Tuesday, September 11, 2007

NHL Season Preview: Florida Panthers

Never in my life did I think I would end up writing nearly 1,200 words on the Florida Panthers - much less in a single post - but, well, I did. If you never thought you could read 1,200 words on the Florida Panthers, head over to FanHouse and try to prove yourself wrong (warning: I may be developing a mancrush on Jay Bouwmeester).

3 comments:

Dave said...

Cason has Danny Markov man-crush. JP has the Bouw-man.

JP said...

Since I don't really expect anyone to read that whole post, this is the good part:

If Vokoun hasn't yet found a new best friend in Florida, let him play a couple of games with Jay Bouwmeester in front of him -- J-Bo is an absolute stud. He was among the Top 25 highest scoring defensemen in the League last season, played the seventh-most minutes amongst skaters (eighth most per game), and was an unbelievable plus-23 for a team that gave up more goals than it scored. Each of those numbers is impressive in its own right, but here's the kicker -- only Nicklas Lidstrom bested Bouwmeester in all three stats, and Liddy won the Norris Trophy as the League's best defenseman. Do you see where I'm going with this? Bouwmeester is now entering his fifth NHL season, and this is the year that his name should start to become a part of any and every Norris Trophy discussions for the next decade or so.

That's pretty man-crush-worthy, no?

FAUX RUMORS said...

1) Bouwmeester is one of the better(unknown) defenders in the game today. If he played in a city that cared about hockey, or on a good team more folks might notice
2) Having said that, we're not sold on the Panthers. Year in and year out we've been hearing that this 'will be the year', etc.
3) We're also not sold that Vokoun is going to be a huge improvement over Eddie the Eagle. Ed quietly(for him) had a very solid season in Florida. 27-17 2.77 gaa. Save % over 90%. If Horton/Weiss have breakout seasons the cats might be dangerous, else they'll finish right where they did last year