WESTERN CONFERENCE

Detroit (1) vs. Dallas (5)

Skaters:

We are really well-informed about this series. What can we say? We're bloggers. That makes us experts. We've been paying very close attention to the Stars in the early rounds of the playoffs, and have watched a grand total of maybe 40 minutes of all the Red Wings games so far. But they were a very convincing 40 minutes. If the Stars decide to look at all like the Avalanche did in Game 4 of the second round, it's going to be a quick and bleak series for them. Apparently, when their opponent is utterly incompetent at the sport of hockey, the Red Wings are really good. But are they as good when their opponent is, like the Stars, not utterly incompetent? Probably. But don't go trying to burst our bubble of newfound Stars fandom. We love how confident both of these teams look, and the fact is that while we know a lot of the names of the players on both rosters, we wouldn't be able to pick more than three guys from either team out of a police lineup. Advantage: Red Wings

Goaltending:

This is a head-to-head battle between two guys who've long struggled with a terribly unfair, burdensome label -- no, we're not talking about the whole "playoff choker" or "underrated" thing, we're talking about us thinking they're douches. As it turns out, we were just projecting our dislike of their teams, when in reality, they're both adorable in their own unique ways. First up, there's Marty Turco, who won us over completely with his charming mic'd up turn during last year's All-Star Game. Who knew he could be so personable? And he blazed a trail by doing in-game play-by-play that made the way for Manny Legace's star-making hilariousness during this season's ASG, and Pretty Ricky's magnificent slip-up when he declared over an open mic that he'd just "fucked up" his hip during the Superskills. On the other side of the coin is Chris Osgood, who, for some inexplicable reason, has prompted us for years to shout, "Yo yo yo! Ozzie in da house!" every time we see him on TV. Seriously, we have no idea why we do this. But look at this picture! He's too cute for words! Advantage: Push, unless Hasek gets back in net. Then decided advantage Stars

Coaching:

This one's a no-brainer. Dave Tippet is freakin' adorable. Bored during the lock-out he took up motorcycle building to pass the time! Following the 8th longest game in NHL history he wrote on the dressing room white-board that every player had given "195%"! We're fairly certain he spends his weekends volunteering at the animal shelter, delivering food to shut-ins, and planting flowers in downtrodden neighborhoods. Mike Babcock, on the other hand, is a monster. He once said IPB's beloved Mike Commodore "never should have been drafted". He held hockey fans everywhere hostage in 2003 with his overuse of the word "greasy". We'd be surprised if he doesn't spend his weekends releasing kittens into the wild to repopulate feral cat colonies, boxing in Meals on Wheels trucks, and planting invasive weeds on every corner. Advantage: Stars

Uniforms:

As Devils fans we have to salute the Red Wings for making as few changes to their uniform as was possible for this season of the Sexy Slimfit Look. The winged wheel is hands-down one of the greatest logos in all of sports, maybe even of all logo-dom. That logo alone more than makes up for the fact that the Wings wear red pants, which is almost always a terrible idea. The Stars, meanwhile, took the makeover opportunity and ran with it, completely revamping their look. Since the previous look included the mooterus and those dopey star ponchos, it should leave us without complaint. But... We're just not sure about the "Dallas" baseball-style design. It's a little too sparse for us. We're not "sparse" people. Advantage: Red Wings

Mascots:

While both teams' media guides might tell you they don't actually have mascots, that's a load of bunk. The only reason the Stars don't have an official mascot is because they promoted him to co-GM after firing Doug Armstrong. And we're not talking about Les Jackson! ZING! Meanwhile, Detroit acts like they're all "too Original Six" for a mascot, but if Toronto, Montreal, Boston and Chicago can have them, then really all you're doing by refusing to have a giant plush dude wearing team colors and running around your arena is aligning yourself with the Rangers. The Wings seem to be hedging their bets by having that insipid purple polystyrene octopus that descends from the rafters, a half-measure that fails worse than not trying at all. So the tale of the tape for the mascots in this series come down to the unofficial mascots Brett Hull and Octopussy -- Advantage: Stars

Players We Love, In Spite Of Ourselves:

Remember how we mentioned earlier that we don't really know anything about these teams? Yeah. That means we don't know which guys we shouldn't like. There's really no "in spite of ourselves" when we say we've fallen in playoff love with Brenden Morrow, is there? Schnookie has strangely set her playoff goggles on Tomas Holmstrom, but really, that's not really very "in spite of ourselves" either. We're not sure if the problem is us, or if it's that neither one of these teams is particularly ugsome if you don't play in the Western Conference. Advantage: Push

Players Who Annoy The Living Crap Out Of Us:

Relevance is no issue here, as in one corner we have Darren McCarty, washed-up ex-grinder, and in the other we have Willa Ford, who we think was on some network reality show we don't watch (if it ain't ANTM, it's a waste of airtime). Darren McCarty was the cherry on the sundae of the Wings-'Lanche Turn The Clock Back To 1996 fiasco this post-season. '96 was the first playoffs we watched as truly crazed hockey fans, but even then, when we were jumping on any and every bandwagon we could, we hated McCarty. Willa Ford reminds us why we're glad we don't care about celebrity gossip anymore. Advantage: Stars

Playoff History Against New Jersey:

Mwa-ha-ha-ha! Advantage: Push

City Claims To Fame:

In 2003 we packed up trusty Pando the Prius and headed out from Arizona to New Jersey. The best part of the drive, by far, went through North Texas. North Texas? Is stunningly beautiful. (The 80 mph speed limit is also beautiful.) The worst part of the drive, by far, went through Dallas. Our driving directions from AAA involved merging into the far left lane of an 8,000-lane highway and then taking an off-ramp on the right-hand side of the highway 10 feet later. We still have the white knuckles to show for it. After a long day of being in the car and after braving and barely surviving the famous Death Merge, we arrived at our hotel, desperate for room service. Gentle Reader, there was no room service. We dragged our sorry asses to the front desk and begged for directions to the foodstuffs that would require the least amount of driving on our parts. The concierge directed us to the one place that didn't require getting back on the highway -- some chain restaurant industrial park. Whatevs, said we, as long as there's no death merge. In place of a death merge we got a series of shadowier and shadowier back service roads littered with billboards for strip clubs and gun shows. Now when we think of Dallas we think of the Famed Stripper-Gun-Show District. Good times, good times. The only time we've been to Detroit, we sat on the tarmac at the Detroit airport in a non-deplaning layover while waiting to fly to Vancouver for the '98 All-Star Game. Advantage: Detroit

Conclusion:

This one's almost too close to call, Gentle Reader. At first glance, it looks like a 3-3 tie, but if Hasek gets in net, the Stars eke out the win in the Tale of the Tape.

