Quoting: HabsForEver
Tampa - Agreed
Boston - Agreed
Washington - Agreed
Pittsburgh - Not totally agreed. They are an older team and who knows when Malkin/Crosby/Letang will start regressing. It also doesn't help them that Murray is very inconsistant and there's no guarantee Jarry plays like he did this year. They also have cap problems so there's no telling what they will look like next year. If Schultz leaves, they have a gaping hole on defense.
Toronto - Completely disagree. There's virtually 0 chance they are as good as they were this year. They are losing Ceci and Barrie and replacing them with ELC players who no doubt are going to make their defensive problem even worse. They are simply too top heavy and are easily exploitable.
Philidelphia - Not even sure why they are a lock and would like your explanation here. They had multiple players with Career years and odds are they will fall back down to earth. I'm sure they will be in the wildcard fight, but I don't agree that they are a lock.
I think it will be no different than this year, Tampa and Boston will dominate the division and it will be a fire fight for the 3rd spot.
Dude, Pittsburgh still has Crosby/Malkin/Letang who are all elite players. We have tremendous depth with guzental, rust, Zucker, hornqvist, McCann, etc... and our D is very underrated with dumo Marino and petterson rounding out our top 4. Schultz did nothing for us this year. Losing Schultz’s 5.5 million cap hit is addition by subtraction. We’ll bring in a cheaper guy like TVR to replace him. Pens don’t have cap issues, they’ll be just fine. Pens easily finish ahead of habs.
Toronto still has so much more star power than Montreal. They have elite talent which is the hardest part to acquire, something MTL doesn’t really have. Let’s see how they replace Barrie. If they role a D core of:
Rielly-DeMelo
Muzzin-Holl
Sandin- whoever
It could surprise a lot of people and potentially be better than their current D core, dependent on Sandins progression.
Philly- you’re right they’re not a lock, I take that back, but I still think they’re a much better team than MTL. They FINALLY have a goalie they can trust in carter hart, they have a lot of depth, some young players who can contribute like Frost, and Faboree, etc... while they’re not a “lock” I expect them to finish ahead of MTL. They really don’t have any holes on that roster.