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Everyone is talking about the era of the super-conferences in college football, but it has now officially happened in hockey first.
The Atlanta Thrashers becoming the Winnipeg Jets 2.0 prompted the NHL to make some realignment changes. And instead of just tweaking the Southeast Division, cuz you can’t have Winnipeg, especially with their lovely nighttime midseason temperatures in the Southeast, Gary Bettman wen complete overhaul.
Here’s what we had in our plan back in May
The Minnesota Wild are providing a glimmer of hope for the suffering fans of the State of Hockey as winter falls upon us. After a dramatic shootout win in Edmonton on Wednesday night, the Minnesota Wild now have their best start in the 11 year history of the franchise. “You’re now f-ing with the best in the world” as Minnesota has flirted with the top of the NHL standings, currently sit tied atop the Western Conference, and reside comfortably atop the Northwest Division, all before the calendar turns to December. The Wild are not longer a lollipop on the schedule of other teams, and much of the credit goes to new coach Mike Yeo. For more on Yeo and the dramatic turnaround for the Team of 18,000, continue after the jump.
The 2011-12 NHL season is already under way, and the action on the ice is already heating up. After a summer filled with lots of on and off ice movement, but also much tragedy, the hockey world looks towards a new quest toward Lord Stanley’s Cup. How do the teams in each division compare to one another? Who will be the big fantasy players this season? We take a division by division look at the 2011-12 NHL season. Let’s take a look at the Northwest Division after the jump.
After the most exciting off-season in franchise history, the Minnesota Wild took the ice Saturday night in their season opener against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Matt Cullen scored in the game’s opening moments, and the Wild rushed out to a 3-0 second period lead en route to their 4-2 victory over the Blue Jackets.
Minnesota fans– who are in the midst of Timberwolves, Vikings and Twins led sports depression–have put a truckload of eggs in the Wild’s 2011-12 basket. [Read more...]
The NHL will start its regular season this weekend without Mike Modano. Modano, a star forward played 21 (yes 21 seasons) for the Minnesota North Stars/Dallas Stars franchise.
He leaves the game as the highest-scoring American born player in history with a total of 1,374 points in 1,499 season games (561 goals, 813 assists). He added another 58 goals and 88 assists for 146 points in 176 playoff games.
This is the third year Ed Cmar has offered predictions as to how the Western Conference will sort out. But unlike how he assessed the predicted outcomes in prior seasons by determining who would be in (the playoffs), who would be out of playoff consideration and who would be on the fringe, he’s modified my predictions by where I believe each team will place, overall.
While this changed method is subject to more error, when it comes to the NHL and its playoffs, your seeding/position doesn’t matter.
With that, here are my predictions (in ascending order, from 1st to 15th):
Sad news from Russia, where reports say a plane carrying KHL team HC Lokomotiv Yaroslavl crashed shortly after takeoff, killing dozens. At this moment, it’s believe that 36 of the 37 players on the plane were killed, 43 people killed in total, and two people surviving with what is described as “grave” injuries. The plane went down shortly after takeoff from Yaroslavl, but weather is not believed to be a factor. For more information on the tragedy, continue after the jump.
Bryan Vickroy
The Winnipeg Jets ended months of speculation of Tuesday morning, and officially unveiled their new home and away jerseys to be worn this season. At a Canadian Air Force base in Winnipeg, the team used military personnel, actual jets, and a few Jets players to debut their new sweaters to the world. Just like the logo, the new Winnipeg Jets will look a lot different than the original Jets did back in the day. To see what the new jerseys look like, continue after the jump.
Bryan Vickroy
NEW JERSEYS TO BE UNVEILED SEPTEMBER 6
The Winnipeg Jets have announced that they will unveil their new jerseys at a news conference on Tuesday, September 6. The unveiling will be at 11:00 am in Winnipeg at the Department of National Defense 17 Wing base. The jerseys will make their unveiling just days before the Jets hold their prospect camp, and will see their first game action during the Jets’ preseason schedule. For more about the jersey unveiling, including different designs floating around the internet, as well as the fake Winnipeg Jets jerseys seized recently, click after the jump.
Bryan Vickroy
WINNIPEG JETS 2.0 LOGOS ANNOUNCED
After months of speculation about the team name, True North Sports subtly announced that it would be the Winnipeg Jets at the NHL Draft. Today, a logo was finally released. At 4:00 pm Central Time, True North Sports uploaded the first images of the new Winnipeg Jets logos. The logos were designed around the logo of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Two secondary logos were also released along with the main crest. To see these logos, click after the jump.
Bryan Vickroy
ANOTHER AMAZING GOAL FOR GRANLUND
While Mikael Granlund may not be playing for the Minnesota Wild for at least one more year, but he continues to show the skill and hands that amazed the entire world at this year’s World Championships, where he scored the world’s greatest goal. Today, the Minnesota Wild held one of two scrimmages for the prospects who had been invited to development camp this past week. To see the highlight goal that Granlund scored during today’s scrimmage, continue after the jump.
Bryan Vickroy
TOP NHL GOALIE FREE AGENTS
There is no real baseball being played right now, despite what Bud Selig wants us to think. There is no action in the NBA or NFL with both locked out and barred from their sport. The only real sport still rolling is the NHL. With the free agency period a little more than a week and a half old, the top players of the class have been signed to the big contracts, the accompanying pieces have been signed, and we have a general sense of what every NHL team’s line ups come this fall. It’s time to take a look at where the top players signed and what more to expect this NHL offseason. To see who the top goalies are and where they went, continue after the jump.
Bryan Vickroy
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