Now things are different. The shine has worn off, the new car smell is gone and the "coolest toy in the world!" is just another cheaply made chunk of plastic covered in paint. Fans (and the GM) have started to realize just what this team is capable of and it's not pretty. It's bad. In fact, it's "oh for the love of the hockey gods, I hope we manage to avoid last place" bad. If this was an actual team, we'd be talking about firing the coach and trading players. That panic button? Smashed to smithereens by fans WEEKS ago.
It should have been apparent that this was going to be a LONG season when Brian Campbell went on the IR before the season had even started.
Then Michael Cammalleri decided the preseason would be a great time to test out his professional wrestling career potential on El Nino and ended up sitting for the team's opener. Well it couldn't get any worse could it? Ha. Clearly you don't know me. Niklas Hjalmarsson then got to ride the pine in the press box for two games for a hit from behind on Jason Pominville. I'm officially petitioning to make "dumb life choices" a stat category for fantasy hockey because my players would have that category LOCKED up.
The dynamic offense I so lovingly crafted has produced 16 goals 18 assists for a grand total of 34 points. In 67 games played. That's .51 points per game. From an ENTIRE team. Oy. :reaches for the pack of Tums beside my GM chair: Patrick Kane is the team leader in points with 6 (which ironically enough is the number of hours he remained sober this summer). He's also rocking a pretty impressive -5, although he's going to have to try a little harder if he's going to keep up with teammate Niklas Hjalmarsson who's a -7. Dude. You certainly aren't contributing offensively so let's try and play some D every now and then ok?
Speaking of defense, I'm calling you out Tyler Myers. Tyler, seeing as how you're last year's Calder Trophy winner, I understand life is difficult for you. Reporters now want to talk to you after practice and games. Your teammates have all these lofty expectations. Women suddenly want to talk to you when you're out on the town. At age 20, you haven't quite grown into your limbs yet. Plus you're freakishly tall so at least 22% of your day must be spent trying to find clothes that fit you. I get it. But, I'm going to need something better than 2 points and a -7. Calder winners can still be dropped to the waiver wire. Just sayin'.
Speaker of the waiver wire, yo Donut Hole...what the heck is going on? Prior to last night's shutout (which seemed like a stroke of pure dumb luck) you were pretty bad. That 3.81 GAA was not pretty. I know New Jersey can only afford to put 5 people on the ice per game so things are rough. But when the going gets tough, you can't turn to large amounts of Kripsy Kremes and crawl into bed. Pull it together Marty, whatever it takes. Pretend the pucks are Ding Dongs. Or maybe you could make a deal with Dunkin' Donuts; for every save you make, you get a free Munchkin. I'm not picky.
Then to kind of top it all off, I have the misfortune to report that the Sutterly half of Sutterly Camtastic is likely injured. We finally have some sort of confirmation from John Forslund via Twitter that "Sutter does not appear to be at full strength. He did practice." In my expert opinion (HA!), I think this is all the result of that awkward fall in Vancouver and having bones with the same relative diameter as a toothpick. I'm thinking some sort of wrist injury is what we're dealing with. Ugh. Give me a moment to pull myself together. (For the record, that picture is not actually from this injury, but rather "the hit" from his rookie season. But the hurt in my heart is pretty much the same.)Now if I've learned anything from being a hockey fan, it's that the Stanley Cup isn't won in October. On the flip side of that though is the knowledge that it can be lost in October. Now I'd hate to have to throw away all of the Sutterly Camtastic: 2010-2011 Fantasy Hockey Champs t-shirts I had made up (hey there was a really good promotion going on!) so I hope everyone can pull themselves together and hit mid-season (or just any season) form soon. If not... :reaches for bottle of Jack on table next to GM chair: