Armchair Pools Blog

With 182 penalty minutes in his first 87 NHL games, Mike Danton's role in the NHL seemed to be heading towards that of a 4th line checker or an enforcer. It is possible that he would have become a player dirty enough to be featured in my 30 Dirty Players feature. However, we'll never know. We won't know because Danton's NHL career was ambushed by a player far dirtier than he will ever be.

His agent, David Frost.

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?