Are the Olympics further screwing up 2005-06?

Just a thought that went through my head during the loss to the Hurricanes the other night: Are the Olympics being detrimental at current because players are focusing on the wrong games?

The Lightning played like a different team after New Years 2004 and it was what helped them propell themselves to the playoffs and ultimately the Cup… If this team is going to start firing on all cylinders, it would help if they did it soon… but that likely would be after the Olympics, and fans should hope the Bolts don’t put themselves out of contention before then

That's posted just to allude to the entire situation. You have the NHL coming back from a year off and a shorter-than-it-should-be training camp, you then have a few months of play with a plethora of new rules and new approaches all before grinding to a 2 week halt. Befor t hat, you have players wondering if they have a hsot at their respective countries Olympic teams, or players already thinking about the games... You got players adjusting to one set of rules and then that changing a bit for International play in the middle of February...

Everyone's going to enjoy the Olympics like usual - not ratting on that - but it is making things additionally difficult from one degree to another - for this NHL season. You might not agree that it's throwing players off at current, or has affected players on ice, but it will effect the league in one degree or another - that really is hard to argue against.