I think, as a rule, any prediction that makes only negative or only positive assumptions is unlikely to be true. It's a really common line of reasoning - player X had a bad year, therefore they will be exactly that bad next year. In reality, players fluctuate a ton year-over-year, and chances are at least _some_ Flames will wildly exceed our expectations.
The D core looks bad right now, until randomly Kylington-Zadorov ends up being a terrific pair and all of a sudden we have a rock-solid top-4. Or Hanifin takes another step forward and carries his pairing with Andersson. Or Tanev stabilizes Valimaki's development and he gets back on track as a future top-pair defender. etc. The difference between a weak D core and a strong one is often just 1-2 things going right.
The only thing I'd feel confident guaranteeing right now is that the assumption that nothing will change is wrong.
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