Season Prospectus - Clarence Campbell Division

Following my outlook on the season for the Prince of Wales Division, this piece will cover the other six teams.  Lets again remember that I took last in 2010/11, and clearly can predict player performance like Irving Fisher can predict the stock market. (That is the only way in which I'm at all like Irving Fisher, by the way).

Projected Standings

Young Guns (15-7)

Edmonton Mercury's (14-8)

St Albert Stultifiers (12-10)

REMS (11-11)
Mama Ramotswe (9-13)
Catville Cats (8-14)

The Campbell Division is coming out of the shadows this year with exceptional drafts by the Stultifiers, Ramotswe and the REMS (for a second year running). All the teams in this division have major star power, with only depth and balance separating the top of the division from the bottom. It will be hard to win those divisional match-ups in the CCD. Collectively, I've projected them to take home 69 of the 132 available wins in the regular season - the same number of wins by the Wales Division in 2010/11. Move over Welchmen, it's time for a rich guy name Clarence to shine.

See my reasons why after the break.


Season Expectations: CLARENCE CAMPBELL DIVISION

Young Guns (15-7)

Strengths: This team's starting 14 could prove to be the best in the league.  While his RW carries little in the way of certainty (Jagr, Samuelsson, two guys who played 45 games last year, and a rookie), his starters at LW, Centre, Defence, and Goalies all challenge for the best in the league if healthy.  Green, Letang, Markov, and Campbell are a high-producing group, all of whom can be expected to improve even more this year. With pundits widely in agreement that Ovie will improve on his already stellar 1.9/game last year, the Guns will be a nightmare to play against every week.


Weaknesses: This team has astonishingly poor bench depth, perhaps a bi-product of spending so much time accumulating top-end talent. Six of this team's seven bench skaters scored 0.8 or less last year, and the 7th scored 1.0 and has had major injury troubles his whole career (Tim Connolly). The Guns' greatest depth is at centre, where Connolly and two rookies back up a starting threesome that combined for a miserable 179 games played last year. Moreover, the team literally doesn't have a back up LW. Though Ovechkin, Eriksson, and Whitney have all been healthy in recent memory, an injury here could quickly derail this team. Injury and depth continue to be a problem as we move down this lineup, with three of the Guns' four starting defencemen having missed significant time to injury last year and their backups having big question marks themselves - Sami Salo (will he be healthy when needed?) and MA Bergeron (will he be in the lineup when needed?) will likely be needed during the season, but no one is sure they'll be wanted.


Outlook for this season: To be frank, I can't decide.  I see this team as a mirror image of the Catville Cats, and you can see that one team is at the top and the other the bottom. I look at the starters for the Guns and I think 'top team in the league.' I move over one column to Games Played and think 'they better have some backups.' But this team has a cliff between its starters and its bench, and that always means the team is more susceptible to losses caused by low weekly game totals and injury. On the flip side, they'll win almost any week where the Capitals have four games. The Guns have a strong chance to win the regular season this year if they stay healthy and find some more stable bench support, but look for them to be one of the league's biggest movers (as in, out the side of a plane) should they see another season of frequent injury from their starters.


Long-term Outlook: It seems that the Guns are trying to get ahead of the league by holding on to two elite goaltenders for the first time in their team's history. As readers of the blog know, a second goalie slot is far from certain at this stage in the season, and his two elite tenders came with a hefty opportunity cost.  Keeping Luongo cost the Guns Cam Fowler, and Lundqvist cost them a 4th round pick that could have been used to improve their depth (Ribeiro, Tanguay and Andy McDonald were the next three skaters taken). This tactic could quickly backfire. Still, if their stars are healthy this year, we'll be talking about this group of 8 as one of the best in the league, led by Ovie, Eriksson, Backstrom, Getzlaf, Letang and Green.

Edmonton Mercury's (14-8)



Strengths: I'm going to take heat for this because he's family. But I have two words for you: Vancouver Batarangs. They won a cup with a team that had three starting defencemen scoring 1.0 or less per game.  Star power isn't everything (the Bats took 4th in the regular season that year), but it can take you a long, long way.

If Crosby gets healthy, this team will boast Crosby, Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Gaborik and Lidstrom as its big guns, and Statsny, Havlat, Clowe, and Kaberle as its second tier of talent.  At per game levels of last year (ignoring that Statsny had the worst year of his career and that Havlat is on the Sharks top line after playing on the Wild's fourth line), that's a total of 13.6 fantasy points per game over just 9 skaters. Between them, that's a 1.5 average.  No team in the league has 9 players with that high a total. Even Young Gun's top nine totals 13.1 and the Batarangs only equal 13 (and I'm not picking the Mercury's to beat either of those teams).  This team struggles with depth, but won't need to find the same level of starters that many other teams need to be competitive.  Their star talent is unmatched.