SCHNOOKIE: You'll be happy to know, by the way, that we are being inundated by searches for Staffy and Crunchy and what instruments they play. It seems the entire hockey blogosphere is super-excited for the New Year's Eve Gala and their mad musical skillz.

KATEBITS: I know! It's so hilarious how people are clamoring for information about this concert! For some reason I'm envisioning Crunchy and Staffy playing various percussion instruments. Can't you see Crunchy earnestly holding a triangle, waiting for his cue? And Staffy, looking impish and naughty poised over a bass drum?

SCHNOOKIE: Crunchy would so be the world's most earnest and serious guest triangle player. He's probably practicing as we speak, in his dank, windowless room. Staffy can't wait to stomp that big drum.

POOKIE: Au contraire, Staffy can't wait to stomp that harp.

KATEBITS: One of my weirdest on-stage daydreams has always been imagining myself standing up during a particularly boring/stifling slow concert and flipping over a marimba. Or even better, pushing the grand piano off the edge of the stage. I've never thought too much about the harp as a good target for concert-ending disruption. Staffy is so smart! Attacking a harp would be very dramamtic.

SCHNOOKIE: I will not be satisfied unless Staffy destroys all three instruments. First the grand piano over the edge of the stage, for maximum drama and racket. Then, in the stunned silence, the marimba. And, in the midst of the tinkling of the marimba pieces skittering across the stage, he'll shout "Staffy stomp harp!" and then follow through. It's going to be awesome. And once the cacophony of breaking instruments falls silent, and the audience is still in a stunned, motionless haze, Crunchy will very earnestly hit his cue and DING! his triangle.

Well, let it be stated for the record, we are not satisfied. None of these things happened. Staffy and Crunchy, you've let us down. Next time, gentlemen, we expect better.

GOD: Brent Sutter
From what everyone has been saying about him since his hiring was announced, we fully expect Coach Sutter to be able to walk on water. And the way everyone seems to think that he's someday going to be our new Lou, he damn well better walk on water. Of course, the way the coaching situation has gone for our boys since the lockout ended is reminiscent of "The Lord Of The Flies", only the kinds of players Lou has on the roster means they don't become a group of savages when they find themselves without a strong authority figure, but rather unleash a lethal passive-aggressiveness that drives good men to the brink of insanity. Sutter is talking a big talk that he's not going to stand for more of that craziness, and this preseason he's shown that he's inclined to back it up. Stripping Patty Elias of his C? Instituting an aggressive forecheck? Refusing to obsessively match lines? Breaking up Pando and Madden? He means business! We've spent the last few Springs watching the Devils fade out with a whimper in the postseason thanks to a stubborn insistence on being a passive, reacting team. Sutter seems to be the guy who's going to take us back to the glory days in 2000 and 2001 when the Devils swaggered around the ice, setting the pace and dictating tone. We're going to go out on a limb and say that we are not going to see a third Spring with Lou behind our bench.

MONSTER: Scott Gomez's Legacy
For some strange reason, people across the MSM and hockey blogosphere reacted to Gomer's departure as if he had been powering the Devils to 500-goal seasons or something. We get where they're coming from when we watch the way the team stood around last year every time he had the puck and just gawked while waiting for him to beat all five defenders by his lonesome, but how was that an effective offensive tool? Don't get us wrong -- Scott Gomez is a fantastic hockey player, and he's had some years where he was a great fit in the Devils' offense. But with Elias, Gionta, Zajac and Parise all under contract for the next few years, he really wasn't going to be that good a fit anymore. His success on the EGG line in '05-'06 was a symptom of having half a year of skating basically just with a sniper (Gio) before Patty came back from the Hep, desperate to fit an entire contract year into just a few months. Last year was a more telling demonstration of why a puck-possession center is really not a good fit for a puck-possession winger, and we are fully confident that Elias is going to do his damnedest to show the world exactly how much better he can be than when he's sitting around waiting for Gomer to decide to pass to him.

GOD: Patrik Elias
Okay, so last year was a disaster for Patty. But now that he's out from under the weight of that onerous "C", and he's no longer on what we're convinced was a secret Gomer-killing mission, we fully expect a return to form. And by "form" we mean "worth the ginormous contract he signed two years ago". When things are going right with Patty he is one of the top players in the league, and things were never righter with him than back in 2000-2001 when he was skating on a line with a slick, scoring winger and a giant, banging, low-scoring center. Call us hopelessly optimistic, but that kind of sounds like what he's going to be doing this season. No, we're not predicting a second coming of the A Line, but we are pretty sure we can expect good things from a Patty who gets the puck more, and whose coach is demanding an uptempo, cycling forecheck.

MONSTER: Loving Pando
We spent the entirety of the Devils' short playoffs last year banging our heads against the wall as the coaching staff abjectly refused to recognize that the Madden-Pando checking unit was getting its collective ass handed to it. Then along comes this preseason, with Sutter announcing that he doesn't believe in line-matching, and then doing the unthinkable -- breaking up the seven-year partners. Suddenly we wished we could take back our cries of, "Dear lord, make it stop!" from after each shift of watching Pando and Madden get skated into the ice by Tampa's and Ottawa's top lines. We didn't actually mean it, did we? The lesson in this, Gentle Reader, is to be careful what you wish for. Because now we've got Madden winging on the third line, and Pando shunted to the fourth... and off the penalty kill. He was a finalist for the Selke last year! He's Schnookie's favoritest player! We want him to be captain! But we guess Sutter doesn't read IPB, because he's clearly not in agreement with us.

GOD: Andy Greene
No, we don't expect Andy Greene to go to the All-Star Game this season. But you know what? He's nearly ten years younger than Brian Rafalski and costs ten times less. And he's just as good at turning the puck over, scrambling out of position, and being undersized. He also proved in the playoffs last year that he can skate solid minutes and has a nasty, sneaky shot from the point on the PP. What's not to love? Furthermore, he's not going to be a $35 gazillion cap hit when he's 150 years old like a certain former Devils 28 is going to be for the Red Wings.

