I didn't really do much of an NHL Awards prediction post last year mainly because I was somewhat busy that time. This year is a bit different. With the season over, I decided to do a roundtable of sorts about awards predictions. Because it's always an interesting topic, I've invited 4 bloggers to join me in spitballing about the NHL Awards- Laura Astorian from Thrashing the Blues, Matt Bernot from The Checking Line, Corey Sznajder from Shutdown Line and Gray from Couch Tarts. With that being said, who are we picking for the NHL awards? 

The Norris Trophy debate is quite interesting this year because there's quite a few good candidates. Zdeno Chara and Nick Lidstrom are both going to be in the running based off their reputation, while guys like Shea Weber, Alex Pietrangelo and Ryan Suter are drumming up their own hype because of their excellent all around games. The most interesting (and controversial cases) happens to be that of Erik Karlsson- who isn't relying on his all around game but rather his offensive abilities. 

Of course, when we all think about elite offensive defensemen winning the Norris trophy, we always think about Mike Green- amazing with the puck, terrible without it. Which was perhaps the reason why he never won the Norris- because his peers were better in terms of defensive ability (Duncan Keith was 2nd in scoring by a defenseman, but he was actually good at defending). Karlsson's point totals are impressive- he holds a 25 point lead in scoring over the next best defenseman, Zdeno Chara (52 points). He's one of only two defensemen who have a legitimate chance of scoring 20 goals (Jason Garrison isn't scoring 4 goals in 2 games). 

Because Karlsson is good at offense and plays on a bad defensive team, there has been the whole notion that Karlsson can't play defense. He's been one of the better defenders on the Sens. The only defender who I'd say is better on the Senators is his defensive partner, Filip Kuba who, you know... plays with him at even strength- and their numbers are pretty similar (mainly because they play together). In general, the Senators defense isn't very good. 

What I want to know is if Karlsson is as bad as the stereotypical "offensive defenseman"- also known as Mike Green. Is Karlsson as bad defensively as everyone thinks?

Like I said, I haven't been posting stuff on a regular basis because of school and stuff. However, I'm mainly posting this because I just need to notify everyone that the Bloguin servers are going to be migrating, so basically the site will be down for a few days. I have a bunch of thoughts swirling around my head and stuff, and I don't really have much time to post really long thoughts about them, so I might as well post them as a bunch of thoughts.

Phil Kessel

Reading the Toronto Sports Media's thoughts on him are facepalm inducing. He's having a career year and yet somehow, you have guys like Jeff Blair asking him to do more, like not be "milquetoast". The kid can't catch a break. I mean, it's not like there are other players out there who are talented but don't offer much in personality. I'd love to hear what the Toronto Sports Media would have to say about Jonathan Toews if he was a Leaf- it would be much more different than all the compliments he gets for being the clutch leader of the Blackhawks. That and the trade rumors are pretty laughable too. The Leafs have a 23 year old star forward. All they need to do is acquire a goaltender and maybe upgrade their defense- they have a pretty good prospect pool to do that with, so they could do that without having to move their best player. Their goal is to get better, right?

Some more thoughts after the jump

Editor's note: sorry about the lack of posts here- i've been busy with school and i've been sick (i'm currently getting doped up on Anti-biotics right now, YAAAAAY) over the last couple of weeks. So yeah...

Coming into the season, the Capitals were expected to do great things. They spent quite a bit making some significant moves to shore up the team's depth, adding Troy Brower, Joel Ward, Roman Hamrlik, Jeff Halpern and Tomas Vokoun (and re-signing Brooks Laich as well). Basically, the Caps were primed to dominate the regular season and make a splash in the post-season, rather than the whimpers they've recently made. Instead, the Caps have been far from dominant. They've been horrendous. They're currently 3 points out of a playoff spot and 4 points behind the Jets (yes, those Jets) for the division lead. Yes, they do have a chance. However, with the way they've been playing... it doesn't look like they've got much of a chance.

Ville Leino has been the butt-end of every overpaid free agent joke that doesn't involve Scott Gomez. He had one good season and he got $27 million. One reason for this would be that Leino benefitted from lots of offensive zone starts against weak competition. This year it's more of the same, but it's been pretty apparent that he was being carried by his linemates- namely Danny Briere.

That got me to thinking about Leino's former linemate, Scott Hartnell. Last year he played with Briere and Leino and put up some pretty respectable numbers (24 G, 25 A)and did pretty well for himself at even strength. This year, he's playing on a line with Claude Giroux, which is a bit of a 180 from his role last year with the Flyers- less protection and tougher competition on the other team (i.e. tough minute forwards like Patrik Elias and top defensemen like Zdeno Chara vs 3rd liners and bottom pairing D). Hartnell's managed to succed in this role, even improving his scoring rate at evens this year. He's also on pace for career highs in goals, assists, points and falls. And earning every penny of his salary.

As someone who doesn't follow the Flyers that much, I'm not sure whether or not to attribute the improvements to Hartnell playing better this year (he's got a lot of praise for his play) or to playing alongside one of the best players in the league. I just find it interesting that Hartnell was able to transition from protected scorer to top line winger so easily.

Welcome to Hockey Heaven and Hell - a power ranking of NHL hockey teams. Teams will fall into one of three groups of ten - Heaven, Purgatory, or Hell. You’ll find this ranking to be different than most of the other power rankings out there, in that it’s based on where teams are currently projected to finish in overall points at the end of the regular season. Factored into the projections are such stats as goals scored/allowed both home and away, strength of schedule to date, strength of schedule remaining, and quality of recent play.