Weaknesses: The Mercury's ended the season with very few draft picks in a year where several teams improved dramatically in the draft.  The result? We left fewer reliable vets lying around in the later rounds, and the Mercury's roster shows it. If we exclude the top nine and look at the next four starters, they totalled a meager 3.6 points per game last year. On defence in particular, the Mercury's are hoping for better years from some or all of Gonchar, Robidas, Bogosian, and Andy Greene without much of a back up plan past their top two defencemen. In contrast to some of the other teams that struggle with depth, however, the Mercury's have quite a bit of winger help waiting on their bench. David Perron passed his baseline test and is working out, Latendresse is returning this year after missing 71 games last year, and David Booth is primed for a bounce back from his 4% shooting percentage and -31 a year ago. Assuming these players return to form, the Mercury's will actually have an embarrassment of winger depth.

Outlook for this season: Look for this team to start in a hole the first couple weeks, waiting for Crosby to get healthy and suffering poor first week game totals from the Sharks and Rangers. Even after they lose a couple weeks, though, they should ride a strong surge up the standings to a money spot by week 22. I can only see this surge interrupted by occasional injury trouble with Datsyuk or Gaborik (their only injury-prone stars). And as we all know, we can expect this manager to be active throughout the season addressing the Mercury's depth issues.     

Long-term Outlook: The Mercury's moved Mike Richards and Kessel (plus picks) for Crosby this year, effectively re-setting their core keeper group. With some ageing (and retiring) Red Wings at the top of their roster, the Mercury's may have to re-stock this year. If they're not able to do so, look for retirement to make them more vulnerable in the expansion draft, ultimately wiping out some of their very dense talent. Still, any team with Crosby can't be too worried about the future.

St. Albert Stultifiers (12-10)

Strengths: Absurd depth. The Stult's don't have any players pushing that 2.0 upper limit (although Thornton could bounce back to that level), but every position has good to very good starters and a bench player worth having (or two). Only Dave Bolland and Cammalleri have suffered any injury in recent seasons, and most of the roster is in its prime. The Stultifiers have very few questions marks on this team (Filatov being the lone exception), and can substitute freely from the bench when game totals and ineffectiveness call for it. As well, two exceptional defencemen in Shea Weber and 'Big Boat' Byfulgien lead a thoroughly effective defence core. 

Weaknesses: The central weakness of this team is its star power at forward. If Thornton returns to form, and Duchene, Tavares, or Ryan take the step forward pundits expect of them, this could be resolved by the end of the year. Despite all their depth, the questions around Filatov could keep this team out of contention for the top spots in the regular season. It's only one player, but if Filatov fails and the Stults have to move Bobby Ryan over to LW, their depth at wing will be tested. Still, with Frolik expected to be double positioned this year, it could be a moot point. 

Outlook for this season: An excellent draft has shown that last year's second place finish in the CC Division was no accident. The Stultifiers are ready to compete and will have scoring from all 13 of their starters every week. Without the star power to explode on the scoreboard, expect their fortunes to go with game totals. At the same time, their bench depth should allow them to win the game total matchup most weeks.  This team has a shot at the number two spot again should the Young Guns struggle with injury for a second year in a row.

Long-term Outlook: The Stultifiers added a lot of youth and promise just before the draft by moving Toews for Duchene, Tavares and Kronwall.  But they need one or more of those players to take a huge leap forward to replace that star power and join Weber and Byfuglien as the nucleus of an elite keeper group. They continue to build toward a stronger keeper group, and could move into that category of annual power-house with a little luck.  But boy, they're still re-building from trading Crosby early in 2009. Expansion may help this team by thinning out the keeper groups of some of the top-flight teams. Another example of 'wait and see' at this stage.

REMS (11-11)

Strengths: The REMS have great balance between positions, and have increased their fantasy density over the last two years.  Led this year by Toews, Semin, Enstrom, Streit and Goligoski, it's clear that the REMS' strength is in its defence core. Still, Jamie Benn will have increased opportunity (and responsibility) this year, and the line up is still young - a youth movement led by Calder winner Jeff Skinner. The list of skaters expected to have more opportunity this year is also large: Vokoun, Koivu, Hudler, Voracek, Wolski/Dubinsky, Paajarvi, and Erik Johnson should all see better line mates than in 2010/11. 

Weaknesses: I'm sure the REMS themselves think their weakness is star power.  And certainly, if they want to move into the top part of the division, this team will need another elite player on the wings at least. That said, I think their true weakness this season is in the number of bets they've made on this roster, particularly at RW. With three solid players at LW, C, and D, plus a great goalie and Andy McDonald waiting for double position to LW/C, they should be set.  But at RW, they'll need Voracek and/or Hudler to make an impressive leap just to have three RW'ers at a 1.2 level. In addition, their bench is waiting for at least two, if not three players to be double positioned on top of hoping for marked improvement from 4 skaters and a repeat from an unlikely hero in Grant Clitsome. It's a complex set of bets that amount to a lot of risk.

Outlook for this season: The cast of the REMS gets better every year, and this year I'm projecting them to get out of the basement and make some noise (it may be the only way they don't win the draft lottery). If they were in the weaker division this year, I'd project them to beat the .500 mark. Sure, they made some gambles on their roster, but those are small in comparison to their successes. We should expect another season of solid performance out of the starters combined with a bit more punch out of the stars.

