The Red Wings are the obvious choice, and with good reason.

In a funny way, the frequency of disappointment in Detroit is a sure sign of how good this team has been.

The Wings have been on the wrong end of some huge playoff upsets. Their recent opening-round flops include 2001 (to Los Angeles), 2003 (Anaheim), and 2006 (Edmonton).

When you're a championship contender every year, an occasional stunning defeat is inevitable.

Don't feel too badly for Detroit fans. Their decade also included three trips to the Stanley Cup Final and a pair of championships.

Going back to the turn of the century, no other franchise comes close to matching the Wings' 82-game consistency, or the frequency with which they followed it up in May and June.

See also:
Detroit Red Wings Franchise Profile
The Story of the Detroit Octopus
Origin of Detroit's "Winged Wheel" Logo

Photo: Goaltender Dominik Hasek contemplates a Red Wings tradition during the 2002 Stanley Cup Final. (Dave Sandford/Getty Images)

Until now, Ryan Malone was outside looking in. But 10 goals in 15 games cannot be ignored, so he's the latest addition to our projected Team USA men's Olympic roster.

Now that he's healthy and playing again, Joe Pavelski also makes the cut.

Meanwhile, Mike Komisarek has played his way off the team, and David Booth is a concussion casualty until further notice.

With so many quality American players emerging these days, the management group is facing some youth-versus-experience decisions. Just how young should this team be?

The team will be named on New Year's Day, during the NHL's annual Winter Classic game.

(Photo: Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

Based on early returns from this NHL season, we've revisited our projected Team Canada men's Olympic roster.

Among the latest changes: welcome aboard, Martin St. Louis (pictured) and Patrick Marleau.

Simon Gagne's surgery puts an end to his chances, and Vincent Lecavalier has played his way out of a job.

The team will be named on New Year's Eve.

Belarus: December 23
Russia: December 25
Sweden: December 27
Latvia: December 29
Norway: December 29
Slovakia: December 29
Czech Republic: December 30
Finland: December 30
Germany: December 30
Switzerland: December 30
Canada: December 31
USA: January 1

(Photo: Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

I never thought I'd be arguing this, but maybe it's time to put some legal interference into the rulebook.
- Elliotte Friedman, CBC.ca

"There are more high-impact collisions due to a faster game... collisions in the NHL have never been this huge."
- Pierre McGuire, TSN.ca

It's been said that journalists follow stories like birds on a wire. If one leaves, they all leave. If one comes back, they all come back.

The McGuire and Friedman comments appeared this week, with columnist Eric Duhatschek making similar noises.

A few days earlier, it was ex-player Bill Berg raising the "speed" issue on the NHL Network, a day after it was discussed on HNIC Radio.

All reached the same conclusion:

Without holding and hooking, hockey players are out of control, charging into each other like runaway freight trains.

It's a convenient blanket argument - Ottawa general manager Bryan Murray is convinced - but it doesn't hold up.

The hit that caused David Booth's concussion had some speed behind it.

But Darcy Tucker was a victim of plain, old dirty hockey. Willie Mitchell was gliding from the penalty box when he leveled Jonathan Toews.

And names like Eric Lindros and Pat Lafontaine are a reminder that brain-rattling hits have been around much longer than today's speedier brand of hockey.

If head shots are the problem, more hooking isn't the solution.

As for the recent spurt of other injuries, we've seen it before.

Hockey's a rough game. Sometimes injuries come in bunches.

The current cluster is making headlines only because it includes so many star players.

Until someone finds a prolonged spike in the numbers, there's no trend, and no reason to slow the game down.

(Photo: Phillip MacCallum/Getty Images)

It's tempting to dismiss October as the NHL's silly season, a time of unlikely trends that can't possibly continue.

Consider the head-scratching results from the month just ended:

Colorado ruling the Western Conference, while Detroit muddles along in 10th place.

Avs goaltender Craig Anderson (pictured) and Atlanta's Ondrej Pavelec playing like All-Stars, as masked heroes like Tim Thomas in Boston and Steve Mason in Columbus struggle to find the puck.

And check out the names near the top of the scoring race: Anze Kopitar? Patrick Marleau? Dustin Penner?

We've seen this before. Last season at this time, the Rangers were off to their best start ever. That didn't add up to much.

Remember 2007, When the Leafs were one of October's highest-scoring teams? Or 2006, when Maxim Afinogenov challenged for the October scoring lead? You just can't trust that month.

Not so fast.

For every early-season trend that wilts with the first snow, there's another that settles in and holds up until April.

A year ago at this time, the San Jose Sharks were a perfect six-for-six in home games. They stayed on a roll until the season ended, finishing as the only NHL team with under ten losses at home.

Everyone was surprised to see the Red Wings struggle to prevent goals in October of 2008. That didn't change. Goals-against remained an issue all season long.

The Dallas Stars came out of October '08 with a losing record, and goaltender Marty Turco had a poor month. Neither team nor goalie ever recovered.

