I'm banking on the good season/bad season pattern to hold true yet again. It's been that way for about 8 years.
Loubo on BB said it well. They crumple under high expectations people put on them after a good season, then when they're expected to continue sucking the next year they blow past the pundits predictions and take teams by surprise.
Hopefully it's another sleeper year, but with more upside (success and reasons to be hopeful moving forward).
At the very least, I don't see Mangiapane, Kadri and Huberdeau all being as invisible as they were for stretches of last season. Maybe one of them continues coasting along uninspiringly, but highly unlikely all three continue on that trajectory.
And Tanev if he can actually get healthy should also be able to bring that steady presence to the middle pairing that earned him the adoration of fans in his first two seasons here.
I'm most intrigued by the situation in net. If the mentality now is about merit over what you were nominated for two seasons ago, then Wolf should have every opportunity to edge markstrom out of starts if he doesn't turn his game around.
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