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Its looking like the wildcard race in the East is going to be exciting

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chaz4hockey said:
The strength of a single team is not an indicator of whether an overall division is stronger than another.

Riding the coattails of Tpa and Fl ignores the sub-meh of over 1/2 the Division in Buffalo, Ottawa, Detroit and Montreal the past few years.

Btw: has the Caps lost 5-1 to the Atlantic’s 5th place team at home this year?
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Tampa, Florida, Boston and Montreal have made the finals more recently than any Metro division team. Only one team can win the Atlantic every year, and that team always beats the Metro. That doesn't mean the second or third place team couldn't beat the top Metro team - it's just designed so we'll never know as they have to go through tougher competition to win the Atlantic bracket. We see this argument every season because the Metro teams for some reason always finish with more points than the Atlantic and always lose to the Atlantic in the playoffs.

They did split up the Atlantic one year... and 2 Atlantic teams made the finals. Personally, if I was choosing, I would rather go through the Metro bracket than the Atlantic.
 
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Divine said:
Tampa, Florida, Boston and Montreal have made the finals more recently than any Metro division team. Only one team can win the Atlantic every year, and that team always beats the Metro. That doesn't mean the second or third place team couldn't beat the top Metro team - it's just designed so we'll never know as they have to go through tougher competition to win the Atlantic bracket. We see this argument every season because the Metro teams for some reason always finish with more points than the Atlantic and always lose to the Atlantic in the playoffs.

They did split up the Atlantic one year... and 2 Atlantic teams made the finals. Personally, if I was choosing, I would rather go through the Metro bracket than the Atlantic.
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Montreal was a gift due to Covid.

My point stills stands. Ignoring Atlantic’s coattail teams from previous years, Metro has been a much deeper Division recently as Atlantic had 1/2 of the division made up of very low bottom feeders (that is finally changing this year).

Washington-Jersey-Canes is comparable to Leafs-Fl-Tampa this year but none of the six would be prohibitive SC favorites (FL doesn’t have the same depth and 2 long years of playoff runs could be a danger for them).

IMO, the West is the favorite with Oilers or one of Avs, Wild, Jets and possibly Dallas in the Finals that should win it all.

Naturally, injuries and TDL deals can mix up the favorite list.
 
PaulD said:
Habs won't make play offs. Recent hot streak has been good. (won 7 of last 13)
Log jam is more a result of so many 3 point games. How much of a gap do we really expect after 45 games?
Habs and wings stunk till about a month ago and are still in it.
I think the Sens will make it this year.
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So when is this falling off the cliff for the Habs going to start? Could happen as they are the second youngest team in the league yet where is the signs of this?
 
chaz4hockey said:
Montreal was a gift due to Covid.

My point stills stands. Ignoring Atlantic’s coattail teams from previous years, Metro has been a much deeper Division recently as Atlantic had 1/2 of the division made up of very low bottom feeders (that is finally changing this year).

Washington-Jersey-Canes is comparable to Leafs-Fl-Tampa this year but none of the six would be prohibitive SC favorites (FL doesn’t have the same depth and 2 long years of playoff runs could be a danger for them).

IMO, the West is the favorite with Oilers or one of Avs, Wild, Jets and possibly Dallas in the Finals that should win it all.

Naturally, injuries and TDL deals can mix up the favorite list.
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Seems to me every team had to play to the challenges the Covid era presented. They beat some really good teams on their run.
 
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albator71 said:
Ottawa could also finished in the top 3, when Ullmark returns they will have one of the best goalie tandem in the league with Leevi Merilainen. Also they finished the season playing 7 of the last 8 games at home. Don't sleep on the Sens!
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And now they are on the verge of getting double shut out by two teams they battling in the wildcard race.
 
Rangers are coming on strong.

Pens are looking done at this point with the most games played and too many teams to leap over.

Malkin and Crosby a combined -38 with a combined 22 goals after 50 games.

That core including Letang is aging out with no good young talent around them to do the heavy lifting.
 
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Pens and Isles are still a hot streak from being competitive but they need to win 6 games in a row like immediately.

Tampa is a bad week from being officially "in the pack" (yes they have similar points already to them, but when GP is taken into account they are still about halfway between NJ/Fla and Bos/CBJ/NYR in team record strength)
 
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The race to be a playoff filler team. Other than the Rangers, who also can’t be trusted it’s a bunch of teams that will just be happy to be in playoffs and most likely have a quick exit. I will say it would be nice if Boston and Rangers can f*** off and let other teams in playoffs have a crack at it and just for something new as I’m tired of these teams always in the playoffs.
 
