OTHL -
Most knowledgeable hockey fans will shrug their shoulders at pre-season results but are they really that meaningless? We here at the OTHL headquarters feel that it really just depends. The results of games are hard to analyze as some teams will dress their "real" starting lineup while other teams will rest star players and fiddle around with trying out other less skilled players.
"You really have to take everything and look at it with a magnifying glass in pre-season. Standings really don't mean much nor do statistics. If you look at a team like Edmonton right now and see that they have no points, well they have a decent lineup so I would not expect them to be the same way come regular season. Even some players are overachieving like Samuel Pahlsson in Anaheim who is tied for third in the league in points, that will not happenin regular season." stated Terry Greenbeyer, an OTHL analyst.
With that said there have been some impressive performances thus far in the pre-season that cannot go unnoticed. The New Jersey Devils and Ottawa Senators are both still un-defeated. The Devils defence has been outstanding, only allowing 10 goals in 7 games thus far. Brodeur has been by far the best goalie in the league posting a .971 sv. pct. in 4 games for a .073 GAA. Luongo (FLA), Kiprusoff (CGY), Kolzig (PIT) and Dunham (NYR) are some other goalie who have been on fire so far.
The goalies have not been the only ones impressing though. Perhaps the biggest story in the OTHL is Ilya Kovalchuk of the Atlanta Thrashers who has posted 10 goals in 8 games. Some believe he is the next Pavel Bure since he is becoming such a pure goal scorer. There have only been 2 hatricks so far and both belong to Mr.Kovalchuk. Gaborik (MIN), Prospal (ANA), Weight (FLA), Demitra (MTL), Selanne (COL), Carter (DET), Gonchar (BOS) and Nidermayer (NJ) have all been very productive players for their respective teams as well.