I project, there aren't obvious candidates to take them. The Blues and Wild will be good (though I worry about the Wild and their reliance on youth to surround Kirill Kaprizov) but I don't believe anyone expects deep Cup runs from either. In the Pacific, the class of the conference is in Alberta, with a mish mash of disappointment expected at varying levels elsewhere.

I'm moderately sure that most professional sports are prearranged to encourage better story lines, and if the Panthers are coming from the East, that surely means the Flames will be their opponent. And wouldn't that be something, given the loss of Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk? Panthers in 6.

We have a lot more certainty this season. It is going to happen and be familiar. I will probably be wrong, but only because hockey is hard to predict, Enjoy the games tonight (and through the rest of the season).