NHL Western Conference

Every team approaches the new season differently. With All-Star festivities wrapping up last weekend, the NHL season is now well past its half-way point—many teams who were picked for great things before the first game have failed to live up to expectations.

In a year in which seemingly every team can make a run for a play-off spot, there are a handful of teams who have managed to anchor themselves in the bottom-feeder club.

Here's a look at the NHL's most poorly managed franchises:   

After two hard-fought games against the Western Conference's elite—the Chicago Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings—it is clear that there is little separating the top teams in the NHL's West.  

The NHL All-Star break is upon us. It is another checkpoint in the season that is ideal to gaze into our collective crystal balls and predict how the season will turn out.

This is particularly challenging in the Western Conference, where the top six teams are within two games of one another. Adding to the difficulty, four of those teams are in the Central Division.

Translation: A single point could separate someone from a division title and a sixth seed.

Up until Thursday night, I laughed at those who suggested the Vancouver Canucks had a goalie controversy on their hands.

Clearly those people haven’t looked up the definition of the word “controversy.” It’s defined by Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary as, “A discussion marked especially by the expression of opposing views.”

Tonight at the Pacific Coliseum, the Vancouver Giants will honour several local sports heroes as part of their “Heroes of Hastings” tribute before the game. Among those heroes is an all-time Canucks fan favourite, Gino Odjick.

There is a special link between the Minnesota Wild and San Jose Sharks. It was this way before they became trading in the summer of 2011.

The last Wild coach had been Todd McLellan's assistant. McLellan was a coach in the Minnesota system. Brad Staubitz played in Minnesota and Justin Braun grew up in Minnesota.

After 14 games, we are just over one-sixth of the way through the 2011-2012 NHL regular season for the Vancouver Canucks. Is it too early for a report card? Perhaps, but every point is important, so in that sense, it’s never too early to analyze the players and find out who has stood out and who is lagging behind.

Hopefully, the Chicago Blackhawks can forget about Friday night’s debacle against the Carolina Hurricanes and move on. They played very uninspiring hockey in a 3-0 loss in Raleigh. 

Johan Franzen has had a very good start to the 2011/12 NHL season, and that bodes very well for the Red Wings' chances at a 12th Stanley Cup.

When Franzen burst onto the scene during the 2007/08 season, he looked as though he was ready to score 50 goals a year.  He scored an unbelievable 13 goals in 16 games that postseason alone, and he carried that momentum into the following year with 34 goals in the regular season and another 12 in the playoffs.  Both of those seasons resulted in trips to the Cup Finals.

Alright, so the Edmonton Oilers are only one game into the season. Butttt, did they ever look good in that first game.

Now I don't agree with the CBC analysts saying that there could be an Edmonton-Toronto Stanley Cup (before you comment, yes I know they were joking!), but these Oilers could make a lot of noise this season and help bring back some of that old Edmonton tradition.