No you can’t sign a better backup than Smith for less money. There’s a reason why he signed Smith.

Sign Barzal first and we know how good the Isles were in the regular season last year. Start by being in the top10 two years in a row and then we'll see.

With the team in front I beg to differ. They played good last year without the upgrades minus the playoffs. Nobody knew what was happening in the playoffs, but now they do.

Brutally optimistic. Best of luck. Feel free to @ me after the first round is over.

Boston and Dallas will be suffering from major injuries this year

Hahah, feel free to @ me when your team doesn’t make it. Good luck anyway.

I mean it's painfully obvious Barzal will be signed. Do people actually think he won't be? The money is there once Boychuk is officially on LTIR.

They were top 10 in 19 playoffs, so by your measure, they are top 10. The regular season they were also top 10 till injuries hit in Nov/Dec. So without injuries, they are (again by your measure) top 10. Or do you have another complaint you didn't list?

I know the team is better without injuries but saying " before injuries " is an excuse, it's part of the game, you can't just not count since then.

'18-19: 5th in the East.
Swept PIT 4-0 but then got swept by CAR in the 2nd round

'19-20: 15th in the East; 11th by P%
Faced two struggling teams, made it to East final

Who knows, maybe they make the playoffs, maybe they miss them if the season continued.
2020 playoffs were weird; you're putting too much weight on it.


I don't know what's the issue, if the Isles are that good, they will easily be a top10 team next year, right?

They lost Toews and Boychuk and haven't added anyone significant. Dobson, Beauvillier and Sorkin are really the only players who will realistically do better this upcoming season than last season, everyone else has either plateaued or is dropping off.

Realistically they're in the wild card hunt.

I'm not using the injuries as an excuse. I'm saying (for some reason) regular season is a metric in your eyes. They were top 10 last season, were bit by the injury bug, they weren't. Again, just stating facts.

There is no issue, you're right based on the past two years islanders shoudl be top 10 AGAIN. What I'm saying in my original post is it's crazy how the isles are continually left off of lists.

Boychuk is addition by subtraction.

Sure, Toews hurts but not enough to make them no longer the team they were. To counter that I would say a full season of JGP will help.

If you think their a wild card, I can't change your mind. Just came here to post my two cents on why that is dumb.

I literally know that they won't. What's your problem?

Edmonton was 12 in the league last year and they've improved over the offseason. Rangers were 18th, Calgary was 19th and Montreal was 24th (lol) last year. Edmonton should be a top-10 team next year, none of these others have improved enough to be considered a lock to be better.

Oh, and the Oilers have the best scoring depth in the league.

Pretty sure this is a regular season prediction.

why would it be

Oilers are the best team in the league and its hard to be humble, give them a break, they havent had 15 top 10 picks in the last 10 years

oh, no they dont so biased and delusional its not even funny

How do you explain 3 western teams in the top-4? That's impossible with any playoff format I'm aware of. It's a regular season prediction.

makes it irrelevant then. Maybe not for the Oilers tho

They do. It's just facts, but people who don't understand the most basic of numbers resort to name calling. Nice.

Top-9:

Edmonton
Draisaitl: 1.55 P/GP
McDavid: 1.52
Yamamoto: 0.96
Nugent-Hopkins: 0.94
Kassian: 0.58
Neal: 0.56
Kahun: 0.55
Ennis: 0.53
Turris: 0.50

Tampa Bay
Kucherov: 1.25
Stamkos: 1.16
Point: 0.97
Killorn: 0.72
Cirelli: 0.65
Palat: 0.59
Coleman: 0.48
Johnson: 0.48
Gourde: 0.43

Washington
Ovechkin: 0.99
Backstrom: 0.89
Kuznetsov: 0.83
Vrana: 0.75
Oshie: 0.71
Wilson: 0.65
Eller: 0.57
Hagelin: 0.43
Panik: 0.37

Toronto
Matthews: 1.14 P/GP
Marner: 1.14
Tavares: 0.95
Nylander: 0.87
Hyman: 0.73
Mikheyev: 0.59
Thornton: 0.44
Kerfoot: 0.43
Spezza: 0.43

Colorado
MacKinnon: 1.35
Rantanen: 0.98
Landeskog: 0.81
Burakovsky: 0.78
Kadri: 0.71
Saad: 0.57
Donskoi: 0.51
Calvert: 0.50
Compher: 0.46

Rangers
Panarin: 1.38
Zibanejad: 1.32
Strome: 0.84
Kreider: 0.71
Buchnevich: 0.68
Chytil: 0.38
Kakko: 0.35
Lemieux: 0.31
Howden: 0.27

I haven't checked every team, but these are the top-5 offensive teams from last season. NYR should have Kravtsov and Lafreniere in the lineup and Kakko should take a step forward, so they're a contender for #1 for sure. Edmonton has Puljujarvi coming back, not sure whether he moves the needle or not. Here are the teams above ranked by top-9:

Edmonton: 7.69
Tampa Bay: 6.73
Toronto: 6.72
Colorado: 6.67
Rangers: 6.24
Washington: 6.19

Here they are again ranked by 7/8/9 scoring rates:

Edmonton: 1.58
Colorado: 1.47
Tampa Bay: 1.39
Washington: 1.37
Toronto: 1.30
Rangers: 0.93

The charts above show Edmonton with the best offense and depth and it's not particularly close. Behind the top-9 are guys like Puljujarvi (the jury is out), Chiasson (avg 20 goals per 82 over the past 2 seasons) and Archibald (avg 15 goals per 82 over the past 2 seasons), so there's even more depth in case of injuries. Holland has quietly built up a solid offensive group.

Makes it a regular season prediction. I'm not sure why this is so hard for you.

It's not...

youve nit picked a very specific stat to cater to your argument, its like me saying Auston matthews is the best defnsive center in the nhl according to takeaways, hes in no way the best defensive center in the legue, zack kassian is a 4th line player that plays top 6 minutes, tyler ennis played for the leafs on the 4th line and he will get top 6 minutes, joe thornton who will probably be our 4th maybe 3rd line center had similar points to turris last year on a much worse team and is also 10 years older, the difference between the leafs wingers and oilers wingers are is bigger than the gap in centers, i just dont get what happened in the offseason for oilers fans to think they are that much better than last year, baffles me, signed turris "(he was bought out for a reason) barrie who would be the leafs 4th best d is now going to be your 2nd or 3rd.)

cuz it is