From The THN Archive: “You Read It Here First”

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You win some, you lose some. That’s the way things go when you peer into the future. Here at The Hockey News, we just want to get better every year.

If more of our predictions turn out to be on the mark this year than last, things are heading in the right direction. Fortunately, we’ve hit on a foolproof way to make sure that happens. We make more of them.

Last season we cashed in on a few of our 10 fearless forecasts. We said Joe Thornton would have a huge season and would challenge for the Art Ross Trophy, similar to the way Jarome Iginla did in 2001-02. Thornton didn’t win the scoring title, but we’ll take five points away as a gimme. We also pegged Anaheim to end a long playoff drought and jump up the standings and Jay Bouwmeester to be an impact rookie. Not too shabby.

Casting Evgeni Nabokov as an updated Jose Theodore - the Hart-winning Theodore - and putting Tampa coach John Tortorella on the firing line didn’t work out as well.

So instead of 10 predictions, this year we’ve opted for a nifty 50. Henrik Zetterberg and Tim Connolly, we’re counting on you. You too, Vincent Lecavalier. Mats Sundin and Alexandre Daigle, you just keep on keeping on. Adam Oates, it’s been great knowing you. Enjoy the view.

To get a CBJ angle, we had to scroll to #28. Some old-school names are in this piece.

28. Led by slugger supreme Jody Shelley, Columbus is the most penalized team in the league. It’s a three-way saw-off between Blue Jackets coach GM Doug MacLean, Colorado GM Pierre Lacroix, and Atlanta coach Bob Hartley to set the unofficial record for most-calls-to-NHL-execs-to-complain-about-refereeing in a single season.

Jody Shelley is a Blue Jacket legend and was a great fighter and tough guy. Check out this piece on Shelley. He was the main reason why the CBJ was penalized often back then, and for good reason.  

Join Jason Newland's Columbus Blue Jacket page on Bunches, a new app that connects sports fans. Also, you can watch a new YouTube game show about the Blue Jackets, Around the Fifth Line.