On paper, the only teams I see with a worst roster than the flames are probably San Jose, Chicago, Columbus and Anaheim. That’s not to say the flames are going to be better than those teams this year as all of those teams are at the point where their success will be determined almost exclusively by their young players succeeding as core players because they have so few skilled veterans left on their teams. The flames, on the other hand, still have quite a few veteran players in the top positions on the team so their success will be based on if those vets return to form (Huberdeau, Kuzmenko and Andersson) or maintain their levels from last year (Weegar, Kadri, Coleman, Sharangovich and Backlund). The flames could also end up trading some of those guys which could change the makeup of the team by a lot… especially if Andersson is traded early in the season since the defence is already unproven.
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