Of course that title is in jest.

There was a concern, at least on my part, heading into the season about the Senators schedule and the level of distraction that they would have. First up was the Sweden trip, and up next will be hosting their first outdoor game in less than a month against the Habs.

The Senators probably couldn't have gotten off to much better of a start, shootout losses aside, and have put themselves in a great position to start the season.

There was one comment on one of the broadcasts about the percentage of teams starting off their season in Europe during the "NHL Premiere" days, so I looked at that a little closer yesterday with some rare idle time on my hands.

Between 2007-08 and 2011-12, twenty NHL teams started their season in Europe. Of those 20 teams, ten went on to make the playoffs and ten went on to miss the post-season.

Of the ten teams that made the playoffs after starting in Europe, all ten had been playoff teams the previous year.

Out of the 10 that missed, 6 had missed the playoffs the previous season, while four had made the playoffs the previous year and then missed after starting in Europe.

So, you could argue that there was truly little impact on the ability to make the playoffs with a little European Vacation in the mix, although the differences were that in previous years the teams spent more time in Europe, playing exhibition games and starting the season there as opposed to this year when the Sens and Avalanche basically spent less than a week there and now will come back and resume a regular schedule.

It will be interesting to see how they react upon returning home yesterday, just five days after leaving. The good thing for them is they have until Thursday to re-adjust, even if it does mean that they have played just two games in 12 days.

Oh yeah, and one last note about the correlation (or coincidence) between teams playing regular season games in Europe and success - the last four times the NHL started in Europe, the team that was fortunate enough to raise the Stanley Cup was one that started the journey on European soil (2009 - PIT, 2010 - CHI, 2011 - BOS & 2012 - LA).

I don't want to jump to conclusions, but I don't think the Avs will be in contention this year, so...

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