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//  Saturday, July 31, 2010

Small Market Teams Succeed, Bettman Finally Looks Like A Genius

Tuesday, October 20, 2009
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Now before anyone says anything, no—you’re not reading The Onion, instead you are reading an accurate statement. The Phoenix Coyotes as of October 20th, are in second place in the Pacific Division, the Columbus Blue Jackets, you ask? They are in second place in the Central Division, right behind the Chicago Blackhawks. Hey, what about the Atlanta Thrashers, surely they have to be terrible, granted they only have Kovalchuk, right? Wrong. The Thrashers are in second place behind the Washington Capitals.

The NHL, and most importantly Gary Bettman, all wanted parity in the NHL when the league started expanding in such places like Columbus, Atlanta, Florida, and Phoenix. For the past number of seasons, all the teams have failed miserably. In fact, the Thrashers were the only team to secure a playoff spot out of the teams listed before last season’s surprise entry of the Columbus Blue Jackets.

However, this season seems different, or at least this October seems different. Whether or not these teams can sustain their winning ways later in the season—particularly in March where it’s going to be a race to the finish due to the Olympic break—remains to be seen, but certainly every win counts, right?

Just ask Johan Hedberg, goalie for the Atlanta Thrashers, who said after beating the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday:

"Last year we started out awfully, and we were out of it at Christmas time. We learned from that, and we're trying to get as many points as we can early on."

Well, a 4-1 record in the first five games will certainly help that out. And Mr. Hedberg and his co-worker in net, Ondrej Pavelec, who he himself is off to a great start with a 3-1 record. The Thrashers are in good spot to use both Hedberg and Pavelec.

Meanwhile, Kovalchuk is off to a scary start, which means he’s serious in his contract year. Ilya already has seven goals in five games, and the Thrashers need a big year out of Kovalchuk if they want to make the playoffs this season.

The Columbus Blue Jackets are off to a hot start too which is exactly what they want following their short stay in the Stanley Cup playoffs last season. Coach Ken Hitchcock is a proven winner, winning the Stanley Cup with the Dallas Stars in 1999, and was a game away from a SCF appearance with the Philadelphia Flyers in 2004. The Blue Jackets are of course led by Rick Nash, but probably the biggest surprise from last season was goaltender Steve Mason, who won the Calder Memorial Trophy for the league’s best rookie.

This season the Blue Jackets have already knocked off the Canucks and Flames, but couldn’t keep up with the Sharks, who with newly acquired Dany Heatley, have become an offense juggernaut. It should be interesting to see how they fair against the Detroit Red Wings, who they’ve already called out in the pre-season. Coach Hitchcock wants to challenge Detroit for the Central Division, and if they can build from the success that they had last season, they can certainly do that this year.

The Phoenix Coyotes have to be the most surprising team this season so far due to their ownership situation. Already Wayne Gretzky has stepped down as head coach, which was surprising in the fact that he would step down, and unsurprising in the fact that everyone knew he lost the team. With new coach Dave Tibbets behind the bench, the players appear to be looser, and more comfortable, and hell—it’s showing in the standings.

The Coyotes success can more importantly be associated with the great play of Ila Bryzgalov, who has been spectacular this season so far. He’s shutout the Sharks, stopping all 26 shots he faced in the 1-0 shootout win. He then faced the Blues, and only gave up 2 goals on 24 shots. In the three games he’s played for the Coyotes, Bryzgalov has a 3-0 record with a 0.95 GGA and a .959 save percentage. His performance last week allowed him to receive the NHL’s first star of the week.

Obviously, if the Coyotes are serious about getting a playoff berth for the first time since the 2001-02 season, Bryzgalov’s play in net has to be as solid as it is at the moment.

Of course, it’s only the second week of the season, and a lot of things can change further down the season, but certainly these small-market teams are proving to the NHL that they too can also be just as good as the powerhouses in the league, like Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, and Philadelphia. It seems to be like a growing trend is hot goaltending, and certainly Columbus, Atlanta, and Phoenix are getting it. Only time will tell if they’re actually going to prove something this season, or simply fade away into the abyss like seasons before.

Whatever the case is, this season has already become interesting.

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