Arizona and Nashville while they don't have a tonne of marquee talent up front still have veteran depth throughout their forwards cores as well as good defence and goaltending. I think they stay somewhat competitive.
Ottawa, Carolina, Winnipeg, and the NYI don't look particularly good but they each have some bright points. Ottawa the least among them. They should be bad but probably not second last bad.
Florida and the Oilers both went out and signed some names but are teams that are pretty fragile and could both collapse if things go wrong out of the gate. A Luongo injury/slow start for example and the Panthers could be buried by November. They both have some bright spots and I could see some potential upside where they finish outside the bottom three.
Which leaves Calgary. Giordano looks like the lone bright spot on the team really, and I have doubts he will be able to math his career season from last year. There are only like 6 forwards with more then a season of experience that can play top 9.
Hiller has had below average stats for the last 3 seasons and Ramo's career high so far is also below average. A save percentage in the 30th range won't cut it.
The Flames might have some good youth bubbling under, but youth doesn't win you hockey games in the NHL and the Flames have gotten younger in the offseason. Most of vets they did get in the offseason aren't capable (Bollig,Engellend). They finished 4th last season and it seemed like everything was going right for them. Seeing as how the team got worse, I expect a slide.
Flames-29th.
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