Boom, bust, win your hockey pool

Posted Tuesday, July 28. 2009 by Warren Baker
Filed under Hockey Pool strategy, St Louis Blues

Comment (1)

It's a cycle you can count on. Good teams go bad, bad teams get good draft picks. And with good draft picks, comes a better team. So after many years of living in the cellar, maybe doing as well as mediocrity, a team will have a breakout season. It seems to come out of nowhere and no one except for that lucky jerk in your hockey pool sees it coming. For him, it was all strategy.

It seems to come out of nowhere, but on reflection it always makes sense. Despite being near the bottom of the NHL standings in 2006/07 and missing the playoffs in 2007/08, the personal successes of rookies Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews was evidence that the Chicago Blackhawks fortune was about to change. And sure enough, 2008/09 was their breakout season, not only making the playoffs for the first time since the 2004 lockout, but making it into the third round.

Washington and Pittsburgh have also had similar turnarounds due to an influx of young talent. And while the arrival of Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby were and extreme example of good draft picks, it still shows the trend. Bad team gets good young players. Bad team gets good.

So who will get good this season?

Well according to my brother-in-law, Columbus is the team that will bust out. He has been saying this ever since the lockout and if it didn't happen last year, it will definitely happen this year. Out of all the strategies for picking a breakout team, this is definitely one of them. Keep picking a crappy team year after year. You may lose big most years, but you might win eventually.

I'm not so sure.

In 2005/06, the St Louis Blues finished dead last with a dismal 57 points. Last year, they finished with a respectable 92 points and made the playoffs for the first time since the 2004 lockout. While St Louis does not boast the rookie scoring talent as Chicago did pre-breakout, they do have some pretty young players putting up some decent numbers. Their first round draft picks between 2005 and 2007 are now mainstays in the lineup. Patrick Berglund (2006) scored 47 points last year, David Perron (2007) scored 50 and T.J Oshie (2005) scored 37 points in 57 games. All are under 23 years old. David Backes, who at the prime age of 25 nearly doubled his 2007/08 point totals, could be ready for his best season.

Add to the mix some veteran players like Brad Boyes, Andy Macdonald, Keith Tkachuk and hopefully Paul Kariya and you have the potential for a breakout season.

And if not this season, then definitely next season.

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Warren Baker July 29, 2009 at 12:39 am

Check out John Grigg’s related article at The Hockey News

http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/27366-THNcom-Blog-Central-Division-singing-the-Blues-in-200910.html

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