Inside the NHL: Crowded standings give every team hope

Even now, as the National Hockey League enters its third month of the season, the league seems to be a wide open free-for-all. Of course there are teams that have already proven they plan to be near the top of the standings at the end--namely the Vancouver Canucks, Philadelphia Flyers, and Colorado Avalanche--but there are also a whole lot of unanswered questions.

Every team seems to have real playoff hopes, and for good reason. Even the current worst team in the league, the Pittsburgh Penguins (17 points), is only eight points out of the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. In fact, the lowly Penguins--who have been busy trading away more and more players and selling fewer and fewer tickets--beat the Southeast Division-leading Atlanta Thrashers on Monday 4-3 for their sixth win of the year.

The Penguins' cellar neighbors, the Washington Capitals, have had their own bright spots in recent weeks as well. Their first-line center Robert Lang, picked-up by the Caps from the Pens last year, won NHL Offensive Player of the Month for November, tallying 22 points and a plus-8 rating in that one month alone. He currently is leading the league in points with 33.

The team has also been coming alive as of late, winning three of its last five, including one at Detroit. Jaromir Jagr, another ex-Penguin (and now, according to reports, also the ex-boyfriend of Andrea Veresova, the former Miss Slovakia), had been struggling earlier in the season. His potential to single-handedly win games for his team is unquestionable, however, now he is finally getting on track (Veresova was a bad influence it seems), scoring his tenth goal of the year Tuesday night against the New York Islanders in a 4-1 Capital win.

Last year, the Ottawa Senators were a game away from going to the Stanley Cup Finals, losing to the eventual winners of the Cup, the New Jersey Devils, in the final minutes of Game Seven.

With an almost identical roster from last year, Senator fans have had high hopes for their team this season - perhaps even dreams of bringing the Cup back to Canada for the first time since the Canadians won it in 1993. After starting the season 5-1-0-1, the Senators, however, took a sharp turn for the worse, falling to last place in the very competitive Eastern Conference of Northeast Division.

Their Monday night victory at Philadelphia, however, might have been just what the Senators needed to regain their footing. With the impressive 4-1 win, Ottawa snapped the Flyer's 12-game unbeaten streak (Philadelphia hadn't lost in the entire month of November).

Ottawa right-winger Martin Havlat scored twice and back-up goalie Martin Prusek, filling in for a sick Patrick Lalime, made 31 saves. With such a strong roster (the Senators have perhaps the best group of right-wingers in the game in Daniel Alfredsson, Marian Hossa and Havlat), it's only a matter of time before Senator fans begin cheering once again.

In the crowded Western Conference, the San Jose Sharks have been the team to watch recently (if only I could...sigh). They won five straight before dropping a closely contested game against the Calgary Flames Tuesday night. Back-up goalie and Finland native Vesa Toskala has been performing valiantly in net while the usual starter, 28-year old Evgeni Nabokov, is nursing a groin injury. In fact, Toskala has the second best save percentage in the league at 93.6 percent.

After last year's anemic season--the team finished out of the playoffs for the first time in five years--the Sharks have revamped.

Ex-captain Owen Nolan is now on the Toronto Maple Leafs and ex-Shark Teemu "sure I-scored-76-goals-in-my-rookie-season-but-I-can't-get-the-puck-into-an-empty-net-in-Game- Seven-of-the-Western-Conference-Semifinals-two-years-ago" Selanne is contributing to an already stacked Avalanche line-up.

Now, the team is led by new coach Ron Wilson, and the roster is made up of both gritty role players like Scott Thornton and ex-Av Mike Ricci along with young, talented players like 24-year old right-winger Niko Dimitrakos and 21-year old defenseman Christian Ehrhoff.

Whichever of these teams can extend their recent success will probably have a playoff spot with its name on it four months from now.