Quoting: yanp007
To be honnest, I think Carolina is closer to a Stanley cup than TML. Top 5 defense in the league, Ordinary goalie, Andersen is better but TML will never win a cup with this goalie-defense combo. In the next years, with Necas, Foegele and Svenchnikov, they will have a very good offense team.... Also, they have cap space, add a good goalie
Quoting: yanp007
Not top4?? So i was sure that they were in the conference finale...
So let's just gloss over my tampa point, about the playoffs not necessarily indicating who the best team is as it succumbs to small sample sizes and luck compared to the regular season. I never mentioned Toronto in my post and their ranking next to Carolina, but sure let's play.
Toronto is still young, and a very good offensive team, better regular season, better offense, worse defense but has some pretty good prospects like sandin and lilly coming soon, better goaltending. Carolina's offense is young with some nice prospects like you mentioned, but prospects are risky just like sandin and lilly, great defense, worse goaltending. Toronto has some cap issues, carolina will get there soon enough with aho and svech. Meh i think most would give a slight edge to Toronto right now but it's very close, we'll see what happens this offseason.
Now as for playoffs. I think playoffs have a lot of randomness, but you clearly dont so this next part must hold a lot of weight. Canes swept by boston in 4, Toronto beat by boston in 7, but I've said before playoffs have a lot of randomness, so I dont put a lot of weight in that, you must though.