2009-10 Season Preview: The Southeast Division

By Brian LeBlanc
NCSportsTalk.com - Puck Drops
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It's been a while since the Southeast Division could boast two teams with legitimate playoff aspirations.  Indeed, the 2009 postseason was the first time since the inception of the division in 1998 that more than one team advanced past the first round of the playoffs.  Ironically, both teams that made it to the second round, the Hurricanes and Washington Capitals, were knocked out by the same team, the eventual Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins.

Interestingly, in a division that's long been marked by coaching changes almost at the drop of a hat, the Southeast saw remarkable stability this offseason.  Following a season in which four of the five teams either started the season with new coaches (Florida, Atlanta, Tampa) or replaced their coach midway through the season (Carolina, Tampa again), there are no changes behind the bench to start this season, and even the front offices have stayed consistent; the only GM departure was Florida's Jacques Martin to Montreal.

Will this be the season that the Southeast takes the next step and puts three teams into the postseason for the first time in its history?  The teams are listed in their projected order of finish.

Washington Capitals
Forwards:  Yeah, they have a couple who aren't bad.  Alex Ovechkin is the poster boy for the post-lockout NHL, and the two-time defending Rocket Richard Trophy winner will be up in the stratosphere yet again.  But it's Alex Semin, just as dangerous a scorer but much more streaky than Ovechkin, who has given the Hurricanes fits for years, who makes the Caps a more dangerous team by having two world-class scorers.  One guy can't carry the load by himself; ask Pavel Bure, who led the Florida Panthers to precisely nothing in his three seasons in South Florida.  The Caps have everything a team needs for postseason success: an all-world sniper (Ovechkin), a pivot man at center to pile up assists (Nicklas Backstrom), secondary scoring (Semin), and strong defensive forwards (Boyd Gordon, Matt Bradley).

Defensemen/Goaltenders: The weak links in the Caps' machine are behind their own blue line.  Mike Green had a Norris Trophy-caliber season in 2008-09, but he's an offensive-first defenseman (think Sandis Ozolinsh) who has yet to find a consistent defensive game.  Beyond Green, Shaone Morrisonn has turned into what passes for a shutdown defenseman, though he'll never be mistaken for Nicklas Lidstrom.  The rest of the Caps' defensive corps are serviceable, but the unit lacks the true impact defenseman that most other top-tier teams have on their roster.  In goal, the Caps have even more question marks.  Jose Theodore is nothing more than a #1A goalie, and after Theodore was chased out of the net in the playoffs rookie Semyon Varlamov took over the duties.  Varlamov will likely begin the season as the starter, but this is a time share with a good chance of blowing up, as Varlamov has never faced a full season of NHL work and Theodore is, well, Jose Theodore.

Prediction: Boudreau (87-41-15 since taking over at Thanksgiving 2007) is one of the best in the business, and he has his Caps well-positioned for a third straight division title.  As usual, games involving the Caps will be an adventure in the defensive zone, but they have the firepower to win 5-4 games on a regular basis.  It remains to be seen if the Caps will continue to progress to the point that they're a true Stanley Cup contender, given the postseason emphasis on defensive play, but there's no doubt the road to the division crown runs through DC.  Projected finish: 51-25-6, 108 points

Carolina Hurricanes
Forwards: click here

Defensemen/Goaltenders: click here (what, you thought I was going to retype all that stuff?)

Prediction: Returning the vast majority of a team that reached the conference final last season should portend success for the Canes.  However, the last time something like that was said about the Canes was after winning the Stanley Cup in 2006, and we know how that turned out.  The Canes have, at worst, the second-best goaltender in the division, and it wouldn't take much convincing to place Cam Ward above Florida's Tomas Vokoun as the top netminder.  The Canes ice their best roster since the Cup-winning 05-06 team, and while they probably won't top the 112 points they had that season, breaking 100 isn't out of the question.  Projected finish: 45-27-10, 100 points

Florida Panthers
Forwards: While the perception of the Panthers has for years been that they couldn't score goals if the net was ten feet wide and there was no goaltender, they might finally be showing some signs of life from their top two lines.  David Booth was a revelation last year, scoring 30 goals for the first time while finally giving 2001 first-round pick Stephen Weiss a winger to bury his passes.  Keep an eye on Michael Frolik, who hit 20 goals in his rookie season last year; the Panthers signed former Coyote Steve Reinprecht to center the second line, and Frolik and Cory Stillman may benefit to the point of giving the Panthers a true second line for the first time in ages.

Defensemen/Goaltenders: Yes, I know they lost Jay Bouwmeester.  Yes, it will be hard to replace him.  But even given that, I have more faith in the Panthers' defense than I do even the Caps'.  Keith Ballard is the real deal, a tough-as-nails defender who is capable of playing upwards of 30 minutes a night, and the addition of the perpetually underachieving Jordan Leopold gives Florida's defense depth it hasn't had in years.  Leopold isn't Bouwmeester, but he's a decent replacement and he's a more-than-competent power play quarterback.  And even if opposition forwards can get through the Panthers' defense, they still have to contend with Tomas Vokoun, a criminally underrated goalie who would be receiving accolades on the order of Tim Thomas or Marc-Andre Fleury if he played in a bigger market.  Vokoun is capable of stealing games like no one else in the division save Cam Ward, and if the Panthers can score goals Vokoun will make them stand up.  He's backed up by Scott Clemmensen, who shined in backup duty after Martin Brodeur went down last season in New Jersey, so no matter who is in net the Panthers won't give up many goals.

