E.5 Dec 12

Welcome to another edition of what's hot/what's not.
Today we'll be tackling the god awful vancouver canucks,  the expected rise
of the boston bruins in the atlantic and the advantage of home ice.

What's Hot:   Home ice

After 61 days of regular season action, the home ice record in the dchl is an imrpessive 246-160-39.
Only 9 teams have a losing record at home which shows most teams will win their fare share of games in their arena.
There is also only 2 teams currently in the playoffs with a losing record on the road.  Those would be Toronto and Stlouis. 

The leafs are expected to fall, theyre 3-5-2 record in their last 10 games is an indication that it has already begun and they've already played 17 home games, the most in the league, meanwhile the Blues should keep on fighting for the wildcard but with a better team in nashville chasing them, it'll be a tough task.   The conclusion is, win on the road and you'll be in a good spot to make the playoffs.   The islanders ,at 14-7-4, sit in a great spot with games in hand on everyone, and having played the least amount of home games in the league.

What's Not:  Vancouver Canucks

This team is just bad and the gm has no idea what he's doing, writing articles seems like a bigger priority than winning games.  

After a decent start, by canucks' standard, its been a rough couple of weeks.   although the future looks promising, it'll be another long season in vancouver land.  2 straight losses of  5-1 to the jets and canes really brought back Gm Brisson down to earth.   Next year is when the expectactions will be higher for this team, with tkachuk, raymond, seider and samsonov all having good nhl seasons,  the canucks will be expected to win.   It'll be interesting on what they do with a couple of assets they have including Seguin sitting in the prospects. His average nhl season so far has been a letdown.  The canucks will have to explore all options, keep him, trade his rights or outright release him. 

What's Hot:  Big Bad Bruins

This was predictable due to the bruins being a better team than their record showed earlier and due to the atlantic being weak.  The bruins have won 5 of 7 and surprisingly, their 2 losses come to the hand of the Canucks with vladar in net.   We'll call those 2 games anomalies because the bruins have been red hot. They have strong wins against nashville, calgary and a powerhouse team in edmonton.  Trading for Smith looks like a genius move by Gm Bernard. Stamkos had done well in Boston and is still producing in long island but this Boston team needed a goaltender more than a scorer.   With games in hand on everyone in the atlantic,  the bruins shouldnt have an issue keeping their playoff spot.  

thanks for tuning in
You stay classy, Dchl