The NHL & NHLPA announced on Tuesday that the 2010/'11 season will get underway in three cities, which is up another city from this current season.
The Hurricanes and Wild will go in Helsinki, the Blue Jackets and Sharks are in Stockholm, while the Bruins and Coyotes will open up in Prague. It should be a great event for those cities and hopefully the schedule doesn't over do the travel for all six teams, so they can be well-prepared for the remaining 80 games in their schedule.
The four teams that opened up in Europe this season; Chicago, Detroit, Florida and St. Louis have all had some interesting seasons. Three out of the four teams are not in the playoff picture as of Feb. 9, which is kind of interesting. Injuries have been an issue for the Red Wings this season, but that could be more attributed to the overall age of the club, maybe. The Blues never really had the jump to their step that everyone expected, since they had that big run to the playoffs last Spring. The Panthers are such a limbo team as it is, it's hard to gauge anything in regards to them.
Only the youthful Blackhawks have come out of this last endeavour with their head held high. Going into Week Twenty in the pool, the Blackhawks did have five players in the top 100 in pool scoring, actually all of them are in the top 75, so that means that they kept their scoring ways up. I would suggest that teams in the European cities are a bad bet, unless you're talking about a young, up & coming team. Even the Penguins in the 2009 season can attest to that.
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