Gameday - Colorado

Uhm, okay then...

The Flames are in Denver tonight to take on the Avalanche and are coming off a couple of road wins in Dallas and Nashville. Luckily this game will actually be televised...

Just out of curiousity I decided to take a look at sports sites to see what the rankings for the Flames (and the Avs due to them being the opponent tonight)...

TSN has the Flames ranked 20th, down from 8th even after winning the last two games. Their reasoning is that they think the team lacks scoring depth, which I find a little odd given the team's scoring last season and the fact that the forward lines only seemed to get stronger coming into this year. They have the Avalanche at 13, down from 12, and one spot ahead of the Predators (who have a worse record than the Flames and have some serious goaltending issues, not to mention the loss on Saturday)...

Sportsline has the Flames at a more reasonable 13, up from 14 last week. Which seems a fair bit more reasonable. Above the falling Predators and pretty much in line with how everyone has played the last week. The Avalanche dropped from 4 to 9, which is reasonable as well, since they are half a point up on the Flames...

ESPN is a little behind the times and still has their rankings from last week up, but they have Calgary at 8, down from 7 (and this is before the road trip started). Colorado is at 5, up from 8 (as they were at 2-1 at the time). I think the ESPN site is a little more in line with their idea of how they feel things will end up, with a weekly tweaking...

FOX Sports has the boys at 20th, up 7 points from 27th (!?!) last week. Wow, apparently Fox sports puts a lot more faith in the preseason than I do. Tonight's opposition dropped from 10th to 11th in the last week, obviously benefitting from a better preseason...

Sports Illustrated also has rankings up, but they are also a little behind. Calgary at 10, down from 5, and Colorado at 7, up from 13. Scott Wraight appears to be the only one to recognize the start of the season as nothing more than an anomally, as opposed to the norm. This is the only ranking that I read where the author fully admitted at the beginning that its nothing more than a crapshoot...

This gives an average ranking of 14.2 in the 30 team league...

What does all this mean? Sweet fuck all, as these things are always subjective. I just though I'd get an idea of where everyone thought the Flames would end up at the beginning of the season...