MONSTER: The Schedule
The Devils start the season with a 9-game road trip. And they get to spend the rest of the season in this godawful unbalanced schedule playing in the "mine's bigger than yours is" Atlantic Division. We saw our division rivals all load up this offseason, and whether their roster moves are really going to make any of them significantly better is beside the point. The point is that things are just nasty now in the Atlantic. There are no easy nights because everyone just utterly hates each other. 32 games against the Flyers, Rangers, Penguins and Islanders is not a good thing.

GOD: Paul Martin
Fans expecting Paulie to rack up the points will find his season more monster than god, but those of us expecting the quiet confidence of a solid defenseman finally carving out his place in the game will find his season just right. Regardless of Martin's pedigree coming into the league, it was never fair to expect Niedermayer's offensive numbers from him. At the start of last season we were beginning to wonder if we couldn't expect Neider's D, either. Paulie ran into some plus/minus troubles early on and needed months to get back on track. That said, from January on, it became very clear that he figured out how to put the pieces together. By the time the playoffs started we were seeing a player ready to be the number one -- a player oozing confidence in his ability to shut down opponents, supporting his offensive teammates, and communicating perfectly with his goaltender. Marty seems to play differently when he's got defensemen he knows he can trust in front of him, and Paulie's clearly earned that trust. Even with his increased time on the power play, we're not chalking Pauile up for more than 50 points, but based on the pre-season games we've seen, the old Devils system of sticking to a quadrant (i.e. you could practically see the electrical collars sparking whenever a d-man skating past the face-off dots in the offensive zone) has been disregarded, so maybe we'll be proven wrong.

MONSTER: Groins, Eyes and Other Injurable Body Parts
For many, many seasons the Devils managed to avoid the significant injury bug. We snickered at teams like Washington and Philly when they'd rack up the Man Games Lost to Injury in what seemed to be the quadruple digits, but now it seems the tables have turned. The puck wasn't even dropped on the season before we lost stalwart defenseman Colin White to a freak eye injury and Jamie Langenbrunner to a lingering sports hernia (we don't believe losing Cam Janssen to a shoulder injury is really something to lose sleep over). With players skipping practice left and right with "tight groins" and "sore groins" and "overall groinal unhappiness", we can't be blamed for starting to worry. Lou's gone on the record previously saying he prefers not to practice his players much for fear of injury. We can't help but think that Sutter disagrees with this policy. Will Sutter's Reign of Toughness take its toll? Will the freak injury bug continue its swath of destruction through the Devils dressing room? Will Brian Gionta "pull his groin" while falling awkwardly arm/wrist/shoulder-first into the boards again this season? Only time will tell, but from where we're sitting, the spectre of the team's health is looking pretty monstrous.

GOD: Zach Parise
The only thing monstrous about this player is his work ethic! Thank you, we'll be here all season! Seriously, there is no reason to expect Parise to do anything but build on his star-making series against Tampa, particularly if the lines stay as they currently are set -- there's a lot of punky nose-for-the-net, hard-working mojo on a Parise/Zajac/Gionta line and we're looking forward to seeing Sutter winding 'em up and letting 'em go. That said, we have a lot of faith in all six of our top fowards (well, five if we take into account Langer's trick groin) that if the lines get shuffled, there won't be the whining and feet-dragging we've seen in the past. Not with a guy like Parise trying to prove he's future-captain material!

MONSTER: Kowtowing to Any Perceptions that the Team was Weak by Responding with an Increased Inclination to Fight Needless, Momentum-Killing Fights
Hm, that sort of says it all, doesn't it? While the team was undoubtedly pushed around last season, seeing the first pre-season game marred by a steady stream of losing fist-fights made us wonder what the point of being tougher is if all you do is stop the game to see a scrub like Janssen get pummeled. We'd rather see the team respond by putting Clarkson out to crash the net instead of wasting ice time on an ineffectual enforcer like Janssen.

GOD? MONSTER? WE DAREN'T BREATHE A WORD!: Goaltending
We refuse to tempt the hockey gods by saying anything that might adversely affect what has been, for the last 15 years, the key to the Devils success. We just want to send a solemn, sincere wish into the hockey ether that we get more of the same from Marty.

In summation, we think this is a team that is going to be a lot stronger as the season wears on (barring those injurable body parts getting injured, of course) than they might be at the outset. They've got a new system, new coach, some new key players, and will be in a new building. But they built some momentum as the preseason games wore on, and we're reasonably confident that they're not going to stumble right out of the gate. The blueline looks soft on paper, but it was a D-by-committee last year, too, and while there aren't a ton of big names back there for us, there is a collection of at least competent players. The absence of Langenbrunner is clearly not something to be thrilled about, but looking on the bright side, it gives some kids a chance to prove themselves. The Devils might not be an obvious powerhouse, but we don't think they've plummeted onto hard times. It is, instead, a new age of gods and monsters!

show me the fever
into the fire
taking it higher and higher
nothing to fear
it's only desire
taking you higher an higher
be a believer
a spirit igniter
taking it higher and higher
ending is near
the future is brighter
taking you higher and higher
-Higher and Higher, Craig Wedren

In sports movies, generally all the hapless, hard-luck team needs to get itself in order is a good training montage. "Higher and Higher" is the greatest training-montage song ever, but you know what? Even the luck of the draw-from-the-hat giving them this gift of a montage song isn't going to be enough for the Panthers. This team is a mess. Dare we say even a wet, hot mess? SuperCoop isn't walking through that door!

14. Boston

Chiquitita, you and I know
How the heartaches come and they go and the scars theyre leaving
Youll be dancing once again and the pain will end
You will have no time for grieving
Chiquitita, you and I cry
But the sun is still in the sky and shining above you
Let me hear you sing once more like you did before
Sing a new song, chiquitita
Try once more like you did before
Sing a new song, chiquitita
-Chiquitita, ABBA

While our iPods might be filled with Mark Kozelek, Low and Sufjan Stevens, we'll admit we cannot fathom the musical universe without ABBA. They might not have the subtlety, the complexity or the sincerity we're usually looking for, but they have a certain je ne sais quoi we can't resist. They're a little -- no, a lot -- too perky, bouncy and boisterous for their own good, but who doesn't love kicking off a roadtrip with a lusty ABBA sign-along? Similarly, while we might find New York City, Paris and London to be the finest cities in the world, we can't imagine a world without Boston. Boston sports fans might be the worst in all the land, being a lot too egotistical, self-serving and smug, but the sports scene needs them. And we can't have them if they don't have a team. That said, the B's are barely clinging to "team" status. We can only assume that bringing Claude "Please Don't Shoot Pucks at Me or Else I'll be Forced to Stand Here and Pretend I Didn't Notice" Julien isn't going to do much to help the disaster that is that line-up become any more prepared to play against NHL opponents. We might go so far as to suggest that Boston be relegated to the A, but ever since Uni Watch pointed out that the spokes on the Pawtucket sweaters don't line up from the top to the bottom, we try to think about the Boston AHL affiliate as infrequently as possible.

