"I'm done. Good luck with Niklas Kronwall as your No. 1 defenceman."

It's a sad state of affairs when every article has to be prefaced with "if there is a season." It makes reading and writing about hockey almost a futile venture, unless of course you're actually reading and writing about labour negotiations (and I'm with most fans in the 'wake-me-when-it's-over' boat).

But in the face of an impending lockout, I'm taking the stance that there will be a season, facts be damned. The league is making too much money to throw it all away with another lost season. I'm sure the Sept. 15 deadline will pass and the players will get locked out, but this won't be a repeat of 2004, when the season was eventually cancelled.

So if there will be a season (and there better be), I might as well act like it's going to happen. Here's an article I wrote for The Good Point looking at a group of teams that are poised to drop in the standings this season (you know, if there is one).

Welcome to the hockeyless nights of the summer. It is truly a barren wasteland of nothingness. Sure, there's baseball, and that will keep you sane, but without hockey, you might as well just go into summer hibernation.

Before shifting gears totally into off-season mode—getting excited for the draft, the blockbuster trades, and the free agent bonanza that is sure to come—we should shed a tear for another season gone, and hand out some awards to the deserving few for a playoffs well done.

Building a team capable of winning the Stanley Cup is hard; building a team capable of doing it year after year is even harder.

The model franchise in the regard is the Detroit Red Wings, a team that won four Stanley Cups in the past 20 years, not to mention to other appearances in the Final. They’ve built a team about as close to a dynasty as you can get and are the type of organization that others try to emulate.

This year’s Stanley Cup Final pits two teams that could head in different directions after Gary Bettman hands over the silver mug. One, the LA Kings, have all the necessary ingredients to stay atop the NHL for the foreseeable future, whereas the other, the New Jersey Devils, may wind up being a one-and-done contender.

Check out yesterday’s post at The Good Point to read more.

The New Jersey Devils went through a disastrous season last year. They fell flat on their face and didn't put it all together until the new year, when they went on an impressive, but ultimately futile tear to close the season.

For the first time during the regular season the Devils also received sub-par goaltending from the immortal Martin Brodeur. Suddenly, after one season (and a brutal Olympic performance still fresh in everybody's mind), it looked like the game finally caught up to Brodeur.

Brodeur always seemed like the rock of those great Devils teams, and New Jersey continued to play well even after defensive stalwarts like Scott Stevens, Scott Niedermayer, and Brian Rafalski moved on, confirming as much.

So is this the end of the road for Brodeur? Or was last season just a minor bump in the road? Can we except a Roloson-like longevity out of Brodeur?

That's the issue I looked at for this week's article on The Good Point.

The NHL trade deadline is a month away, but there have already been three significant trades. The latest, consummated hours ago, involves the heavily rumoured Ilya Kovalchuk. It was not surprising in the least that Kovalchuk is no longer a member of the Atlanta Thrashers, but what is surprising is the team that acquired him, the New Jersey Devils.