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October snap judgments: Leafs and Oilers dominate while Bruins are stinko

Phil Kessel

We’re one month into the season which means we can make all kinds of crazy observations and declarations that will likely look really silly by the time April and the playoffs roll around. What looks really goofy now that we’ll all look back on and laugh about later? Well let’s run down the list.

Boston Bruins in line to “Fail for Nail” or at least “Stinko for Grigorenko”

The Bruins are the worst team in the Eastern Conference and just one point better than the Columbus Blue Jackets in the NHL. The last time a defending Stanley Cup Champion started off this bad? The 1990-1991 Edmonton Oilers. On the upside for Bruins fans, those Oilers lost in the conference finals to the... Minnesota North Stars. Boy, that was a long time ago.

Of course, if the Bruins do stay this bad the rest of th way (they won’t, mind you) they’ll be in line to have another top ten pick in the draft and a shot at Nail Yakupov or Mikhail Grigorenko.

Edmonton-Toronto in the Stanley Cup finals

Your division leaders after October: Pittsburgh, Toronto, Washington, Chicago, Edmonton, Dallas. 50% of the those teams make a lot of sense, the rest of them seem like they were pulled from a hat. Toronto, Edmonton, and Dallas being at the head of their classes makes us think it’s 1999 and not 2011.

Phil Kessel will win every award possible

Having Phil Kessel leading the NHL in goals and points while the Bruins are busy figuring out just what the number of the train was that hit them gives Leafs fans all the more reason to be haughty. With how Kessel is playing, he’s one guy that could stick things out wire-to-wire. He looks inspired and he’s playing great. Of course, once Sidney Crosby returns he’ll show that he was just spotting the rest of the league a nice head start before crushing competition.

Nikolai Khabibulin, Jonathan Quick, and Kari Lehtonen will fight to the death for the Vezina Trophy

We’ve remarked a lot about Khabibulin’s start to the year but Kari Lehtonen’s start in Dallas and Jonathan Quick’s in L.A. are equally as impressive. Of these three, we’d like to think that at least one of them can last in the discussion for the Vezina all season long (I’m betting on Quick being the guy) but if both Lehtonen and Khabibulin can stay healthy all year long and play strong in goal, we might have a really great playoff race in the West.