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NHL 03-04 season!!!
Well it's officially underway with the first days of preseason play already by. Going to be an interesting season to say the least. If I were to put any prediction down right now, I'd say Avs vs Sens for the finals, but this is, after-all hockey, and stacked teams don't always mean a Championship run. (where were the Rangers last post-season?)
If you're not keeping up with the big moves, let me recap quickly. Selanne and Kariya playing together in Colorado, Roy's retired though.. will it be enough? Hatcher's up in Detroit now, I don't see that locking them as a finalist, but I also see it hurting Dallas's chances somewhat. Vancouver let quite a few quality players go, but in a move that just leaves my jaw dropping picked up Arvedson from the Sens. I like both teams a lot, am I happier that 'couver added a quality player or more bummed that Ottawa lost one? Detroit lost one great player and one decent one, Federov went to Anaheim and Luc went back home to the Kings. That's all I can think of off the top of my head, there's a lot more big moves out there but these were highlights of importance. As you can tell I follow the west a lot more closely than the east.. heh
Other big happenings to notice Gretzky WILL play in the Hockey Heritage Classic as Captain of Edmonton all stars, Guy Lafleur for Montreal. Not too shabby. 
Phoenix has the new arena coming, that should be pretty sweet. Also I assume some sort of memorial sometime during the season to Herb Brooks. And well deserved I might add.
Wrapup : well we all know that being a return champion is about the hardest thing to do nowadays, not like 20 years ago. I don't see devs in finals.. hell I don't see them even in conference finals. We saw some cusp teams make it over the brink last year (Wild, Lightning, and oh yeah, those guys from California with some stellar goalie work.) I wouldn't be too surprised to see some similar happenings.. maybe Atlanta, Phoenix could get back in, Colombus or Nashville.. who knows? The bottom 3 or 4 teams struggling to make it in may in fact be more exciting than the top 3 or 4.
Thanks to anyone who actually stayed to read all of this, call me crazy on my views if you wish, or throw in some points of your own, just let me add one thing. GODDAMN it's good to get back to wearing jerseys
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My 03-04 Stanley Cup early picks