Long-term Outlook: This team has never been afraid to move high-performance skaters for greater density and promises of star power. I think we can expect the REMS to start to settle into their roster this year or next as those past moves become more clear successes on the weekly scoreboard. With 7 strong keeper skaters already in hand, plus reasonable hopes for Benn, this team is well on its way to being a perennial playoff team.

Mama Ramotswe (9-13)

Strengths: Ramotswe had a deceptive year last year. After finishing 8th in 2009/10, they fell off the pace with injured stars Marc Savard and Zach Parise missing the whole season in 2010/11, and ageing all-star Martin Brodeur suffering vision problems from the constantly strobbing light above his net. Without the depth to overcome those loses, Ramotswe found themselves in the basement. This year, Ramotswe not only has Parise back and has replaced Savard and Brodeur, but had a very balanced and successful draft that should provide a lot more depth than we're used to seeing from this club. As well, their star power should re-emerge after a season where only three players scored over 100 fantasy points, due in large part to injury. We can expect as many as six skaters to hit the century mark this year. Positionally, Ramotswe has the best goalie in the game (a Vezina winning, record setting Stanley Cup champion a year ago) who scored more fantasy points in 55 games than any other goalie in the leauge. He also has an impressive RW group led by three black power forwards - Jerome Iginla, Chris Stewart, and Kyle Okposo. Already deserving of bonus points for affirmative action drafting, they're just Anthony Stewart away from winning the 'Connect 4' title as well.

Weaknesses: It's hard not to like this roster, but I think a few key problems exist. The top 13 skaters might match the Stultifiers in depth, balance and scoring, and his goalie is clearly the best in the league. Yet Ramotswe's bench holds fewer solid options than many of the other playoff bound teams. On defence, Ramotswe has second year prospect Kulikov in their top 4, with only Tom Gilbert (0.6) and Michael Del Zotto (0.5) as relief. Similarly, Sergei Kostitsyn is his only bench option behind a starting LW cast that isn't taking anyone's breath away.  

Outlook for this season: This team likely isn't getting the respect it deserves around the league. Lecavalier, Chara, Parise, Couture, Stewart and even Iginla are often under-appreciated stars in this league. They're complemented by some nice depth in Leino, Ladd, Subban, Vrbata and others. I also happen to like a lot of the gambles on this roster - Tyler Ennis, Okposo, and Bobby Butler chief among them. If this team was in the other division, I think it takes third. They may even be a victim of the playoff seeding structure as Sean Todd was last year. But their lack of strong defencemen behind Chara and Subban is particularly worrying and I think an injury here could seriously debilitate this team in any weekly matchup. Look for Ramotswe to post a few weeks that make us all take note, and to beat the pants off of more than a few teams that thought they had a free win. Ultimately, though, I expect this team to fall just short of the playoffs.

Long-term Outlook: You can argue this either direction. Lecavalier, Chara, Iginla and Thomas are getting older. Couture, Parise, Stewart and Subban are young and already established. If they play their cards right in expansion, and have another young star make a step forward this year, they could be a serious contender for years to come.

Catville Cats (8-14)

Strengths: This team has some crazy talent - Brad Richards, Briere, Nash, Hossa, Giroux, and Doughty are keepers on any team. Their top 9 scored a combined 12.6 points per game last season (7th best in the league). As well, they have three excellent goalies, two of whom scored over 2 pts per game in '10/11. 

Weaknesses: High-end talent, sure, but also six skaters who scored less than 1.0 last year and an 18 year old defenceman. In other words, no bench support. This is the same recipe that got the Guns to top of the division, you might say. Yet because of positional imbalance, this team will have to start two of those >1'ers on wing. The Cats start the year with seven centres, 6 defencemen, 3 goalies and a total of 6 wingers. One imagines that they are waiting for Berglund and Briere to be double-positioned, which has traditionally taken months when it comes at all. More to the point, unless one of Seguin, Backlund, or Johansen take a step forward, they don't even have the bench depth at centre to be able to move guys around. Although this team is not unusually injury-prone, they are unusually reliant on their team staying healthy for their success. I think it may be the most precarious roster in the league, and is really only competing with the Guns in that contest. Should any player other than a single centre or a goaltender get injured or even have a child this season, this team will have a major hole.

Outlook for this season: I could copy and paste from the Guns in this section. This team needs to stay healthy and get some help whether through a trade or off waivers when they start in week 2. If those things happen, I can honestly see this team being first in the division. If Shannon and JVR both improve this year and become solid starters, and Adam Larsson is decent, this team will be a real threat every single week. I happen to believe that the Flyers got worse this year, not better, and that could spell disaster for a team with a Flyer at every forward position. If injuries strike and they stay the course on roster balance, we could see this team ice fewer than 14 players for the second time in three years. 

Long-term Outlook: The Cats' keepers are tremendous, and with a more careful eye to balance and depth, this team could be in the money every year.

Heck - they could be in the money this year. Like I said, I'm the Michael "Brownie" Brown of fantasy hockey predictions and I think I'm doing a heckuva job. (That is the only way in which I'm at all like Michael "Brownie" Brown, by the way).