My four biggest shockers this year; Stalock waiting to pounce; Players ready to decline and more …

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The biggest shockers of the year for me so far:

1. Filip Forsberg – Here is a great young prospect who I figured would be a 60-point player with 80-point upside with Washington. But then he was traded to Nashville and I pretty much chopped 10 points off of each of those numbers. And now this. And not only is he exceeding these expectations, but he’s exceeding them as a rookie. He’s not messing around. It’s easy to expect him to slow down in terms of production – in fact, that’s the smart money. His PDO is 1102, which is sky-high and carried by a 13.55 On-Ice SH%. But 60 or 65 is quite reasonable and that already puts him as high as I thought he’d get with this team.

2. Nashville Predators – The best team in the league? We thought Barry Trotz would do wonders with Washington. Between his disciplined coaching style and the highly-talented but undisciplined team would match up beautifully. We’re still waiting for that. But a team lacking in offensive talent and trained for over a decade to play strong defensively like the Predators, suddenly getting an offensive coach? Well that can’t work, right? Uh, apparently it can.

On a side note – would Forsberg even be a regular if Trotz was still coaching there? Or would he be up and down from the minors and seeing minimal ice time with the big club?

3. Mark Giordano – Yeah right. He’ll get 90 points this year. I’ll tell you though, he’s selling me on 65. Starting to. Wouldn’t bet on it yet, but my mind is open to the possibility. I remember when Duncan Keith first got to that level, I didn’t think he had it in him either.

4. Dallas Stars – I can’t believe a Lindy Ruff-coached team with this much talent can be doing so poorly. A playoff team last year (barely) suddenly adds a star to their second line, plus a star rookie defenseman, and they’re…worse? Not buying it. Let’s chalk this one up to chemistry and assume they’ll start to gel in a dozen games or so. That being said – a dozen games from now may be too late to get back into the playoffs.

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Not on the list:

Nick Foligno, because his 22 points in 22 games came mostly via all the injuries to the team. He was thrust into a scoring role and now that’s over. He has four points in his last seven games as the Jackets return to health and he’ll regr- uh, get back to a more realistic 50-point level. His hot start doesn’t really shock me. He also leads the team in On-Ice SH%.