A Timeline For Panic

Colorado wins the Stanley Cup! Detroit is the worst team ever! Alexander Ovechkin will score 200+ points! Sweet Jebus, people, grab a pint of Newcastle and take a deep breath. The season’s less than a week old and it seems like everyone’s already making all sorts of weird proclamations about their team and/or players. The most absurd of these things had to be whether Ovechkin would break Gretzky’s scoring records this season (though the discussion of whether or not Craig Anderson would win the Hart comes in second); come on, guys, it’s only been a handful of games. There was a time in San Jose’s history when the line of Owen Nolan/Vincent Damphousse/Jeff Friesen had a combined dozen points or so in the first two games, but I don’t think Sharks fans had any delusions of Friesen scoring 150. It’s not time to panic. It’s not time to claim a winner. Let’s just enjoy the early games, ok? In the meantime, I tend to look at December as the most critical month of the season. However, you can almost consider it like a three-strikes rule, with October, November, and December each being a potential strike—and three strikes and you’re out of the playoff picture.