13. New York Islanders

That's amore
When you dance down the street with a cloud at your feet
You're in love
When you walk down in a dream but you know you're not
Dreaming signore
Scuzza me, but you see, back in old Napoli
That's amore
-That's Amore, Dean Martin

We have to admit, when we thought of using "That's Amore" for our song lyrics, we immediately knew it had to go with the Islanders as a shout-out to Margee. For starters, there's her admirable dedication to anti-defamation of Italian-Americans -- a cause well worth celebrating here -- and then there's her favorite goalie, a guy whose name we've learned from SportSquee is Italian for "apocalypse of handsome". Of course, Pretty Ricky might be some girls' cups of tea, but he doesn't do much for us here. Nor does the rest of the Islanders' lineup. Seriously, Butthead Guerin is going to be their captain. And sure, their dressing room is lighter one Yashin-shaped vortex of suck, and they've rid themselves (through no action on their own part) or the bad karma that is sure to be following Ryan Smyth wherever he goes, but there's only so much good that can be done by addition by subtraction. They're not going to be necessarily an easy team to play this year, but that doesn't mean they're going to be good.

12. Washington

Jellicle cats meet once a year
At the jellicle ball where we all rejoice
And the jellicle leader will soon appear
And make what is known as the jellicle choice
- Invitation To the Jellicle Ball, Andrew Lloyd Webber

At the outset of this preseason we joined a group of HLOGers for a little jellicle ball of our own (if you will) at Caps camp. And while we were there we did like Old Deuteronomy in "Cats" and picked one of the kitties on the ice to be the one who will go up to kitty heaven before this season is over. That kitty? Is Olaf Kolzig. There we were one morning in practice, more than a little bit hungover and totally distracted by Alex Ovechkin's father sitting in front of us, and even in that state we couldn't help but wonder aloud, "Is Kolzig always that slow?" The answer, Gentle Reader, is "yes". Now here's the thing: we think the Caps are definitely moving in the right direction. After several brutal years of directionless sucktitude they're finally getting some of the pieces a team needs to be respectable, and we think Washington fans have every reason to be optimistic. But sadly, we also think they have a lot of reasons to be sad that the single most important person on the team is just a shadow of his former self. Ovechkin and Semin might be the superstars of tomorrow, but this team lives and dies today with Kolzig. And Kolzig is creaky enough that even the disinterested observer has no choice but to proclaim, "Really? Her?"

11. Montreal

Nothing happened here.
I am hiding in a tree.
I'm a fragment of the day.
If I weren't, who's to say
-Someone in a Tree, Stephen Sondheim

We both always wished climbing trees was fun. We had a delightfully climbable dogwood in the front yard of the stately childhood IPB Manor out on Long Island. But the fact of the matter is climbing trees is boring and leaves your palms dirty and blistered. Plus, if you're a weenie, there's a constant fear of falling and becoming badly hurt. The concept of having a Montreal Canadiens franchise that's winning regularly and returning the glory days is a great one, but right now, rather than warranting dreams of perching in leafy canopies and using a bird's-eye view to gaze over your surroundings, the Habs seem to be a lot of trouble for little reward. Sheldon Souray may have been maligned in yesterday's Western Conference preview, but a quick perusal of their defense shows they didn't do themselves any favors by losing him.

10. Toronto

Li li li
Li li li li li li
Li li li
Li li li li li li li li
Li li-li li li li
-The Boxer, Simon & Garfunkel

Dude, what is there even to say about the Maple Leafs? An endless loop of nonsense syllables is really apt for a franchise that puts so little stock in actually winning. They continue to suck, their fans continue to not seem to understand why they suck ("It's all Mats Sundin's fault!"), and the people in the Silver Seats don't care what happens on the ice as long as they can shell out hundreds of dollars a night to not be in their seats during gameplay. We can't say we paid a huge amount of attention to their offseason moves -- it seems to us they shored up their goaltending (although some might say they are as bad as Philly at turning otherwise perfectly decent goalies into quivering piles of jelly), but they also got Mark Bell, for whatever that's worth -- but frankly, there's nothing about this team right now that really warrants paying attention. They missed the playoffs last year by one point and the whim of Lou Lamoriello, but this year it's not even going to be that close.

9. Tampa Bay
The ocean shook
The sky went black
And the captain quailed

[instrumental noise]
oh ohhhhhhhhhh
[screaming]
ohhhhh
[screaming]
-The Mariner's Revenge, The Decemberists

Awww... whales. We miss the Whalers. And we suspect the Lightning will miss them this Spring, too, when the former Whalers eke out the 8-seed and leave Tampa on the outside looking in. There will be instrumental noise! There will be screaming! There will be ohhhhhhing! But there won't be an entire NHL lineup, because as far as we can tell the Lightning still pretty much have Vinny Lecavalier, Marty St. Louis, Brad Richards and... nothing else. Their goaltending was so wretched last year that the Devils were able to outscore them in the playoffs -- and all while Marty Brodeur was putting up a .750 save percentage at the other end of the ice. That is not a formula for success. Furthermore, the bloom seems to be off the rose with coach John Tortorella; after long years of the players grinning and bearing it from their mercurial coach (and winning a Cup in the doing, to be fair), lately there's been a lot more public grumbling about him. The lifespan on hard-ass coaches is way shorter on average than the zillion years Torts has been behind the Tampa bench, and while it might be the Devils fans in us saying his most effectual years might be behind him, we stand by that belief. Instrumental noise, screaming and ohhhhhh! indeed.

8. Carolina

Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring
Banana phone
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring
Banana phone

I've got this feeling
so appealing
for us to get together and sing - SING!
-Banana Phone, Raffi

When we think Carolina we think Cam Ward. When we think Cam Ward we think bananas and telephones. No, wait, we're sorry, we think puppy-mill puppies and crappy goaltenders. After Nickelback proved to not inspire Ward to greatness, we're positing that Raffi's banana-phone would make excellent mask decoration. If nothing else, it would give the Canes something to giggle over when they're all standing around looking at the countless pucks that have gotten past their erstwhile flash-in-the-pan. There is no doubt that Eric Staal, Justin Williams, Erik Cole and Ray Whitney will rebound from lackluster offensive seasons, but there's only so much IPB's Official Favorite Ex-Devil Mike Commodore can do to cover the other side of the puck. While many problems still remain unaddressed from last season, based on previous savvy trade deadline deals, we're not going to count out a last-minute ekeing into the 8th spot for Carolina. Then again, pushing the panic button on JMFJ last season suggests that maybe Rutherford doesn't deserve any of our Pollyanna-ism.

