Quote:
Originally Posted by trackercowe
I see where you're going, but I would put a few more teams ahead of Tampa right now. Pittsburgh and San Jose are still better teams todat, at least until Tampa can win a playoff round. Then I would also put Minnesota and Dallas ahead of them, especially with the moves those teams made in the off-season. Tampa is definitely a team on the rise, but I don't think they'd be nearly as good playing the California teams multiple teams every year.
For me they would be right around Colorado, which I think is a pretty fair assessment right now on where both teams are at.
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Pittsburgh is good, but not great anymore. Still need better goaltending and they lost their fair share of defensemen in the off-season, but had the prospects to step up. They are woefully short on skill at forward after their top line.
San Jose is going to be interesting to watch. They have played well so far but the dynamics between the coach and players, especially guys like Thornton and Marleau, are going to blow up at some point. Niemi is a 2nd tier goaltender. After Burns and Vlasic, their defense is a lot of "meh". They have 2 very solid top lines, and then their bottom 6 is filled with a lot of plugs. They are due for a slide at some point this year. A mentally fragile team, especially in crunch time.
Minnesota still has question marks in net, but could prove to be solid by the end of the year. Not sure about Kuemper yet or if Backstrom is back to form. Their defense is very good and very underrated. They have some elite wingers. They have solid center men but nobody who dominates. They really need Granlund to step up his game if they're going to make some noise. Their bottom 6 is decent, but nothing that will win you a championship.
Dallas is a team that I thought would have a big increase in points this year, but I'm not sold on their defense. They should easily outscore the opposition most nights, but it might take 4-5 goals every night to win. Lots of talent, and some good grit in the forward ranks, but I think they're too weak on the back end still.
As for Colorado, Bishop and Varlamov are comparable, sure, but I like Bishop more.
Barrie-Johnson
Hejda-Stuart
Holden-Guenin
Wilson/Stollery/Redmond
vs.
Hedman-Carle
Stralman-Gudas
Garrison-Brewer
Sustr/Barberio/Witkowski
I'm taking Tampa's defense every day of the week over Colorado's. Colorado obviously has a more firepower at forward, but Tampa is really close in that category too, especially if Drouin sticks with the big club this year.
If they were not good in the playoffs defensively, that's fair to critique, but I suspect they will be better prepared this time around and will have possibly learned something from that experience. They just look like one of the most balanced teams out there that isn't already a perennial favorite.
Watch tonight, and we'll discuss in the PGT about whether they changed anyone's mind at all. I get why people would hesitate to rank the Lightning so high BTW.