It's almost playoff time. With most teams now looking at the final 10 games of their regular-season schedule, it's a bit astounding what all us analysts thought would happen just six months ago at the start of training camp. So it's time for a little introspection and perhaps a little eating of humble pie as we ponder the things we did not know.
• Did not know the New York Rangers were going to be this good, this gritty, this zoned in. Yes, the Eastern Conference is wide open, but it's hard to not put the Rangers at the very top of the list of teams with the best chance to advance to the Stanley Cup finals, especially with franchise netminder Henrik Lundqvist set to return after a peculiar blood-vessel injury.
• Did not know the parity in the league would include a shift in the balance of power back to the Eastern Conference in such a drastic fashion. The top-level play exhibited by the Rangers, Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning has a lot to do with that, as do the struggles of the Los Angeles Kings, San Jose Sharks, Dallas Stars and Colorado Avalanche in the West. That said, is there anyone who still doesn't expect the 2015 Cup winner to herald from the Western Conference? Nope? That we figured.
• Did not know just how big a step back the Avalanche and Stars would take. I figured the Avs weren't headed for another Central Division title, but the fact that these Central Division teams, which were playoff factors a year ago, will be outside looking in this spring is more than a little shocking and did not appear in our preseason crystal ball.
• Did not know that Joe Thornton would call Sharks general manager Doug Wilson a liar. Didn't see that coming at all. Despite the ongoing "all is well, all is well" mantra by Wilson, this is a team on a collision course with its first playoff miss in 11 postseasons, which will (or should) signal significant change within the franchise. That we did imagine.
• Did not see the Boston Bruins struggling so mightily. Love the upside of their young players David Pastrnak and Ryan Spooner but did not imagine they'd be battling for their playoff lives with less than a month to go in the regular season. This is a team that has only one 20-goal scorer (Brad Marchand) and, while they'd be a tough out come playoff time, it's off-the-charts unexpected that we're still debating whether they'll actually finish in the top eight.
• Did not see the in-season renaissance of the Ottawa Senators. I thought they'd be better earlier in the season and they weren't. Then I thought they'd be worse after Paul MacLean was fired and they weren't. So impressed with the play of their green players Mark Stone, Mike Hoffman and, of course, the Hamburglaring netminder Andrew Hammond. Is there a better feel-good story at this point in the season, even if we completely misjudged this team? Nope.
• Did not see Devan Dubnyk being anyone's "key to the season," let alone the key to the Minnesota Wild's season. We had the Wild going to the Western Conference finals at the start of the season and see no reason that won't happen given how Dubnyk has stabilized this once-wobbly team -- even if the Wild's stretch schedule is Murderers' Row.
• Did not see the overarching chaos that would inflame the Toronto Maple Leafs organization. I figured they'd be life and death to make the playoffs but did not see the ongoing catastrophe they have become. The fights with the media, the internal suspensions, the firing of the coach and ultimately the nightly embarrassment on the ice. For an organization that's had plenty of lows in almost five decades since their last Cup win, this might be as low as they've gone.
• Didn't see the Winnipeg Jets coming at all. In fact, I made sport of the Jets in preseason predictions by suggesting they would be a million miles behind the competition in the Central Division and that the playoffs were a pipe dream, blah-blah-blah. Now, with the exception of still-angry Atlanta Thrashers fans, is there anyone not quietly rooting for the Jets to get into the top eight (OK, except the Kings, Sharks and Flames)?
• Wasn't as down on the Calgary Flames as many were but still did not see their continued relevance in the face of captain Mark Giordano's season-ending biceps injury. As with the Jets, there is something wholly appealing about the Flames' charge to an unlikely postseason berth, even if, or perhaps especially because, it was not on anyone's radar six months ago.
• Point-counterpoint: Was not as optimistic as some were regarding the Vancouver Canucks, even though I know lots of folks figured them to be in the playoff hunt. But certainly when Ryan Miller was lost to injury, I figured they might be the team to slide out of playoff contention in the Pacific Division, which has not happened -- at least not yet. Good on rookie head coach Willie Desjardins, who strangely turned down the head-coaching job of the Pittsburgh Penguins to take the Vancouver job.
• Did not see Mike Ribeiro being such a good fit in Nashville. Although he and the Preds are slumping as we head into the stretch, Ribeiro has cleaned up his act after being bought out of his contract last June by the Arizona Coyotes and has been a good fit with one of the league's top rookie point producers Filip Forsberg as the Preds are in the hunt for the top spot in the Central Division. Kudos to GM David Poile for taking a flier on the skilled center. It's paid off in a playoff berth; now we'll see if it's the investment that keeps paying dividends.
• Did not see this being the season of the goaltender. Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, Steven Stamkos, those were guys we expected to be garnering the headlines and the hardware, but it seems all but certain Canadiens netminder Carey Price will become the first netminder to win a Hart Trophy since former Hab Jose Theodore did so in 2002. Price, Dubnyk, Hammond, Braden Holtby and Cam Talbot are all part of a goaltending fraternity that have helped drive the storylines of the season.
• Did not see that Las Vegas would burst on to the expansion scene in such a strong fashion. The fact that commissioner Gary Bettman not only endorsed a trial season-ticket drive but then showed up for the start of the campaign -- currently edging toward its target of 10,000 deposits from rank-and-file consumers and small businesses (in other words, not tapping into the casino industry itself) -- suggests that the NHL will be moving to 31 teams sooner rather than later, with No. 31 being in Las Vegas.
• Did not know that "tanking" might be the single-most-used word to describe this season. Sure, I understood the importance of cornerstone prospects Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel, who will almost certainly go 1-2 in June's draft, but we did not quite get the depths to which teams would fall as the race to the bottom has been one of the top storylines of the season. Hard to imagine it won't be Buffalo securing 30th, but the Edmonton Oilers' ongoing misery and the shockingly poor play of the Arizona Coyotes have made this a three-team race. No doubt this is a race the league will be more than happy to put in its rearview mirror.