Colorado Avalanche Talk (aka Avs Talk)

If we take that 12% increase and extrapolate over an 82 game season, that puts him at 98 points this season which would have been good enough for 3rd in the league.

The top 10 is on Stastny's radar and, if he has a healthy season, he should hit it no problem.

Joe Sakic moves into 7th place all-time in assists
Sakic currently sits in 11th place on the all-time assists leaderboard with 1006 assists. He is 28 shy of taking sole possession of the #10 slot, currently occupied by Mario Lemieux. Once he hits 1034 - that's right, once, not if - he will be a mere 16 assists from passing both Marcel Dionne and Gordie Howe to climb into the #8 spot.

But he won't stop there. He'll need a measly 14 more assists to leapfrog Steve Yzerman to #7 all-time. And he will do it this year.

It's only 58 assists and Sakic is just one injury shortened season removed from a 64-assist season. Time knows no boundaries and neither does Joe Sakic.

Ruslan Salei will be the Avs best defenseman
Salei is an extremely versatile defenseman. He puts up points, he plays the PP and PK, he lays out solid hits, he can put up 20+ minutes a game and I heard a rumor that he is coming up with a plan to fix the economy. No joke.

Jordan Leopold and Marek Svatos will be injury free
The Shane law says "The more things stay the same, the more likely they are to change". Ok, somebody much smarter than me probably came up with that before but I'll claim it as my own. 

As we're all painfully aware, it's been a long streak of injuries for Svatos and Leopold and it's time for that to change. I'm not saying one of them won't come down with the flu but there will be no more ACL tears, no more serrated thighs and no more broken bones.

David Jones scores 30 goals
I'll say it. I've got a mancrush on David Jones. As I've said before, he's big, fast and if he finds his scoring touch, he'll be gold.

Is 30 a stretch? Damn straight it is. But I'll look like a friggin genious if it comes true.

Ben Guite grows out the fu before the Christmas break
This one isn't even close to a stretch. The Fu will be back.

Peter Forsberg doesn't return
Last season I didn't think Forsberg was coming back. We all know how that worked out. So this year, I'm flip-flopping and waiting for him to prove me wrong again.

Hejduk has a bounceback year
The last time Hejduk had a 50-point season, he came back the next year and put up 35 goals and 70 points. In fact, since 2001 Hejduk has been consistently inconsistent as he alternated between 50 and 70-point seasons. History will repeat itself this year.

There you have it folks, eight predictions which have now been completely jinxed by me and will not come true. So you know who to blame when Jones only gets 29 goals.