7.Philadelphia
Under the sea
Under the sea
When the sardine
Begin the beguine
It's music to me
What do they got? A lot of sand
We got a hot crustacean band
Each little clam here
know how to jam here
Under the sea
-Under the Sea, The Little Mermaid

Oh, we could go on and on here with shipwreck metaphors to describe the Flyers' season last year, but they've heard it all already, and there's no way that wasn't just a fluke. They've jettisoned the ballast that was Peter Forsberg, rid themselves of the crazy-man anchor that was Bobby Clarke, and made a bunch of savvy moves to improve their lineup. When we found ourselves watching them twice this preseason we remarked with no small wonder that there are an abundance of players we don't hate on their roster. (Sure, they also still have that "We love those Downie-type hits!" mentality going on there, so don't think we're going soft on them or anything...) Of course, we still don't think they're the be-all, end-all. Come on -- does anyone think Briere at $8 gazillion a year for the next 400 years is going to work out for them? That player? With those fans? No, he's not going to be a rancid bust, but he's not that big a difference maker (pun totally intended. We crack ourselves up!). And more significantly, there is the perpetual Flyers bugaboo: goaltending. We can't help but giggle a bit every time we hear people talk about how Marty Biron is just the Number One guy they've been searching for all these years; really?? Are we talking about the same Marty Biron? He seems like a great guy, and he's certainly better than just being a backup, but think about it, Gentle Reader. It took Crunchy eons to get himself into a semblance of NHL-caliber mental health. If Biron was really such a capable starter, wouldn't the Sabres have given up on Mr. Cuckoo Clock and his cranky-pants ways years ago? Any guy who can lose his job in the face Crunchy's glacially-paced career sanity-development plan is not the Number One Philly has been searching for all these years.

6. Ottawa

In my old leather breeches and my shaggy, shaggy locks
I am walking in the glory of the light, said Fox.
-Walk In The Light, traditional Quaker hymn

This random song assignment must be the Hockey Gods' way of reminding us that although we talk a big game, we do not actually want to see bodily harm done to Chris Neil and Ray Emery, two people who surely have a tiny speck of inner light somewhere inside them. Spezza, though, seems to be overwhelmed by his inner ego, spending all summer predicting himself as the number one threat to make His Sidness irrelevant in the New NHL. There is no way the Hockey Gods let that go unpunished. This team may have made the Finals last year, but the bad-scene vibes can be felt already. The impending UFA contracts are already off to a rocky start, the coaching/management changes are puzzling, and Emery's mental and physical health are constant question marks (not to mention the Curse of Beating Brodeur that he's going to be laboring under this season). This is a team that's spent the last 10 years responding poorly to pressure -- adding these kinds of distractions is not going to help.

5. New Jersey

We are the music makers
We are the dreamers of dreams
-We Are The Music Makers, Aphex Twin

Tune in tomorrow for a full preview of this fine, fine team.

4.Pittsburgh

(Wake me up)
Wake me up inside
(I can’t wake up)
Wake me up inside
(Save me)
call my name and save me from the dark
(Wake me up)
bid my blood to run
(I can’t wake up)
before I come undone
(Save me)
save me from the nothing I’ve become
-Wake Me Up Inside, Evanescence

Rad! Evanescence! What's an NHL preview without this cool-assed band? Or, um, something. We've gone on at length here about how Sid totally saved us, like, from the nothing we'd become (deep!) so maybe this is appropriate that way? Or maybe it's because he saved the Penguins in general from their own nothingness. Or maybe this is a band he might have heard of. Regardless, the Pens didn't go after the big, stupid free agents this summer, instead picking up some spare parts (and a chinchilla) that will actually address some of the problems they had last year. That is a shocking approach, considering how everyone is heaping praise on teams who went out and shored up already potent offenses and whatnot while ignoring problems on their own side of the puck. But one summer's worth of free agency odds-and-ends is not, contrary to what some pundits are predicting, enough to make this team into the undisputed heavyweight of the East. Sure, the kids all have one more year of experience under their belts. Sure, they've got some more depth on the wings. Sure, Sid seems to have no ceiling on what he's capable of doing. But they still have a rag-tag blueline, they're expecting Jordan Staal to replicate a "where the hell did that come from?" statistical year, and they've still got Fleury in goal. Those are big enough question marks to make us doubt they'll win their division.

3.Atlanta

One two three
Four five six
Seven eight nine
Ten eleven twelve
And they chatted away
At the ladybugs' picnic

They talked about the high price of furniture and rugs
And fire insurance for ladybugs
The ladybugs 12
At the ladybugs' picnic
12!
-Ladybugs' Picnic, Don Hadley

Would anyone like to discuss the high price of furniture and rugs rather than talk about Atlanta? Because we sure would! Okay, okay, we'll talk Atlanta. Let's see, their playoff run made the Rangers look good, and that's bad. Also bad? Their division. So look to them to get a top seed going into the playoffs despite having Bobby Holik on payroll. So... um... really, have you seen how much furniture and rugs are going for these days?! (One final note; this gives us the first of what will surely be a handful of opportunities to invoke our favorite Official IPB "L.A. Confidential" reference -- "Oh, and Exelby? Lose the glasses.")

