My analysis:
Injuries would appear to be a random luck sort of thing. Other than say bad ice at home, poor training, ageing injury prone team composition out of the top 60 important players there should be 2 per team.
The teams that were lucky enough to be missing few important players will have difficulty doing as well as last year.
Teams that were missing more than 2 significant players are likely to get a boost by having an average number of injuries.
I found it amazing that bottom dwellers Buffalo and Edmonton and Carolina had basically no injuries. They really sucked with basically no excuse.
Ottawa and Nashville will be contenders for better odds on the McDavid lottery if they get even a normal amount of important players injured.
Of the non-playoff teams it looks like Winnipeg and the Flames have a chance to make a big improvement if they manage to stay relatively healthy.
|