Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperMatt18
San Jose, Nashville, and St Louis look to be the obvious ones to watch for in the bottom of the standings.
Minnesota and Vancouver probably eventually make changes to try the salvage the season. Chicago and Anaheim at this point seem to be good enough to be in the mushy middle at least.
Pretty much the entire eastern conference is above .500 and I expect that to be a battleground all season.
The Blues and Predators are the ones that are going to be annoying - both from a bottom of the standings perspective, and also because I could see them being more proactive at moving out veteran assets than the Flames and flooding the trade market a bit.
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I do agree with you that St Louis and Nashville could be the new teams to watch. But unlike the Flames, they have top end contributors that are harder to move and players that are top end that probably are not in the equation of moving to tank.
Nashville is older and should rip it apart, but they are loaded with NMC. Some are long term deals of players that we can all say they should trade, but I doubt they will. Forsberg, Josi, Skeji, Saros probably do not move this season. Stamkos and Marchesaault could move but also can block any deal that Nashville wants to make. Nashville has 2-3 forwards that could step up as trades are made. I see O'Rielly as the only player they move that is a key contributor.
St Louis also has high end players with full NTC on long term deals. We can all say Thomas could move, but is he moving? I doubt it. Tons of key contributors aren't moving. I see Schenn as someone who could be available.
The Flames have nobody long-term contributing other than Wolf. Parekh, Zary, and Coronato are not playing that well and are having little to no impact on winning games right now. Kadri, Coleman, Ras all are very likely to move and move with less push back from players (trade protection) and owners. Key contributors that are old and not signed long term. This opportunity has become more favorable 15ish games into the season than it looked in the off season. It feels like it is our best chance without doing something dramatic like other teams need to do.