FanHouse NewJerseyDevils

Each Friday throughout the season, I'll provide you with my predictions on whose stock is on the rise and whose is failing miserably like an American bank. It's a neat little segment entitled Buys and Sells. There are a few teams/players/issues to buy and a few to sell.

I hope everyone out there had a great holiday, whichever one you choose to celebrate. If it was Christmas, I hope you don't have too bad of an egg nog hangover this morning! Today in Buys and Sells we're going to take a look at which NHL teams are contending and which are pretending. We're nearing the midpoint of the season and the end of the year, so I think it's a great time to take a look at the first half surprises and decide who will be sticking around come playoff time and who will be heading home early. As you've probably surmised from the picture to the right, Jon Toews and the Hawks are the first topic of discussion today... Right after the jump. As always disagreements and your own picks are welcome in the comments.

Welcome to the NHL FanHouse 2008-09 season preview. While other sites are previewing "30 teams in 30 days," we decided to take advantage of the extra time off before the start of the season to bring you all 30 previews over the next three weeks. We're counting down in reverse order of finish from last season in each conference every weekday from now until October 3. Look for an Eastern Conference preview every morning and a Western Conference preview every afternoon. Click here to read them all.

Who's In: Brian Rolston, Bobby Holik

Who's Out: Vitaly Vishnevski, Sergei Brylin, Arron Asham, New York's Sean Avery signed in Dallas (probably worth mentioning)

What's Changed: Not a whole lot has changed in New Jersey, although it was interesting to see Lou Lamoriello open up the wallet during the off-season. The Devils brought back both Brian Rolston and Bobby Holik this summer in an effort to turn the clock back to 2000 (can Ken Daneyko and Scott Stevens be far behind?). Sources tell me that later this week Lou will unveil his plans to build a time machine in the basement of the Prudential Center. Actually the reasoning behind the signings was more than likely to, you know, improve the team but it's fun to imagine what schemes Lou is thinking up.

The team had a heck of a season last year, when most people were picking them to take a step back. Despite being in a tough division, the Devils managed 99 points and the third most points in the conference. They also managed to lose to the Islanders and Rangers a total of 13 times last year, which doesn't make any sense at all considering they only lost to the rest of the NHL 16 times. Obviously, they're going to have to focus a bit more on their tri-state area rivalry games.

The Devils are going into this season about the same they went in last year, except this time no one is sleeping on them. Despite a defense that leaves a bit to be desired, they still have Marty Brodeur and as long as they have him and he isn't aging horribly, you can't leave the Devils out. I apologize, because you're going to hear that line about a million times this year, and you've probably heard it a million times already. But it's true. He's still the best player on the team and posted a 2.17 GAA and .920 SPCT last season. Pretty sick numbers, to be sure. Oh and he's 36, which in goaltender years is almost unheard of. A few more years and the shelter is going to have to put him down for his own good.

Jeremy Roenick has been long considered the best hockey player in sports video game history; Clarence of Stark Raving Mad ranked him second overall in the pantheon of athletic gaming to the real L.T. in Tecmo Bowl, saying Roenick in NHL '94 "was like Sonny Chiba in 'The Street Fighter' – unstoppable."

Much like Sam Jackson in "Unbreakable," Bill Barnwell of IGN.com appears to have dedicated his life to finding the exact opposite of Roenick, i.e. the worst hockey player in sports video game history. That player, according to Barnwell, is former NHL defenseman Shawn Chambers, who amazingly was awarded a "one" overall rating in NHL '93. For perspective, Joe Reekie had a "60" overall rating, meaning a player with 1,326 career penalty minutes was "59" better than a defenseman with two Stanley Cup rings. Barnwell explores this historic achievement further in his humorous article:

In modern versions of EA games, players receive ratings on a roughly 55-100 scale, so Chambers' 1 rating has not been threatened for seemingly a decade. In addition, Chambers was not the only player on his team (the expansion Tampa Bay Lightning) to receive an extremely low rating: fellow defenseman Jeff Bloemberg (who never played a game for the Lightning) was given only a 4, while brutal winger Shayne Stevenson (he of the 27 career NHL games) mustered a whopping 7. It's even stranger, then, that Chambers was given the lowest rating in recorded video game history.

[...]

Within the game itself, Chambers is pretty much unplayable as far as characters go. He skates on the ice like the surgeon left his scalpel inside Chambers' knee; anytime anyone comes into contact with him, he falls.

OK, so maybe we've found the worst athlete in hockey video game history. But in the entirety of sports video games? C'mon ... worse than Glass Joe?

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

Wait, Jose Theodore Did What?
The incredible decline of Colorado Avalanche goalie Jose Theodore's reputation has been well-documented. Winning the Hart and Vezina trophies, and then ending up as a $6 million bench-warmer, with the stats to match. Propecia-gate before the Olympics. His public tryst with noted scholar Paris Hilton.

Last night, all of that was back-burnered, if at least for a game. After the Calgary Flames chased Avs starter Peter Budaj with four goals, Theodore came off the pine and stopped 17 shots, winning the game in a glorified skills competition the shootout, 5-4. "I was trying to keep it simple, give my team a chance to win, and they showed a lot of character coming back," he said after the game. Don't you love it when the male models play humble?

