What a difference a year makes -- the 2005 hockey season

In another ongoing feature I have decided to introduce, here's where I pick a blog post from (another, obviously) blog and see what they said a year ago.

For this inaugural edition, lets see what Battle of Alberta said on September 30, 2005:

Here's the challenges we posed:

1. Name one thing that's widely expected (or bit of conventional wisdom) about the upcoming NHL season that you doubt will happen.
2. What is the biggest unknown for you in the upcoming season, or what will you be most curious to see?
3. A) Pick one player who you think will break through, and B) pick one player whose performance will drop off considerably, relative to what we're used to
4. A) Pick one team who you think will break through, and B) pick one team who has been good recently who you think will be bad this year
5. A) What will the results of the Stanley Cup Finals be, and B) how is *your* team going to do.

Here are a few of the highlights:

I think that zero tolerance will fail, as it has so many times before.
Scoring will not increase substantially, and coaches will find it difficult
if not impossible to wean themselves from clutch-and-grab hockey. It feels a
bit like the old Lucy bit. "This year we're cracking down. We mean it.
Really. We're getting tough. Watch out...." And then the big cave.I thinking
by Christmas.

I don't know how widely expected is, but I hereby predict that the mobility restrictions on goaltenders will either have no effect on play or they will do the opposite of what they were intended to. Goalies remain untouchable no matter if they're in their crease (which is good for exactly what these days?), in their ridiculous trapezoid or roving around on the white ice. If anything it will work to the advantage of goalies like Brodeur and Belfour — they'll be that much closer to the red line when they skate out, unmolested, and redirect the dump-ins up ice.

The consensus seems to be that the defending Stanley Cup champions are going to drop back to become just another above-average team, which is bloody confusing. They won the East in the last regular season, then won the Cup, but because they lost the Bulin Wall (Stillman? Lukowich?), now they’re back in the pack? Bollocks!

I leave you to judge as you see fit....