NHL league leaders still surprising

Anxiety attack is a common ailment out west these days, with fans left, right and center trying not to panic about their teams' performances so far this year. The San Jose Sharks are still struggling, despite resigning All-Star goalie Evgeni Nabokov and throwing him in the net to play seven of the last eight games. This is the team that most experts were picking to enter into the elite four of the Western conference, and after a loss to the New York Rangers last night, they are still struggling to cross the .500 mark.

The Colorado Avalanche, a team depended on to do well to keep the Earth on its axis, has not pulled off a single win at home this season. Not a one out of eight tries. No other team in the league is pulling off that feat at this point in the season, including the Nashville "could-we-just-win-one-for-the-sake-of-our-pride" Predators.

But it can't be all that bad, right? Surely, most say, the defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings are escaping this malaise. And with a 7-5-2 record, nobody is calling them the Atlanta Thrashers yet. But then nobody was calling the Thrashers defending Stanley Cup champions either.

Detroit fans are feeling very nervous right now, especially after last year, when it took Detroit about half the season to rack up more than ten losses. At this rate, they'll have that by Christmas, and that's making armchair coaches nervous about the postseason prospects. But with only an overtime win in November to brag about, and a loss to the Predators, most of the league can understand the feeling.

Back here in the east, the Boston Bruins are still lighting it up with a conference leading 21 points and a 9-2-2-1 record. You might have to forgive Boston hockey fans, who have already let names like Byron Dafoe and Bill Guerin slip their minds. They've managed to piece together an eclectic mix in goal that could rival the St. Louis Blues' revolving door.

Between the 2-0 rookie Timothy Thomas, the 8-5 Steve Shields and the 5-2 John Grahame, no Boston goalie has less than a .904 save percentage. With a couple of career backups and a rookie starting the season with those kind of numbers, it is no wonder that Dafoe is still wandering around the league unemployed. John Grahame is back now from a shoulder injury, and last night helped annihilate the struggling Edmonton Oilers 6-1.



Scary thought of the week

The Minnesota Wild are on the top of the league with 22 points, and the Tampa Bay Lightning are right on their tail with 21. Players on these teams are supposed to be better at golf than playoff hockey, considering what they end up doing every spring. At the current rate, Minnesota will end the season with 107 points, Tampa Bay 112, and the two teams will meet in the Stanley Cup Finals. If all goes according to plan, it will be a seven game series with a triple overtime to cap it off. Thank God that early season predictions are never off. Does anybody remember the Calgary Flames' hot start at the beginning of last year? No? Strange.



Classic hockey moment of the week

The Rangers, losing to the Columbus Blue Jackets with a score of 6-3, down to the final seconds of the game, sent out a gaggle of enforcers onto the ice to send the oh-so-threatening Blue Jackets a lesson. The result? 86 penalty minutes taken by both teams in less than three seconds of play by the time the referees had managed to play peacemaker. Ranger's coach Bryan Trottier received at two game suspension for the move to put the enforcers out on the ice, despite his strong argument that his physical players really just wanted to be on the ice, so what could he do?

The scene was a flashback to the bench clearing brawls of the seventies, and at least the Rangers were able to get out some aggression after failing to reach .500 mark again. Who knows? Maybe that's what Rangers GM Glen Sather had in mind for what his $80 million payroll was supposed to do.