NHL Team Power Rankings for the 2011-2012 Regular Season –Week 12 Part 1
Another week came to an end in the 2011-2012 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season, which makes one think about how fast it is passing by as it seemed to have started just yesterday.
This week’s power rankings are up until Sunday, December 18, 2011, being the 12th week of the regular season, in which a number of teams changed themselves around in terms of performance and rankings in their respective conferences while others
continued to slump.
Along with that, fans witnessed the firing of two big name coaches to extend the list of those who have already lost their jobs to six now with Los Angeles Kings letting go of Terry Murray while Montreal Canadiens showed Jacques Martin the door on Saturday.
Now we will look at each and every team in the NHL along with where they stand at the moment and compare them with their performance in this week and the past.
Carolina Hurricanes (30)
Carolina overall is not playing well and this week was not any exception to their performance. The Hurricanes are sitting in the last spot of the Eastern Conference, making life hard for their newly hired coach, Kirk Muller.
They played three matchups from December 12 to the 18th and faced two losses against the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-1, in overtime and another one on Sunday against the Florida Panthers as Kris Versteeg managed to edge the Hurricanes in an overtime
decider.
Carolina managed to win their only match of the week against the Vancouver Canucks and that too by a third period comeback with Drayson Bowman and Jaroslav Spacek scoring two straight to give them a working lead to take the match.
The Hurricanes now have a record of 10-18-6 in the past 34 contests they have played, putting pressure on their heads to improve sooner than later if they want to make it somewhere near the playoffs later on next year.
Last week Carolina was ranked at number 30 and this week they remain in the same spot.
Columbus Blue Jackets (29)
The only reason the Columbus Blue Jackets are not placed below the Carolina Hurricanes is because they have been a team that has been struggling not only now but in the past as well. Even though Columbus has only 22 points compared to the Hurricanes 26,
Carolina has a better well rounded team and in a slump purely dependent on themselves.
The Blue Jackets also lost three games to the Los Angeles Kings, Tampa Bay Lightning and St. Louis Blues after winning their first and only of the week against the Vancouver Canucks, that too in a shootout decider, which is something positive for them and
could have led them to winning more but instead proved to be fruitless.
Columbus seriously needs to pick up the slack if they want to remain in the NHL because by the way things are currently going, it can never be safe to say that the Blue Jackets will remain a franchise any longer looking at the empty seats their stadium has
and close to none fan interaction during their matchups due to the lack of excitement.
The Blue Jackets stand at number 29 this week.
To be continued in Part 2....
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