Faceoff Factor

Preseason Divisional Power Rankings: Northeast

Michael Farkas | National Hockey League

Aug 20, 08:30 PM | Hype this story!

We’ll swing on back to the Eastern Conference for part three of our six part series. Contrary to the Atlantic Division, the Northeast was more of a stagnating pool in the free agent market, not a bustling thoroughfare. The biggest change of all was probably Buffalo’s staggering incompetence to keep at least one of Briere and Drury. The Bruins and Maple Leafs both added starting goalies, but will that be enough to overthrow perennial division powerhouses Buffalo and Ottawa?

5th: Boston Bruins

Well that answered half of the question in my opening. The Bruins were fairly atrocious much of last season. Boston’s payroll is pushed to its limits, but that doesn’t mean the on ice product will work. To their credit, they added a goalie who is at least NHL-caliber in Manny Fernandez. Fernandez will finally get the chance to steal games and won’t have to worry about someone taking his job, well, until Tuukka Rask is ready to go. I like the chance taking that the Bruins made last season when they acquired forwards Brandon Bochenski, Stanislav Chistov and Chuck Kobasew. If one of them becomes a top-six forward then they’ve done a good job (Chistov’s defection to Russia probably doesn’t help their chances though). At the very least, it makes up for the incompetence of their seemingly unprovoked trades of young players Yan Stastny and Milan Jurcina for mid-round draft picks. Unfortunately for them, they also dealt the wrong goalie. They traded future NHL starter Hannu Toivonen instead of less than NHL-caliber goaltender Tim Thomas…I suppose it makes sense because Toivonen is older, no…well, Toivonen has a bigger contract, no…surely they moved Toivonen when his value was at it’s highest, no…Toivonen isn’t nearly as talented as Thomas though, not even close to being correct. If I’m Boston, I waive Thomas way, way before I trade Toivonen, hopefully Fernandez works out for them in the end though.

As for the coming season, I’m intrigued by the Savard to Sturm combination. Let’s see how Kessel does with a year under his belt, I’m not sold on him having first line talent, but that spot will be there for the taking if he wants it.

The Bruins have a tough division to go against, I’m going to sit back and wait until a goalie steals the show, then I’ll consider this team for a playoff bid.

4th: Toronto Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs failed to move any of their cumbersome, uncoordinated “defensemen” so far this offseason. Bryan McCabe, Pavel Kubina, Hal Gill and Wade Belak are enough to leave any goaltender with red-light-filled nightmares. Expect 58 minutes a night out of Tomas Kaberle and Carlo Colaiacovo just because it’s better than the alternative. Adding Vesa Toskala this offseason is a huge step in the right direction, he’s a much better goaltender than Andrew Raycroft, who managed to somehow deceive people into thinking he was upper-echelon starter material. The Leafs will benefit from having an athletic, reflex goalie in the crease as opposed to Raycroft’s style, which requires a high degree of defensive competence…not a Leafs strong point.

The Leafs added Jason Blake and Mark Bell to the lineup. Blake adds speed, but not much else, he should be just hyped enough to be a huge disappointment this year for Toronto. Blake, disgusting attitude and “puck hog” qualities aside, didn’t have a breakout season until 32 or 33 years old; meaning, he got his big contract (5 years, $20 million) at age 34. I think you can piece it together from there. Mark Bell was a failure of epic proportions in San Jose last year, which always means you somehow end up in Toronto the next season.

Despite my negative tone and fourth place designation, I still believe the Leafs can make the playoffs. Vesa Toskala brings enough to the table to push a team like Toronto, who was just one point shy of a playoff spot last season, over the top.

