The hockey season is underway with nine total games in the books so far. In this post, I will cover those games quickly at the end highlighting some notables, and will have the same for Friday despite a shortened Thursday schedule. Monday morning will have my first big set of daily notes from the weekend. This post will open with 10 Bold Predictions for the season. These are all meant to be bold; I'd be glad to hit on three of them. Last season, we had some awful whiffs (thanks Cole Sillinger) but also hit on Dahlin being a top 5 defenseman and predicting massive failure for Chicago and Philly from a fantasy (and real) perspective. Let's get to it!
With the All-Star break upon us, I thought it would be a good time to see how my preseason bold predictions are faring just past the midway point. On Monday, I'll be back with an update to my hold/stream list. Let's get to it!
1) Nikolaj Ehlers puts a Reinhart from last season, scoring 30+ goals and is over a point per game, both for the first time in his career. I’ll go as far to say Ehlers has 35+ goals.
We're finally at opening night for the NHL season after two day games in Europe at the end of last week. I'll be back on Thursday doing my usual daily notes for the first two nights, but today, I want to hit on a few topics quickly. I want to discuss both games in Europe and what I took away from the Predators and Sharks. Then, I want to do a quick preview of Tuesday's and Wednesday's games highlighting some stuff that I'll hit on in Thursday's post. Then, I want to mention a few teams I'm higher and lower on than consensus when it comes to this season's expectations. Let's get to it!
We're one day from the start of the season with the Predators and Sharks facing off in Europe. It's time for my annual post with 10 bold predictions for this year. Among the correct predictions I made last season were Sam Reinhart scoring 30+ goals and being over a point per game and Cale Makar having 85+ points, being the first to do so in 28 years. Well, technically Josi got to 85 before Makar, but I'm still counting it! We won't talk about me predicting the Devils to make the playoffs... let's get to this year's 10!
With the season less than a week away, it's time to give some bold predictions. I have 5 from JKJ that I'll start with and comment on then italics before I do 10 predictions of my own. Let me know your thoughts in the comments section on any of these!
JKJ's Five Bold Predictions:
1) Philipp Grubauer finishes outside fantasy's Top 10 goalies (standard formats). Riding the Colorado coattails last season and playing for an expansion team this season will catch up to him.
Hey everyone! With only a few days left in the season, it's time to set up the Razzball Bracket Challenge! For those who didn't partake last year, you simply fill out the Stanley Cup Playoff Bracket once it's released. You can join the Razzball group by clicking here and creating a free account if you don't already have one. It's a good way to keep the Razzball Hockey community in touch throughout the playoffs.
Reid and I are back with our latest edition of the Razzball Hockey Podcast! This was recorded on Wednesday afternoon so we won't be talking about last night's game, that'll come early next week. Instead, we look at the latest injury news focusing on Jack Eichel. We even get an update mid-recording! We look at our favorite streamers for tonight's games, then look big picture around the league. We talk about what teams are the most confusing and difficult to peg in the NHL. Then we spend 5-10 minutes at the end talking about random things that either gave us a laugh or made us disgusted. We've ran out of things to talk about, thank God the season has started! All of that and more below:
Eichel v Matthews.
Matthews v Eichel.
You're probably asking yourself, "Why the hell is this even an article? And is this going to be a Zack Snyder movie coming to theaters in 2017?"
The answer is pretty simple. I'm a sucker for blistering hot takes. The bravado that goes into them just revs my engines. And no, this won't be a movie coming out next year.
So what hot take am I referring to? Well it came from an anonymous Canadian team scout in a National Post article earlier this year:
I recently marked the occasion when I escaped from my mother’s womb (by which I mean built in a factory). This year it’s a milestone: I turned 30, which means hippies can no longer trust me. Please, blog, may I have some more?
