Sports Then and Now

Sidney Crosby and Pittsburgh won the 2009 Stanley Cup.

The start of the NHL season is a couple of weeks away and this is my attempt to evaluate what’s happened in the off-season and what it means for the new hockey year.

This is my look at the Eastern Conference. I’ve taken a look at each team in the order they finished last year and postulated how they’ll finish this year.

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It is almost time to start the annual quest for the Stanley Cup.

The shortest off-season in professional sports is over. The NHL season is ready to begin again and most of the teams have made huge changes in an attempt to make the playoffs and challenge for the Stanley Cup in 2009-10. Here’s a quick look at the teams in the order they finished the regular season in their conferences and how I expect them to do this year and why.

WESTERN CONFERENCE

1. San Jose Sharks (5) – San Jose won the tough Pacific division and the President’s trophy as the leading team in NHL regular season last year. Then they were handled by a more talented eighth place Anaheim team losing their first round playoff series in six games.

San Jose has been an early season Stanley Cup favorite for years now and they started paying their players as if they’d already won a cup. As a result San Jose has huge cap problems this year. They had arguably the best defense in hockey last year giving up a league low 27.2 shots per game.

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