What an Odd Start...

Welcome to another year of NHL hockey, fans. Now that the year has finally come to a start, and teams have played five-plus games, something unusual has grabbed my attention.

This is not the year of the goalie. Some of last year's tops are looking far from what they did last year.

Need some examples?

1. Jean-Sebastien Giguere (1-4-0, 3.03 GAA, .899 SV%, 1 SO)
2. Marty Turco (2-3-1, 4.05 GAA, .844 SV%, 0 SO)
3. Miikka Kippursoff (1-3-1, 4.37 GAA, .851 SV%, 0 SO)
4. Pascal Leclaire (2-2-0, 4.00 GAA, .866 SV%, 0 SO)
5. Roberto Luongo (3-2-0, 3.40 GAA, .886 SV%, 1 SO)

Now sure, it's too early to tell, but, these are all top notch goalies. Yeah, sure, Pascal can be debated as he only recently came onto the scene (24-17-6, 2.25 GAA, .919 SV%, 9 SO), but the other 4 are proven winners. And sure, one could debate that Luongo hasn't had a bad start. But, look at Vancouver's preseason start. Undefeated until the last game, against Anaheim. He's over an extra GAA from last year's total. And his save percentage is far from what it was last year.

Yes, early in the year, sure. But why are these greats stuggling as they are? Why are defenses giving up chances like they are? Why are scorers scoring like they are? There have been a lot of games recently with 6+ goals. That's ridiculous. And the NHL is complaining about not enough scoring!? That's unnecessary.

Me being a goalie myself, the last thing I want is for that net to be made any bigger. Pads are small already. Any smaller, and the game will become dangerous to our kind. Instead of worrying about scoring more goals by making things more dangerous/difficult for the goalie, why don't scorers learn to score better? Just my thoughts. [;

This is going to be an interesting season, with an interesting ending. New schedule should prove to make things even more interesting with home-and-home's with a few non-Conference teams, as well as playing every team in the league at least once.

Brace yourself, hockey fans.