Originally Posted by FanIn80
Something interesting I just realized today... Only 14 of the 32 teams have a positive goal differential, while 17 are in the negative (there's one team at exactly zero).
Is this the beginning of the next era of only the top third of the league being competitive again? I wonder if the rising trend in goals and points has less to do with rule changes and skill creep, and more to do with the ten or so teams who have who have been able to stack their rosters.
Does Reinhart get 50 playing in CGY, STL, OTT, etc? Does Hyman even get 20 playing on any other line in the league? McKinnon, as awesome as he is, isn't putting up 100 pts on a team by himself like he'd have to here or in SJ etc. I doubt even McDavid gets 100 points somewhere like ARI or CBJ for example.
As someone who lived through an era of teams like CGY being unable to compete, this is a bit of a worrying trend. 7 teams at 50+ goal differential, 3 in the 40s and then there's one at 33, 3 at 22, 20, 19, 1 at 0 and the rest of the league is negative. Of the top 20 in points, only Kucherov, Forsberg, Kaprisov, Point and Crosby aren't on one of the 7 50+ teams.
Mind you, it might not be as bad as I initially thought, when you consider what we might have looked like today if we traded Huberdeau and didn't sign Kadri (but still signed Weegar and kept Monny and the first). In other words, there's a definite argument that most if not all of our situation is of our own doing. I mean the jury's out on whether we'd be able to use the cap space on anyone worth signing vs them signing in more attractive locales, but the argument is at least a very good one.
Anyway, still a bit of a worrying trend that we're back to 7-10 teams being competitive again.
Edit: just want to quickly add that I really like Kadri and have no problem with his salary. I only mentioned not signing him, because then we'd still have Monny and the first we gave up.
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