Teams who were expected to do miserably but ended up doing well?

[Tinordi]

We need more high end prospects. The goals for this coming season should be to develop existing offensive prospects to NHL production and acquire more quality prospects.

If by some miracle we're tweening around 4th in the division by the deadline we should still commit to selling. We wont be doing ourselves any long term favours by cutting the rebuild short.

[Fighting Banana Slug]

Flames could do better than expected, but I am pretty sure Florida/Colorado/Tampa/Nashville/Carolina/Edmonton/Buffalo/NJ, etc. are thinking the same thing.

[19Yzerman19]

The Flames were actually somewhat better than their standing last year... now, they had Iginla and Bouwmeester to help them to that status (and Kipper but last year he was more of a hindrance). Still, they might not be as bad as they look on paper. Still no playoffs, but they have a totally legit shot at not being bottom 3.

[kehatch]

Teams like Montreal and Ottawa had a strong supporting cast, rookies with multiple years of experience that were primed to be impact players, and great goal tending. I don't see a Karlsson, Subban, Price, Spezza, etc on our roster.

I guess there is a chance of us being a one season wonder like the 09/10 Avalanche. They were down right lucky and played behind a goalie that was on fire. But we don't want to be a one season wonder. That just lengthens the rebuild.

Anything is possible. But chances are we are going to be a basement team next season. We just have too many moving parts that all need to work perfectly for us to be successful. Sure if Brodie is top 2, Baertschi is near a PPG, Monahan pulls a Landeskog, Ramo proves to be a better then average NHL starter, Knight gives us a shutdown C, the vets don't fall off, etc then we will be fine. Any one of those could easily happen. But chances are some of it doesn't.