Prediction: The Panthers' 219 goals against ranked them tenth in the NHL last season, and every team above them save one made the playoffs (the one that didn't was the similarly offensively-challenged Minnesota Wild).  The Panthers certainly didn't improve by losing Bouwmeester, but they at least mitigated the damage.  As the Panthers' young forwards continue to develop, they'll become harder to play against, and it helps them that the circus that is the Montreal Canadiens may have regressed even more than the Panthers.  Pete DeBoer's charges should taste the postseason for the first time in many, many years, and while it may not amount to much in the grand scheme of things it would still be a welcome sight to see the Panthers in the playoffs.  Projected finish: 42-29-11, 95 points

Tampa Bay Lightning
Forwards: Yet again, the Lightning roster undergoes a significant upheaval for the second straight season.  The changes in the forward corps are mostly tinkering around the edges (goodbye Vaclav Prospal; hello Alex Tanguay) and the Lightning are hoping that 2008 first overall pick Steven Stamkos continues his development arc that began about midway through last season.  The Lightning have been successful when Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St.-Louis have been on separate lines; they're one winger short of being able to do precisely that.  Barring the unexpected development of a Steve Downie or Brandon Bochenski into a worthy partner for Lecavalier, the Lightning may have no choice but to play Lecavalier and St.-Louis on the same line.  The best option might be Panthers castoff Brett McLean, who is in camp on a tryout and who scored a princely seven goals last season.  When you're talking about the likes of McLean and Bochenski as suitable partners for a guy who's won the Rocket Richard Trophy, you understand just how far the Lightning have fallen in the five years since they won the Stanley Cup.

Defensemen/Goaltenders: It's on defense where the Lightning's rebuilding project really hit full steam this offseason.  About six seconds after free agency began, the Lightning inked Vancouver's Mattias Ohlund to a seven-year deal to be the #1 defenseman the franchise has really never had (Dan Boyle, maybe?).  Ohlund is expected to both eat minutes and help develop '09 first-round pick Victor Hedman, who is already penciled in for a top-four spot on the Lightning's blue line.  David Hale and Kurtis Foster will add depth to a defensive corps that relied way too heavily on youngsters Paul Ranger and Lukas Krajicek last season; both of those players will have roles on this year's team, but they will be brought along a bit more slowly since there will be more players competing for spots.  In goal, Mike Smith is still a question mark.  The platoon of Smith and Olaf Kolzig accomplished nothing after Kolzig injured his arm early last season, and now Smith will share the crease with Karri Ramo, who is still green enough that he would spend considerable time in the minor leagues in many other organizations.  "Shaky" would be an understatement.

Prediction:  After the Barry Melrose circus ended a month into last season, the Lightning seemed to find their way under Rick Tocchet late in the season.  Stamkos' development is the key to this season for the Lightning; they're much more likely to succeed with a full season from the Ryan Malone-Stamkos-St.-Louis line providing the bulk of their scoring, but they still need to unearth someone to play alongside Tanguay and Lecavalier.  They'll be better, but they're still at least a year away.  Projected finish: 35-38-9, 79 points

Atlanta Thrashers
Forwards: A playoff appearance in 2007 led to precisely nothing in the following two seasons, and now the Thrashers face a situation where they may be forced to deal all-world winger Ilya Kovalchuk before they lose him for nothing in the 2010 offseason, when Kovalchuk becomes an unrestricted free agent.  Aside from Kovalchuk and perhaps new addition Nik Antropov, no one on the Thrashers' forward corps really causes opposing coaches to lose sleep over defensive scheming.  Bryan Little was a breakout player in 2009, scoring 30 goals in his first full NHL season, and the top line of Kovalchuk-Little-Antropov will certainly score some goals.  But after that...Todd White?  37-year-old Slava Kozlov?  Colby Armstrong?  Not much to inspire confidence there.  The Thrashers will need to cross their fingers that no one regresses and a few others step up their games to have any chance of a consistent offensive attack.

Defensemen/Goaltenders: Outside of the undersized Tobias Enstrom and second-year pro Zach Bogosian, there just isn't much here.  Ron Hainsey would be a sixth defenseman on most good teams, yet he's playing 20-plus minutes in Atlanta.  Niclas Havelid is a solid defensive presence, but not someone you'd put a ton of trust in for significant minutes.  For a long time, the Thrashers have been stuck in no-man's-land where they're just good enough to miss out on the top-tier talent in the draft, and this is the result: a patchwork defensive lineup that isn't much more than serviceable.  In goal, Kari Lehtonen was drafted in 2002 to be a franchise goaltender, and he still has yet to live up to his considerable potential.  Johan Hedberg is an above-average backup who has served well when Lehtonen has gone down to injury (he's only played 94 total games the past two seasons) but he's not the type of guy you anticipate carrying a team to a playoff berth.  For that matter, neither is Lehtonen.

Prediction: It will be another long year in Atlanta, and the looming cloud over Kovalchuk's free-agent status will be a distraction much the same way as Bouwmeester's status was for the Panthers last season.  That distraction potentially cost the Panthers a spot in the playoffs; no matter what happens with Kovalchuk, the Thrashers won't be in any playoff conversations except maybe as a spoiler.  Their 2007 division championship season looks increasingly like a fluke, and they are already on the short list for the top overall pick in next summer's draft.  Projected finish: 27-47-8, 62 points

Back with predictions for the rest of the league on Tuesday or Wednesday, and we'll be ready to roll as the regular season starts Thursday night.