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).