I'm a bit late to the party on the Scott Arniel firing- i've had absolutely no time to say anything when it happened because of school work. The Jackets have been miserable, yes. Something had to happen. And unfortunately for Scott Arniel, he was the scapegoat in all of this. The problem is firing Arniel isn't the solution here. Arniel did make some questionable decisions- like treating rookies like Ryan Johansen like Veterans and trying to hold them accountable for the team's struggles, rather than holding the underperforming veterans (i.e. Steve Mason) accountable. The Jackets aren't very lucky either- they lost their top Defenseman and Center for significant amounts of time and they've been a good possession team, indicating that they should be better than they are right now.

My problem with the Arniel firing is that he's getting canned for another man's incompetence- Scott Howson's. If anything, Howson should've been fired.

            In a Maple Leafs season that's been plagued by injuries, a call up from the Marlies has seemed like a weekly occurence. So with that the case, what took so long to bring up Nazem Kadri? Speculation has swirled but the real reason came straight from GM Brian Burke, "We want his next call up to be his last." So when the Leafs finally did recall Kadri prior to their December 22nd game vs Buffalo the discussion began as to just what we would see from the London, Ontario native. After all, most players don’t receive the speculation and critical analysis in a full career that Kadri's seen at the age of 21. The moment Nazem Kadri's name left Brian Burke's mouth at the 2009 NHL Entry Draft the second guessing begun. And it hasn’t stopped since. Joining Luke Schenn as the only players taken in the top 10 by Toronto since 1998 there was never any doubt the pressure that would be thrust upon Kadri, but the Leafs top prospect has become somewhat of a polarizing figure in Toronto.

            After putting up 78 points in 56 games with his hometown London Knights of the OHL in 2008-09, Kadri seemed to be a good fit for a Toronto team that was not only in the midst of a rebuild, but also one that struggled mightily putting the puck in the net. The optimism grew when he scored 3 goals and added 2 assists in the following NHL preseason, but was sent back to Junior for another year of conditioning. In that season he put up 93 points in 56 games and added 27 in 12 playoff games. The scoring touch was certainly there, but whether or not he could bring that game to the NHL amidst criticism of his small frame and offensive mindset was the big question mark heading into the 2010-11 season. Things began to spiral downwards for Kadri in that campaign, where after going goalless in 17 games he was sent down to the Marlies just after Christmas. While with the Leafs AHL affiliate he notched 41 points in 44 games but for every person pointing out his nearly point a game pace there were 3 pointing out his lack of defensive awareness and propensity to turn over the puck at the worst possible times. He was recalled in mid-march to play out the remaining 12 games of the Leafs schedule and fared a little better, scoring his first NHL goal, along with two others and finished the year with 3 goals and 9 points with a -3 plus/minus rating. Kadri’s critics suggested he was still much too fragile to play in the NHL and rumours swirled all summer about the youngster being dealt, most notably linking him and Nikolai Kulemin in a deal for Mike Richards that was ultimately beat out by LA’s offer of Brayden Schenn, Wayne Simmonds and a 2^nd round pick. Regardless, Kadri seemed determined to work on his game and arguably more importantly his frame, putting on nearly 20 pounds over the summer and heading into training camp ready for a breakout season in 2011-12.

Okay, so Canada lost last night against the Russians, preventing them from going to the finals in the World Juniors tournament and instead making them go for Bronze. Considering Canada more or less played like Tim Tebow that game (not showing up until the last 15 minutes), there's a good reason that they lost. Some people would just accept the fact that they lost and get over it. Eric Francis on the other hand, seems a bit bitter. Instead of praising Russia's captain Evgeny Kuznetsov for a dominant performance last night, he instead goes on attacking Kuznetsov talking about how he was too pre-occupied with being a one man show and how he's a bad teammate. All in all, the article is incredibly embarassing to read. But what really bugs me is how ambiguous it is. Take out Evgeny Kuznetsov and instead replace it with another team's top player. Take Petr Mrazek, the Czech goalie who was remembered for his enthusiasm as well as his superb play. Instead of focusing on his performance, he'd probably be talking about how classless Mrazek is because he's too busy showboating. Or maybe if Jon Merrill made a difference against the Canadians, talk about how the defenseman will get to underachieve for years alongside Ilya Kovalchuk in New Jersey.

Of course, what really bothers me is what Francis wouldn't have said anything like this if say... Sidney Crosby had done what Kuznetsov did. Would we be hearing about how Crosby's a bad teammate because he wanted to win? Would we be hearing about how he's a punk? No, we'd be hearing about how he had a valiant effort and how he was the decisive factor in the victory. Francis didn't bother to praise Kuznetsov one bit. He keeps glossing over every little action as if it was a dirty play, like Brett Connolly's FALCON PUNCH on a russian defender.

What happened with this article was Francis thought everyone would agree on him because the loss was fresh in everyone's mind and Kuznetsov was the catalyst for it. Unfortunately, everyone was already over the loss and he looked like a butthurt moron.

Seeing as we're ending the year, lets look back at one of the most famous failures in hockey in 2011: Scott Gomez the NHL Guardian Project. Basically, it was expected to be a cool project which involved Marvel Comics and the NHL combining forces to make kids interested in the NHL. Unfortunately, everyone over the age of 14 thought it was incredibly stupid. You had a Canadien who looked like Cobra Commander, a Black Panther wannabe as the Panther and some sap bomb throwing tree dude who was the Maple Leaf.

So what does Marvel comics do to follow this up? Plan something even worse... a Tim Tebow superhero comic.

You know, at times it makes me wonder how Tebow can get a comic yet Ilya Bryzgalov doesn't have his own cartoon. SMH world.