Nashville: 117 pts
Winnipeg: 114 pts
Toronto: 105 pts
Buffalo: 62 pts
The Marlies are closer to Buffalo than the Leafs
pretty stupid feeling, no offense.
Tampa: 54 wins (1st)
Nashville: 53 wins (2nd)
Winnipeg: 52 wins (3rd)
Toronto: 49 wins (6th)
Buffalo: 25 wins (31st)
Well like 10 points separated the leafs from Tampa et al. And 40 points seperated the leafs from buffalo so I would disagree
I meant with Dahlin and Mittelstadt in their lineup, as in moving forward. We obviously were far ahead of them this year.
However, Freddie kept us in a lot of games, and our underlying numbers are still a bit disturbing. I would need to see the team play significantly better defensively before I put us with those teams.
Buffalo still has some serious flaws, but compare the teams now, and it's a lot closer.
Top 6 Forwards
Matthews, Kadri, Marner, Nylander, Marleau, JvR (Kap/Johnsson)
Eichel, RoR, Mittelstadt, Reinhary, Okposo, Pominville/Nylander
Top 3 Defence
Rielly, Gardiner, Zaitsev
Dahlin, Ristolainen, Scandella
We still have advantage on depth scoring and definitely in net. Dahlin and Mittelstadt will bump everyone in their lineup down into a spot which more closely reflects their skill level, and that's huge. We had the same thing with the AM affect.
When I watch Winnipeg, Nash and Tampa, they've got better high end talent at key positions, better depth, and they still match our young cores pretty well, or even better.
This might be a reaction to seeing AM and WN completely shut down in the playoffs, but I've lost some faith in our ability to outscore our defensive woes, and those woes require some serious investment to fix.