Dallas for me has been the poster boy for being a team that is constantly up and down from one season to the next. They are either a surprise or a disappointment. I could see them out, but they did improve this off-season.
Canucks can get in - any team can catch lightning in a bottle. However, I would argue that they caught lightning in a bottle last season and performed much better than anticipated - until someone broke the bottle and the lightning escaped.
I don't think they improved enough to make the playoffs, but they will be pushing for it and making it close. They are much closer to making the playoffs than finishing last overall in the conference. I just don't think they moved the needle far enough in the offseason. They are missing some better D right now - Myers and Benn help, but they aren't guys that can reliably do enough. They are both depth defencemen (what in the world happened to Myers? What a promising career he started off with).
With that being said, they are no Edmonton. That's one thing we can all agree on. They are a much better team than Edmonton is. Take out the two best players from each team, and suddenly it looks like an NHL team playing against an AHL team. Funny how everybody in the division not only caught, but surpassed those guys who were "building something special" that the rest of the division were fearful of.
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