1. Strong contender? Who? The leafs?
2. The problem is everyone that’s good is paid.

1. the leafs are first in the NHL buddy
2. yes that's what happens, good players get paid

don't know what you were trying to say here but at least u tried

if they all turn out

yea ofc but most of them are looking pretty good this year

ya true

Well, let’s pump the brakes on their spot in the standings. They play in a joke of division, and have struggled at times. Once they cross the border they’ll get pumped. Just like they do every year.

The point is that they don’t really have many young players that are interesting other than the ones that are already highly paid. I just don’t see a way with a flat cap that this team can really improve, and they need to.

wdym they need to improve, you can only beat what's in front of you. also, this team is much better than last years, no comparison between the two.

the jets, habs, and oilers aren't terrible. the only jokes are the sens and the canucks, and even then they put up a good fight once in a while.

There are zero legitimately good teams in that division. The leafs should have their way with them.

Based on what we’ve seen from this team, both this season, and through the past few years, they do need major improvements to beat a good hockey team in a playoff series.

Hollowell > Duszak IMO

They really need to have Woll and a couple of those d-men turn into something.

I agree they need more to beat the tougher top teams. People on here don;t realize that it still in today's game takes physicality and toughtness to win, in a long playoff series.
BUT that being said I do think the Leafs are better this year than years past. They have adressed a bit of there problem, but need more.
Every division has a weak teams.
Sabres and Devils
Ott, Canucks
Ducks, Sharks
Det, Nash

Ya the north just has six of them.

The good teams aren’t going to shut down Matthews, but there aren’t going to be these four point games. I think most high end teams eat the leafs depth alive.

Winnipeg, Montreal and Calagary are not weak teams.
I'd say PItt, Rangers, Isle are worse than those 3
Leafs would need Tavares and Nylander to step up in playoffs, and also add more to the third Line if they wnat to compete against the Bostons, Dallas, Wash, Tampa Teams

The rangers stink, but there isn’t a team in canada that can consistently play well defensively.

You would be wrong about the islanders and the penguins. They would run train on the canadian division. The rangers stink.

Disagree, I like the pens but past there time now unfortuntely. Bruins and Caps are the only good teams.
isle they play good defense but struggle to score.
Okay so no defense means you have to score 4-5 goals a net to win instead of 2-3
Time will tell

Don’t really understand what the last couple lines meant. The flyers would be the best team in the canadian division by a mile.

Disagree,
They are at par with Winnepeg, Montreal

Montreal is falling apart. The northern division might be the weakest division from top to bottom that we’ve seen in the NHL for a decade. It makes it really fun though. Never know what’s going to happen. 11 goal games, rittich pitching a random shutout. Never know.

North=Central and West. Really the only division clearly better is the east.

yea it was a toss up between the two, could've been either

both Sandin and Liljegren look like future top 4 studs. kokkonen and niemela also both look like they'll be for sure nhler's, with niemela probably having the bigger upside. dermott is already a regular, so the only wildcard is joey duszak, and he's been killing it with the marlins this season.

for Woll, Scott, and Akhtiamov, you never really know because goalie development is weird, but they've all been to the world juniors and played good so we'll see