October also establishes a short list for the scoring title. Recent history says the eventual champ will come from the 10 or 12 names now atop the leader board.

In the long run, teams and players are never as good as they look during hot streaks, and never as bad as they look when everything is going wrong.

So Colorado won't finish first, and Craig Anderson probably won't be a Vezina finalist.

But even if they slow down considerably from here, the Avs will almost surely finish higher in the standings than many of us predicted, and Anderson is in line for a career year.

Meanwhile, goalies like Mason and Thomas face a huge task in recovering from early slumps, and Anze Kopitar is probably on his way to a big season.

And after reading the October tea leaves, even the Red Wings are advising fans to lower expectations.

(Photo: Garrett Ellwood/Getty Images)

When all is said and done, which fast-spreading affliction will take down more NHL players this year, swine flu or scrambled brains?

• "Edmonton Oilers defenceman Ladislav Smid has been playing with the H1N1 flu virus, commonly known as swine flu."
  - Faceoff.com

• "Avalanche coach Joe Sacco confirmed Tuesday that backup goalie Peter Budaj, who missed his scheduled first start of the season Friday because of illness, has been diagnosed with swine flu, the H1N1 virus."
  - DenverPost.com

• "Caps forward Quintin Laing has been diagnosed with H1N1 (more commonly known as swine flu)."
  - WashingtonTimes.com

Read more...

From the days of the outdoor game, to the British upset of 1936, the last triumph of the Soviet dynasty, the first women's champs, up to the NHL's Olympic era, here's a few classic images of Olympic ice hockey.

More Olympic Hockey:

Is it too early to judge last summer's NHL free agent signings? Yes it is.

On the other hand, none of the new fat cats said anything about taking October off.

They're taking the money, so they can also take the flak.

Until they prove otherwise, these five guys are a waste of cash:

Canadian sportswriters have written plenty about the NHL's "terminally ailing U.S. franchises" and how bad they are for the league.

What about the terminally ailing Toronto Maple Leafs?

The Leafs are a huge success as a business. But they're a perpetual embarrassment on the ice.

Toronto ineptitude is a modern hockey tradition, complete with hoary jokes and larger-than-life villains.

The continuing failure of a flagship franchise isn't just bad for the city. It's bad for hockey.

Barely two weeks into the season, vultures are already circling the 2009-10 Leafs.

They're so awful that the highlight of Saturday's humiliating loss to the Rangers was a goalie fight that happened 13 years ago.

It was "90s Night", a tribute to the team's brief blip of success in the early part of that decade.

During the pre-game ceremony, fans roared for a scoreboard video showing goaltender Felix Potvin trading haymakers with the Flyers' Ron Hextall in 1996.

Then it was back to the reality of 2009, and a game that had boos raining down from the Blue-and-White faithful by the time it was over.

No wonder scalpers are taking a bath on what used to be the hottest ticket in hockey.

The NHL's other keystone franchises, like the Rangers, Canadiens, and Red Wings, have all seen their ups and downs over the years.

But none can match the Leafs' record of sustained misery since 1967.

The Maple Leaf is the NHL's most powerful brand name. Toronto is the biggest city in a hockey-mad country, and the game's unofficial media capital.

No other team inspires greater love, or deeper loathing.

When the Leafs are winning, bandwagon fans emerge across Canada and beyond. The threat of success in Toronto brings an army of Leafs haters to life.

But the Toronto Maple Leafs of recent decades are hardly worth loving or hating, and the NHL is a smaller place for it.

With a few exceptions, mainstream hockey reporters no longer dismiss the Internet as a wasteland of inarticulate fanboy rants and lame trade rumors.

There's a growing acceptance of hockey blogs as part of the essential reading in today's NHL.

A gulf remains between bloggers and traditional hockey media. The best newspaper reporters and broadcasters remain the best sources for news and perspective.

But the bloggers have their strengths as well. One field where they are well ahead of the guys in the press box is in the use of hockey statistics.

The mainstream media continues to rely on the usual numbers: goals, assists, points, plus/minus, time on ice, goaltender wins, and so on.

You have to be online to see how a whole new world of statistical analysis has evolved. Bloggers are crunching numbers that account for factors like quality of competition, quality of teammates, and territorial play.

The movement represents a leap forward from the simplistic numbers we hear quoted so often.

Take it from someone who muddled through high school math: most of the new stats aren't that hard to grasp.

If you're looking for a place to start, the blog Behind the Net recently posted a series of short articles explaining some of the new numbers, where they come from, and what they can and can't tell us.

Nobody claims these stats are perfect, or provide absolute answers.

But as long as reporters and TV announcers (and some bloggers) stick with vague notions like "knowing how to win" and "good guys in the room," and keep quoting imprecise stats like "goaltender wins," it's up to the bloggers to advance the statistical understanding of hockey.

Photo: Quality of comp numbers say Drew Doughty and his partner takes the toughest defensive assignments for the Kings (Jeff Gross/Getty Images)