2. Buffalo

Non, Rien De Rien, Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien
Ni Le Bien Qu`on M`a Fait, Ni Le Mal
Tout Ca M`est Bien Egal
Non, Rien De Rien, Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien
Car Ma Vie, Car Me Joies
Aujourd`hui Ca Commence Avec Toi
-Je Ne Regrette Rien, Edith Piaf

Here at IPB we've spent months and months making our stance on the Sabres crystal clear -- management and fans will not regret seeing the Slag-Faced Whores Drury and Briere moving on to richer pastures. Unlike many teams in this post and the last, (Atlanta, St. Louis, etc.) we actually have a pretty good bead on the tenor of the team. Yes, losing Breire's huge point total hurts, but there's a reason Kevin Lowe went after Vanek the way he did. Oh wait, there are two reasons Lowe went after Vanek, but the fact that Lowe's a nutjob doesn't help our case here -- the fact that Vanek has the potential to make Briere look like a pile of puke is what helps our case here. Those worried that Vanek can't handle being paid as much as he is need look no further than Pomminville and Afinegenov to remember that Vanek isn't taking on the Northeast Division by himself. Moreover, the Sabres have been building up a stockpile of talented players, building a line-up with at least 3 solid lines of young but proven players who can play up-tempo, exciting hockey. Will the fans get a chance to chant "we want 10" as often this season? Probably not, but they're won't be whining "we just want one measly goal" either. As for losing Drury, we say pish-tosh. Drury is undoubtedly a great leader, but the point of having a Drury around your team for a few years is to teach your young players how to lead themselves, not to rely on him in a Mark Messier-esque "take us to the promised land, O Great Leader, as we have no idea how to do it ourselves". Drury has taught the Roysies and the Crunchies and the Soupies how to play like winners. If management didn't give those guys a chance to spread their wings and prove themselves, what was the point? What, we ask, was the point? Intangibles are all well and good, but with a new crop of Rochesterettes chomping at the bit, keeping the future of the organization down on the farm so that an aged 3rd line center can score an occasional last-second goal doesn't seem like good business to us. We realize most professionals and pretty much every other blogger is saying the Sabres have taken at least a few steps back, but we're holding firm on our prediction that the Sabres will be just fine this season.

1.New York Rangers

Why do we always come here?
Sometimes, I'll never know.
It's like a kind of torture
To have to watch this show!
-The Muppet Show, Waldorf & Stadler

This lyric really says it all, doesn't it? And we'd know best, considering we have to watch these guys 8 billion times because of the stupid unbalanced schedule. So here's our prediction for the Rangers, for reals: Gomez is going to score no fewer than 90 points despite Jagr being a petulant baby all year long, Shanahan is going to get 50 goals just because that's just the sort of story we don't want to hear a single word about for an entire season, and Lundqvist is going to win the fucking Vezina. Because our lives SUCK. But that's okay, because this is a team of slag-faced whores, and while it might bear fruit for them this year (and don't for even a second think we're assuming a 1-seed in the playoffs means they're winning the Cup; we don't see them making it past the second round), they will eventually suffer mightily for their transgressions. Oh, they'll regret signing Gomez and Drury. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday. Soon. And for the rest of their lives.

Of course, the East is a strange beast indeed, and it's hard to say that a Rangers team that finishes with the most points is necessarily the best team in the conference. We actually still give that nod to the Sabres. Because there are still some issues facing the Rangers that will make them way worse than "finishing first" sounds on paper. For starters, there's the whole thing with Gomez being a puck-possession center who they're trying to put on a line with a puck-possession winger like Jagr. Then there's the whole rag-tag blueline, an affliction that almost every team in this conference suffers from. Then there's the whole "stapled to the salary cap ceiling" thing that left Buffalo and New Jersey incapable of tweaking their lineups last year. Then there's the whole "Cup or bust" mentality the fans, media and organization themselves have adopted -- no way that kind of pressure won't backfire! Then there's the whole ticking time bomb that is Sean Avery. He may have been just the sandpaper the team needed midway through last season, but if any dressing room is likely to get poisoned by a guy like Avery, it's a dressing room filled with the too-many-chiefs lineup the Rangers have assembled this year. So again, we'll give them the division and the top spot for the regular season, but we want them to know we're really not impressed. Stupid fucking Rangers.

Yub nub, eee chop yub nub,
toe meet toe pee chee keene, g'noop dock fling oh ah.
Yah wah, eee chop yah wah,
toe meet toe pee chee keene, g'noop dock fling oh ah
Coat ee chah tu yub nub,
Coat ee chah tu yah wah,
Coat ee chah tu glo wah.
allay loo ta nuv
Glo wah, eee chop glo wah, ya glo wah pee chu nee foam,
ah toot dee awe goon daa.
Coat ee cha tu goo (Yub nub!)
coat ee cha tu doo (Yah wah!)
coat ee cha tu too (ya chaa!)
allay loo tu nuv (3 times)
Glo wah, eee chop glo wah.
Ya glow wah pee chu nee foam,
ah toot dee awe goon daa
allay loo tu nuv.
-Yub nub, traditional Ewok song

We couldn't have summed up the Coyotes season prospects better. Thanks, Wicket! (Oh, and no way Wayne's still behind the bench by Christmas.)

14. Edmonton Oilers

Diff'rent types who wear a day coat, pants with stripes
And cutaway coat, perfect fits
Puttin' on the Ritz

Come let's mix where Rockefellers walk with sticks
Or "um-ber-ellas" in their mitts
Puttin' on the Ritz
-Puttin' on the Ritz, Irving Berlin

Oh sure, certain succubus wives of certain skankhole players might think Edmonton is a repulsive backwater (not to be confused with said succubus's glamorous, world-capital hometown of St. Louis), but it's not true! Look no further than Sheldon Souray -- bright-light, big-city free agent that he am -- choosing Edmonton over the clamoring hordes in New York and Los Angeles who were dying to get a piece of him in their lineups. Or so the rumors went as days turned to weeks after the free-agent deadline and he remained unsigned. Maybe it was just that the Rangers, Devils, Kings and Ducks wanted nothing to do with him and he was stuck with the Oilers. But whatever the reason, the Oil is going to be crazy ritzy with Shelly in the fold! Sure to see his numbers plummet now that he's not in a contract year, and already sporting a catastrophic plus/minus, and with a lengthy history of chronic injuries, Souray is a great building-block for this reeling franchise. Other players Kevin Lowe hopes you will think look figuratively like Gary Cooper if you squint hard enough are RFA pick-up Dustin Penner and... well... um... yeah. Dustin Penner. It's going to be a long year for the Oilers, and the ensuing draft pick is just going to Anaheim. Godspeed, Oilers fans. Godspeed.

13. Chicago Blackhawks

Come all you bold young thoughtless men a warning take by me
And never leave your happy homes to sail the raging sea.
-Traditional Sea Chanty

The Blackhawks are entering a new era - a new era Wirtz-less era with young stars in the making. But will this new era be smooth sailing, or will the choppy waves of the New NHL be uncharted territory for an organization that's been all but embalmed in sucktitude for the last 60 years? There be monsters, Blackhawks, there be monsters. Regardless of how much Havlat, Kane and Toewes excel at filling the 'Hawks' sails with the gusty winds of fame and glory, their goaltending is still very much a remora*.

