Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts
The league is a lot better, and we added 2 teams both of whom are likely to be better than us this season.
14/15 was pretty much a fluke season, with a lot of comeback wins, and terrible analytics. Also they had Johnny and Monny.
I think people underestimate how bad our backend is.
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2 more teams means the talent is more watered down if anything, but the whole thing is in the NHL teams can have terrible analytics and fluke their way into a better than expected season.
It was a fluke in 14-15 with what I'd argue was a worse roster. There is nothing saying we can't have a fluke this season, especially in our division.
Vancouver, Edmonton, Vegas, and LA should be good. But if one of those teams has a poor season and ends up missing the playoffs it wouldn't be a surprise to me.
Seattle, San Jose, and Anaheim are probably bad still. Not a huge fan of Seattles offseason, and San Jose and Anaheim will be better than last year but it remains to be seen by how much.
Nobody would have predicted that 14-15 team would sneak into the playoffs ahead of the defending stanley cup champions from the year prior.
If this team was playing in the Atlantic or Metro then I'd been more bullish on guaranteeing a bottom 5 finish.
But they will have winnable games against Anaheim, San Jose, and Seattle in the division that might actually help inflate the record a bit.
In terms of the defense Weegar, Andersson, Bahl, Bean, Miromanov, Pachal isn't all that different than Giordano, Wideman, Brodie, Russell, Smid, Engelland IMO.