Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend’s events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.

With the lockout-shortened season and all that acrimony and weirdness now well and truly behind us, the NHL resumes its 82-game schedule as planned. With it comes the promise of more normalcy.

All that stuff you heard about, "Well, if the season had been 82 games instead of 48, (insert improbable thing here) wouldn't have happened," now gets put to the test. Will the Maple Leafs be able to repeat their playoff performance? (No.) Will the Ducks ride hot goaltending to another second-in-the-West performance? (No.) Will the Devils overcome all the bad luck that seems to have plagued them the last few years? (Yes.)

Of course, during this time of year, you'll read a lot of predictions that are as safe as safe can be. The Penguins and Blackhawks and Bruins and Kings will all be good, you say? Lundqvist for Vezina? Crosby for Hart? These are all pretty solid bets, and you're probably not going to end up being wrong. But what's the fun in that?

And so, for the fifth year in a row amazingly, here are 20 Bold Predictions for the upcoming NHL season:

1. Dallas just misses the playoffs despite a real-life breakout season by Tyler Seguin.

2. Cory Schneider rather quickly and rightly usurps old man Brodeur's spot as the No. 1 in New Jersey and leads the Devils back into the playoffs.

3. The Rangers really start to wish they'd amnestied Brad Richards.

4. Ryan Suter continues to emerge as the best defenseman in the league, winning the Norris he probably should've won last year.

5. The Oilers make the playoffs behind point-a-game seasons from Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Taylor Hall, who cements his status as the best left wing in the NHL.

6. Bobby Ryan puts up 40 goals now that he actually gets first-line minutes.

7. The Ducks trade one of their goalies, probably Jonas Hiller.

8. The Pacific will be the tightest race for division winner, but the Atlantic will have the most points of any division at the end of the season.

9. The Capitals will miss the playoffs and be bad doing it. Alex Ovechkin will revert back to non-MVP Ovechkin, who is merely "very good," and only be an NHL All-Star at one position.

10. The Sabres finish the season with at least one of Thomas Vanek or Ryan Miller still on the roster.

11. Nashville goes back into the playoffs as they actually score more than one goal all season long and Pekka Rinne has an outstanding season. Seth Jones, by the way? The real deal.

12. Whoever the Penguins get to replace Tomas Vokoun long-term will also get Marc-Andre Fleury's starting job at some point.

13. Jonathan Toews will finally break 80 points this season, but Corey Crawford will revert to being slightly above average instead of world-beating. Chicago still wins the Presidents' Trophy.

14. Calgary finishes 30th in the league, but don't win the draft lottery, because Calgary.

15. St. Louis continues to be the Sharks of the 2010s: Very good — if overhyped as championship contenders — but never able to get to the Cup Final.

16. The Islanders actually acquire a goalie at some point this season (Tim Thomas again?), and make a legitimate move toward being an Eastern Conference power.

17. The Blue Jackets will be a better team this season but their tough-as-nails division still keeps them out of the playoffs.

18. Randy Carlyle never does figure out that Nazem Kadri should be centering Phil Kessel and James van Riemsdyk.

19. Peter Laviolette is replaced by December.

20. Even as he's asked to play more games than ever, Jimmy Howard finds playing in the Eastern Conference to be very much to his liking, and the stats back that up.

Have fun out there, gang.

What We Learned

Anaheim Ducks: I'm not sure how this is a goal Antti Niemi allows, but considering he gave up five on 18, I guess I'm also not surprised.