* Remora: a fish believed by ancient sailors to slow ships down by attaching their sucker-like jaws to the bows of boats

12. Columbus Blue Jackets

Ohh I know who you are
It wasn't that hard
Just to figure you out
(Now and then, you wonder why)
And now I know who you are
It wasn't that hard
just to figure you out
(Now and then, you wonder why)
-Favorite Damn Disease, Nickelback

We have no idea what this song lyric means. We have, in fact, never heard this song before. We just googled "Nickelback lyrics" and found it. But really, what NHL preview is complete without a little Nickelback? Of course, we have to admit it's pretty hard for us to figure out who the Blue Jackets are, because we don't think we've ever, in their entire history, seen them play a game. We know they're out from under the Doug MacLean reign of terror, but it seems there should be a bit of a lag between the toppling of the statues in Blue Jackets Square and a marked improvement in drafting and free agent signings. There might be a glimmer of hope for the future in Columbus, but that doesn't mean they're making the playoffs this year.

11. Nashville Predators

Gummi Bears, bouncing here
and there and everywhere!
High adventure that's beyond compare.
They are the Gummi Bears!
-"Gummi Bears" Theme Song

The Gummi Bears was a cartoon that never rose above the fact that it was a 22-minute commercial for those poor-quality gummi bears that came in the gold box at the crappy movie theater in the run-down strip mall off Route 1 (as opposed to the ritzier shopping centre a little further up the highway that sold fine cinema treats like Junior Mints and Milk Duds). They were a candy you never saw anyone buying, and a cartoon you never saw anyone else watching. The Nashville Preds are more like the Sno-Caps of hockey -- a good movie theater candy you could understand someone wanting to buy, and one that you yourself went on a bit of a spree for, buying them four or five movies in a row, before you dropped one or two in your seat without realizing and then ended up with big chocolate blobs on your jeans when you got up, but then you realized that it was stupid to be buying old person candy like non-pareils when such delicacies like Sweet Tarts were available. However, as much as the quality of play on the ice might be Sno-Cap-worthy, the off-ice distactions facing the team in terms of ownership cast a distinctly Gummi Bear cartoon pall over the start of the season. As far as non-Nashville fans are concerned, the orgnization is serving as the team that can't rise about the fact that it's the poster child for stories of NHL business wheeling and dealing. Also, giving Arnott the C is about as smart as buying a box of Jujubees. Sure, you can remember the flavor of Jujubees being good, just the way Nashville can look at Arnie's days as the hard-working center of the league's top line back in 2001 and expect greatness, but the minute you get one of those stupid candies stuck on your molar, you remember why you never buy those things.

10. St. Louis Blues

Non piu andrai, farfallone amoroso
Notte e giorno d'intorno girando,
Delle belle turbando il riposo,
Narcisetto, Adoncino d'amor.
-Non piu andrai, Le Nozze Di Figaro, Mozart

Thanks to a long string of playoff appearances, the Blues were getting by fluttering around the mediocrity of the NHL like amorous little butterflies. Last year, JD had the fine feathers, light and jaunty hat and womanish red color of a new good-guy GM whom everyone wanted to see succeed. Those honeymoonish days are over! Now the chorus is "alla gloria militar", "to military glory" indeed. However, the Blues might as well trade Kariya and Tkchuck in for a Cherubino or two considering how effective they'll be. Here's hoping Erik Johnson can sing those prima donnas off the stage, leading the Blues into competitiveness again (if for no other reason than to quit making life so easy for Detroit).

9. Calgary Flames

There she is, Miss America
There she is, your ideal
The dreams of a million girls
Who are more than pretty
May come true in Atlantic City
Oh she may turn out to be
The queen of femininity
-There She Is, Miss America, Bernie Wayne

Ah yes. We remember being among those million girls who were more than pretty. We dreamt such dreams! Dreams of backyard rinks, and golf games, and name-dropping Z-list hockey celebrities like Shjon Podein and Darren Pang. And then we discovered our schtick had already been taken by someone on TV, so now we're reduced to blogging and living our workaday existences, only an hour's drive from Atlantic City, a place we've never actually been. We're sure this all ties in to the Flames' chances this season somehow. Perhaps what we mean to say is that Mike Keenan gives us as much confidence behind the bench as Miss America might. When we got down to deciding which team would nail down the 8-seed in the West -- LA or Calgary -- we asked ourselves which mediocre squad is more likely to be fucked over by its lousy coach. As much as Marc Crawford has always struck us as a complete hack, we had to give the nod to Keenan.

Oh, and also: with the multitude of jingoistic flags all over their new unis, the Flames might as well be wearing little beauty pageant sashes that say "Miss Alberta" on them, too.

8. Los Angeles Kings

Stopped into a church
I passed along the way
well, I got down on my knees
and I pretend to pray
you know the preacher likes the cold
he knows I'm gonna stay
California Dreamin'
on such a winter's day
-California Dreamin', The Mamas And The Papas

We think it's pretty cool that the Kings ended up getting "California Dreamin'" as their randomly-drawn song lyric. It's almost kind of creepy!

We defer in all things Kings to our favorite blogger, RudyKelly. He says they're going to make the playoffs, so we believe him.

7. Colorado Avalanche

Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts
Mutilated monkey meat, little baby birdie feet
Great green gobs of greasey, grimy gopher guts
That you eat without a spoon.
-Anonymous Folk Song

Based on how Avs fans have lapped up the Ryan Smyth signing, we'd believe they'd eat this menu in a heartbeat. Slag-faced whores like Scott Gomez and Chris Drury have been getting a lot of ink here this summer, but Smyth makes them look like amateurs, having pulled the slag-faced 2-step on two franchises last year. Look for him to be a significant, though overrated, player in getting this franchise back to the playoffs, but at what price for the league? At what price?

6. Vancouver Canucks

If I've got a hammer
And I've got a bell
And I've got a song to sing ... all over this land,
It's a hammer of justice
It's a bell of freedom
It's a song about love between all of my brothers and my sisters
All over this land.
-If I Had a Hammer, L. Hays and P. Seeger

If we've got a Naslund, and we've got a Sedin and we've got another Sedin -- we're thinking the team should be better than it's been, particularly if we've also got a Luongo. They've proven they can make the playoffs, but at some point they've got to prove they can win more than one round. And until then, we'll continue to not care enough about them to write more than a cheap dig at their uni re-design: By "this land" we mean Vancouver. Wait, let us spell that out for you. On the front of our sweaters.