I found it interesting that the Associated Press led with Theodore's unexpected performance, but that Adrian Dater of the Denver Post didn't drop his name until the eighth paragraph and downplayed his efforts while lauding those of the team in front of him. Perhaps he knew other publications would be playing the Theodore angle. Perhaps Dater, and Avs fans, have been conditioned in the post-Roy years to expect a goalie to lose a game and a team to win one. Or perhaps even on a redemptive night, Jose Theodore will always be seen as a cap-killing financial albatross and an unqualified bust between the pipes in Denver.

(Coming up next: The Hartley/Waddell Death Watch continues, Marty Brodeur's afraid of his own stats, Most Embarrassing Stat Line of Last Night, this week's "Aitch Effy," and Tonight's Games You Should Be Watching.)

It appears that the Detroit Red Wings aren't the only successful NHL club having problems filling their home domes to capacity during playoffs games.

One of the NHLs more swept-under-the-rug black marks is the fact that the New Jersey Devils, thrice Stanley Cup champions in the past decade+, can't sell out their home games on a regular basis.

Kind of like the Atlanta Braves of hockey, right? How can a team that is so successful not sell out playoff home games? Remember, this was the team that held a Stanley Cup 'parade' in a freakin' parking lot.

The Devils played their first three home playoff games before a total of nearly 6,300 empty seats, but goaltender Martin Brodeur could have sworn Continental Arena was packed to the rafters.

"I think the towels made it," Brodeur said with a smile Tuesday, referring to the white towels given to fans to spin over their heads in the playoffs. "It fills up the empty seats."

Bad location in the middle of a swamp? High ticket prices? Cruddy arena? I've heard those excuses before, and it just doesn't wash. The population of the area is quite high, and yet they can't fill one little arena for an NHL playoff tilt?
While the Devils have been a prime example of how to achieve success on the ice, they certainly don't pack the stands. The Devils finished 26th(!) in league attendance this year with an average of 14,176 per game. The year before? They were also 26th!

I guess it's not too shocking, then, that the Devils can't sell out their playoff games. There doesn't seem to be a very good casual fan base in the area, as most of the fans who do attend seem to be of the hardcore variety.

The Vezina Trophy, awarded to the league's top goaltender as voted on by the General Managers (and not the sportswriters) has basically boiled down to a 2-goalie race heading into the final weekend.

While there are a handful of fine goaltenders, Martin Brodeur and Roberto Luongo stand head and shoulder pads above the rest due to the fact that they've played exceptionally well while appearing in almost every one of their team's games this season. It will be tough for the league's GM's to make a final decision as both goalies are quite close together statistically.

Roberto Luongo (75GP 46-22-6, 2.28GAA, 92.1 SV% and 5 shutouts)

Martin Brodeur (78GP 48-23-7, 2.18GAA, 92.2SV% and 12 shutouts)

After a shaky start, Luongo has almost single-handedly pulled the Canucks from a team fighting for the playoffs to a team one win away from winning the Northwest Division. There has been a lot of talk here on the West Coast about Luongo's MVP chances, and he might get more marks for helping to rescue a team than Brodeur, who has played on a good team for many years.

Luongo's other advantage is that he's faced more shots-per-game than Martin Brodeur (28.97 to 27.87) and has been the busier of the two goalies in that regard.

Still, Martin Brodeur does have the wins record*, more games played, 12 shutouts, and the slight edge overall when you compare the stats. Unlike past seasons, where Brodeur benefitted greatly from a strong team in front of him, racking up wins despite less-than-steller save percentages, Marty has obviously been the best player on his team, and has had his best season ever. When the Devils needed him the most, Brodeur was there.

In the end, we will have one deserving winner, regardless of who the GM's choose.

With the Devils 3-2 win over the Flyers tonight, goaltender Martin Brodeur set a new record for wins by a goaltender in a single season with 48.

As you can imagine, the mainstream media, New Jersey Devils, their fans, and the NHL itself, is going to play this up as the "world's bestest achievement".

Martin Brodeur and the New Jersey Devils had a record-setting night against the worst team in the NHL.

Brodeur surpassed Bernie Parent, Philadelphia's stalwart Stanley Cup-winning goalie, for wins in a season with 48 and the Devils clinched the Atlantic Division title with a 3-2 win over the Flyers on Thursday night.

"I think with him being an icon as far as goalies for the Flyers, to go into Philly and do it here, I couldn't write it a lot better than that," Brodeur said.

"This is his year," said Parent, his retired No. 1 hanging from the rafters. "He's played fantastic hockey. It couldn't have happened to a more fantastic individual."

Parent sent a personal note that Brodeur said he would read at home.

What is on the note? "YOUR RECORD IS TAINTED" ??

Look, anyone with some semblance of individual thought knows that Brodeur's record is a sham. Parent, classy as he is, has a right, if he wishes, to be pissed off that he's lost his record thanks to the advent of the shootout.