We're not all that close to hockey, but we're also not that far away that we wouldn't start seeing, and I mean soon.

It's the first trickle of preseason predictions.

Good morning to you.

I'm Dan Kovachvich of D.K. Pittsburgh Sports.

And this is Daily Shot of Penguins.

It comes your way bright and early every weekday.

If you're into football and or baseball,

I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Pirates in the same place that you found this.

Almost two full months before camps open around the league.

I did kind of a casual Google search on NHL predictions.

Before recording this, I came across all the usual fare.

There wasn't much of it, but what was there was the usual fair.

And it's the hurricanes are going to win the Stanley Cup and on down the line.

Most predictions, and this applies to all sports, not just hockey, are an echo of what just happened.

That's how they line up. They open up the standings and they go, well,

this just happened. So this is going to happen again. There isn't a whole lot of imagination put

into it. Everything's done from a 32,000 foot level in all likelihood.

Do you think, for example, that whoever it is that forecasts the hurricanes as repeat champions is looking into how hard it is to be a repeat champion, how much wear and tear there is on a team?

Or for that matter, do you think that they're looking at whatever it is that Bill Zito and

Paul Maurice are up to in Sunrise?

The Panthers have loaded up on every tough player in organized hockey and stacked themselves

at every level of their organization with these guys.

...