5. Dallas Stars

Yippee yeah, there'll be no wedding bells for today!
I got spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle
As I go ridin' merrily along
And they sing, 'Away, too glad, you're single'
And that song ain't so very far from wrong.
-I Got Spurs, Tex Ritter

Kind of like the Kings getting "California Dreamin'", we were tickled with how literal our random draw ended up for the Stars. It's a cowboy song! For the Dallas Stars! Get it? Get it? We've been to Dallas once. We stayed there while driving cross-country on our move back east, and suffered the single worst highway death-merge we've ever seen in our lives. We ended up having to essentially drive perpendicular to four lanes of oncoming traffic to get from an on-ramp to the off-ramp directly across from it for our hotel. Stupid AAA and their idiot driving directions. Anyway, that death-merge is probably a lot like what the Pacific Division is going to be this year, and the Stars are the team we see having the steepest uphill battle to get across those four lanes of oncoming traffic. (No, the Coyotes don't count. They're going to figuratively crash their car into a Jersey barrier at the base of the on-ramp, so they won't even get a crack at the serious part of their traffic-metaphor season.) We like the way they stood pat on the free-agency market, although the standing pat was less a Glenn Ford, stoic hero kind of standing pat with the knowledge that they've got all the pieces they need to beat the bad guys, and more a standing pat because they have the wisdom to realize that the free-agent market this past summer was vastly, vastly overrated. So they come into this season a year older than they were last season, and without any obvious answers about where the scoring is going to come from, but they're still a much better team than a lot of other squads out west.

4. Anaheim Ducks

Batti, batti, o bel Massetto,
La tua povera Zerlina;
Staro qui come agnellina
Le tue botte ad aspettar.
-Batti, batti, o bel Massetto, Don Giovanni, Mozart

Brian Burke and the Ducks would love to think the rest of the Pacific is sweetly singing, "beat us, beat us, o beautiful Ducks, beat your poor Pacific. We'll stand here as meek as little lambs and bear the blows you lay on us." But what the rest of the division is hearing is the constant tweeting of whistles writing a symphony of undisciplined penalties for the rough and tough and mentally unstable Ducks. With Captain Pronger leading by example, what else can happen? Seriously, we know the team can rebound from losing Selanne (we're assuming Getzlaf takes the responsibility of being a star and handles it with grace and aplomb, eschewing his ego-problems from his Junior days) and are confident that their Schneidermayer'ed up D is solid enough to handle the loss of The Good Neidermayer. But can they find a way to keep Bertuzzi from not getting suspended for 20 games? That we're not so sure about.

3. Minnesota Wild

You're the top
You're Miss Pinkham's tonic
You're the top
You're a high colonic.
You're the burning heat of a bridal suite in use
You're the breasts of Venus
You're King Kong's penis,
You're self-abuse
You're an arch
In the Rome collection
You're the starch
In a groom's erection
I'm an enuch who
Has just been through an op,
But if, Baby, I'm the bottom
You're the top
-You're The Top (Parody Lyrics), Cole Porter (or alleg. Irving Berlin)

We like Minnesota because they're the Devils of the West, right down to the "often flaming out early in the playoffs" thing the Devils do so well. And while we're not sure we'd go so far as to call them the breasts of Venus or King Kong's penis, there is certainly some self-abuse involved in watching a team that's the Devils of the West. But really, when you get down to it, parody lyrics probably aren't the best way to go for the Wild, since Jacques Lemaire doesn't believe in things that are fun.

2. San Jose Sharks

The farmer and the cowman should be friends
Oh, the farmer and the cowman should be friends
One man likes to push a plough
The other likes to chase a cow
But that's no reason why they cain't be friends

Territory folks should stick together
Territory folks should all be pals
Cowboys dance with farmer's daughters
Farmers dance with the ranchers' gals
-The Cowman and the Farmer Should Be Friends, Rogers and Hammerstein

For many, many years we stood fast on a strict policy of hating all things musical theater. To us there was no such thing as a good musical. Sure "Guys and Dolls" might be good for a chortle or two, and maybe it was tough to resist belting out "Everything's Coming up Roses" on particularly good days, but 99.9% of the time, musical=bad. Then one summer night, flipping channels on our cable box revealed we had two choices for television viewing -- John Basedow infomercials or Oklahoma! on TCM. After seriously considering how awful seeing John Basedow's commerical for the zillionth time would be, we settled on TCM. And something very strange happened. We discovered Oklahoma! was wonderful. From top to bottom, wonderful. (Or at least, that's what we thought until we both ended up getting "territory folk should stick together" so firmly stuck in our heads that it was weeks before we could stop spontaneously blurting it out and incurring the extreme wrath of the other who had maybe gotten a hair closer to getting the ditty to recede just a hair in her brain.) In any event, we were forced to reconsider the strict "musical=bad" policy.

In a related story, for many, many years we have stood fast on a strict policy of believing "this is the year the Sharks are gonna make some noise". To us there was no team out West more suited to making the Finals. Since this is the year we've finally had to admit there might be a flaw in this policy as well, there is no doubt in our hearts the Sharks will prove us wrong.

1. Detroit Red Wings

And the rivers flow backwards
And my tears are dry
Swans hate the water
And eagles can't fly
But I'm alright now
Now that I'm over you
And the sky is green
And the grass is blue
And I don't love you
And the grass is blue
-The Grass is Blue, Dolly Parton

"The Grass is Blue" is one of our very favorite sad, sad songs, and is thus appropriate for the Wings' inevitable march through the West because that's a sad, sad song in and of itself. We don't think this team is really that great, and obviously their entire season really hinges on the questionable health -- mental and otherwise -- of Dominik Hasek, but it would be impossible for a team of their pedigree not to finish first overall considering they get 32 of their 82 games this season against the minor-league franchises populating their division. We don't doubt they're going to be their typical paper (division) champions, and will fall way short in the playoffs when they have to play a best-of-seven against a real team, but until then we'll be stuck hearing more of the same old lauds being shoveled on this team just because they're racking up points in the standings in a division we think our cats might stand a chance against. Basically what we're saying here is that "The Grass is Blue" is a song wherein the narrator convinces herself that she's over her broken heart because she's saying the opposite of everything is true. But in the Wings' case, we're going to say it's literal. The grass outside is blue, the sky above it is green, and we don't love the Wings. Really. We don't.