The season kicks off Saturday at 9AM Pacific with Ducks vs. Kings in London. The defending champs are starting the season without 4 of the key components of their Cup run...Giguere (injury), Pahlsson (injury), Niedermayer (suspended/retired?), and Selanne (unsigned/retired?). The Kings are much improved up front, but they still have goaltending issues which means they may not fair a whole lot better this season in a difficult Pacific.
Who is everyone picking as their favorites? I'm going Anaheim to repeat if Selanne and Niedermayer return at some point this season (both a homer pick + they'll be even better on paper than last year with those 2 plus Bertuzzi/Schnieder additions). If neither play this year, I'm going with the Rangers. The offense is looking pretty nice and they have a great goalie. The D is suspect, but I think it should be enough for the Rags to have a great season.
My division winners:
Pacific - Ducks
Northwest - Flames
Central - Wings
Southeast - Lightning
Northeast - Senators
Atlantic - Rangers
Oh yeah and the pic I saw today that inspired me to start this thread [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]