3rd: Montreal Canadiens

The Montreal Canadiens were another team that fell just short of the playoffs last year. They didn’t really mess with team too much during the offseason either, although they did intend to. Hamrlik for Souray at least adds some more defensive competence, the salary of Hamrlik is a bit much, but it’s better than giving all that money to Souray. Speaking of one-dimensional players, Michael Ryder and Patrice Brisebois are back, this should be the final bows of their respective Canadien careers (Brisebois already once-removed of course). On the plus side, I do like Montreal’s prospect pool and youngsters that are already in the lineup. Andrei Kostitsyn and Guillaume Latendresse should be turning some heads this coming year.

The Canadiens should not be the least bit disappointed with a goalie combination of Cristobal Huet and Jaroslav Halak, they are both talented players. The Habs should have no problem getting scoring out of young players like Higgins and Plekanec, they were playing very well in long stretches last season. One of the bigger surprises in 07-08 could be defenseman Mark Streit (listen up fantasy hockey participants). Streit can put up a surprising amount of points from the blueline and despite the addition of Brisebois, Streit should see a good deal of power play time; in addition, he’s not atrocious in his own end either, so he could certainly log some important minutes for the Bleu, Blanc et Rouge this year.

Cristobal Huet can lead a unified Canadiens team into the playoffs for sure, with even more young talent on the way, this team could be a big threat for years to come.

2nd: Buffalo Sabres

One of the bigger stories of the offseason was Buffalo losing two of their best forwards in Daniel Briere and Chris Drury. The Sabres, reportedly agreed to a deal with Drury but never got around to signing the paperwork and according to Briere, they never even called him this offseason. Luckily enough for Buffalo they have a factory in nearby Rochester that produces NHL talent on command. The only real move the Sabres made this offseason was exchanging backup goalie Ty Conklin for backup goalie Jocelyn Thibault. The Sabres might not be in bad shape though, Derek Roy, Tim Connolly and Marek Zagrapan (despite a less than stellar season in Rochester last year) may all step up to fill the Sabres suddenly gaping hole at center.

Obviously the Sabres are better off just focusing on and keeping one of their stars around (assuming both couldn’t have been kept), but I don’t think they set themselves out of the playoffs by any stretch despite management’s horrific blunders. Again, this is a very similar roster to one they fielded last year. Tim Connolly, when healthy, is really a fantastic player, Thomas Vanek is certainly phenomenally talented and Maxim Afinogenov has incredible offensive maneuverability. The scoring will still be far above average.

The Sabres will be relying on Ryan Miller some more this season, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The Sabres can still challenge for the division with this team.

1st: Ottawa Senators

First of all, the Senators were absolutely lambasted by many of their fans this offseason because of their failure to upgrade the roster. I’ll take the opposite approach, I think it was handled in probably the best way possible. The impact players on the market, by and large, were all locked up to long-term deals, not one-year deals. The contracts of Jason Spezza, Dany Heatley, Wade Redden, Mike Fisher, Chris Kelly, Antoine Vermette, Andrej Meszaros and Patrick Eaves all run out at the end of the year. They left themselves some much needed room to lock up some of these bigger names as opposed to adding four years of Jason Blake or six years of Sheldon Souray.

As for this year’s team, it is still very talented of course. I’m very concerned about the goaltending, however. Ray Emery has been unspectacular for most of the season and playoffs, he has a long list of fundamental and technical issues that should have been corrected in lower levels. Martin Gerber inherited a ton of blame despite his play in the second half of the season. I’ll be in the minority, again, but Martin Gerber gives the Senators a better chance to win than Ray Emery does. Anton Volchenkov and Chris Phillips blocked just about as many shots per minute as Emery did in this past season’s playoffs, sans the 20-foot rebounds. The Sens did a great job of sheltering Emery and rescuing those egregious rebounds from salivating wingers. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Gerber takes over at some point this season, at which point, the Senators immediately become Cup favorites.

The Senators should pull a “Nashville” this year and really stockpile weapons to win it all this season because with the vultures of the free agent market gliding menacingly overhead, the Senators might not have much time.

To see my thoughts on the Atlantic Division, click here.
To see my thoughts on the Central Division, click here.