Quote:
Originally Posted by Cali Flames Fan
When looking at this I thought, "who is the weakest in net AND down the middle?" The bottom 3 were Buffalo, Edmonton, and Calgary. Edmonton is by far the weakest in those categories out of the 3.
Goalies:
Buffalo-Jhonas Enroth, Michael Neuvirth. Both likely backups on any other team.
Edmonton-Ben Scrivens, Viktor Fasth. Both likely backups on any other team, but have moments now and then of being quality starters.
Calgary-Kari Ramo, Jonas Hiller. Both are 1B type of starters, but can definitely get the job done.
Centers:
Buffalo-Girgensons, Hodgson, Reinhart, Grigorenko. That's a primarily untested group, but a lot of young talent to build around in Buffalo. If they can figure it out with any consistency they could help carry what is already a young and promising group, especially on defense.
Edmonton-Nugent-Hopkins, Gordon (or Draisaitl?), Lander, Arcobello. What a woeful group of centers that is. Unless Nuge can really carry the load as a top line center, they are in for a very long year again.
Calgary-Backlund, Monahan, Stajan, Bouma? Knight?. We are going to be bad this year, no doubt in my mind. Yet still, we can boast a better center group than Edmonton. No way we finish last unless everyone important gets hurt.
Edmonton will finish dead last this year, mark my words. They have perfected being no good.
p.s.-honourable mention to Arizona who is going down fast. I don't know who is going to score goals for them up front. There's just nobody that is a bonafide offensive threat at forward, elderly Doan aside. They lost 2 of their top 5 offensive producers (in the 45-50 point range) and replaced them with pretty much nothing. They're in trouble this year.
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By the same criteria is Winnipeg not also in that group:
Goalies: Pavelec, Hutchenson
Pavelec was the worst goalie in the NHL last year based on stats. I would take Calgary's goalies for sure, and probably Edmonton and Buffalo (I like Scrivens and Enroth/Neuvirth has some potential).
Centers: Little, Perreault, Scheifele, Slater
Probably better than the other 3 teams just due to Little but he is not a world beater, especially with the Centers he will have to go against in his division.