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Matty Sundin said:
The race to be a playoff filler team. Other than the Rangers, who also can’t be trusted it’s a bunch of teams that will just be happy to be in playoffs and most likely have a quick exit. I will say it would be nice if Boston and Rangers can f*** off and let other teams in playoffs have a crack at it and just for something new as I’m tired of these teams always in the playoffs.
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The Rangers tried... they really tried.
 
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The pens about to enter the decade of darkness. And dubas will be there for the first half anyway haha. What a resume builder that would be for him
 
absolute turtle derby to see who is the least bad of all the mid teams in the east.
 
Matty Sundin said:
The race to be a playoff filler team. Other than the Rangers, who also can’t be trusted it’s a bunch of teams that will just be happy to be in playoffs and most likely have a quick exit. I will say it would be nice if Boston and Rangers can f*** off and let other teams in playoffs have a crack at it and just for something new as I’m tired of these teams always in the playoffs.
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Rather a team like the leafs just miss it since they never do anything anyway. Such a waste of a team that keeps getting in. Let a hungry team get in over them.
 
chaz4hockey said:
Montreal was a gift due to Covid.

My point stills stands. Ignoring Atlantic’s coattail teams from previous years, Metro has been a much deeper Division recently as Atlantic had 1/2 of the division made up of very low bottom feeders (that is finally changing this year).

Washington-Jersey-Canes is comparable to Leafs-Fl-Tampa this year but none of the six would be prohibitive SC favorites (FL doesn’t have the same depth and 2 long years of playoff runs could be a danger for them).

IMO, the West is the favorite with Oilers or one of Avs, Wild, Jets and possibly Dallas in the Finals that should win it all.

Naturally, injuries and TDL deals can mix up the favorite list.
Click to expand...
The Atlantic literally had the 3rd and 5th overall teams meet in the 1st round. It's undoubtedly the more difficult division out of the 2 in the East.

Tampa won 2 cups made a 3rd final
Florida won a cup and made another final
Boston made the final
Montreal made the final

Carolina has been decent but they get destroyed by the Atlantic in the playoffs. Rangers have been very over rated in general in my opinion, they were living and dying with Shesterkin the past few years and it's showing now. The Isles were a really good team 5-6 years ago, they probably win the cup if Tampa didn't LTIR that season.

But overall comparing divisions, I don't think it has been particularly close in the last 6 or so years

If we're ranking the 10 best teams in the East over the last 6ish years I think it goes like this

1) Tampa
2) Florida
3) Boston
4) Carolina
5) New York Rangers
6) Toronto
7) New York Islanders (I'd have them higher but they've had some really bad years since the ECF)
8) New Jersey
9) Washington
10) Pittsburgh

I get what you mean with the depth with the Metro, but they're all like average-ish teams. Whereas with the Atlantic you had some absolute juggernauts, the gap between them is massive. In my honest opinion I think Tampa/Florida/Boston would have absolutely ran through the Metro if any of them were in that division over the last 6 years.
 
kerrabria said:
I like this Cbus team, but I'm gonna pump the brakes on them (and the Canadiens). This is what young teams with inspirational coaches do. They overperform for six weeks, take opponents by surprise, and stack enough wins to exit the basement. But some of their hot players will cool down, and adrenaline will wear off as guys hit 100+ NHL games.
Meanwhile, Pittsburgh is deflated, both New York teams are completely flat, and Detroit just isn't good.
My eyes are on...
  • Boston players stepping up and rallying
  • Tortorella squeezing a little bit more out of the Flyers
  • Ottawa keeping the ship upright and not tearing a hole in their own sails
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Since Jan 2nd Rangers is #1 in the NHL in goals scored and points won.
AvroArrow said:
The Atlantic literally had the 3rd and 5th overall teams meet in the 1st round. It's undoubtedly the more difficult division out of the 2 in the East.

Tampa won 2 cups made a 3rd final
Florida won a cup and made another final
Boston made the final
Montreal made the final

Carolina has been decent but they get destroyed by the Atlantic in the playoffs. Rangers have been very over rated in general in my opinion, they were living and dying with Shesterkin the past few years and it's showing now. The Isles were a really good team 5-6 years ago, they probably win the cup if Tampa didn't LTIR that season.

But overall comparing divisions, I don't think it has been particularly close in the last 6 or so years

If we're ranking the 10 best teams in the East over the last 6ish years I think it goes like this

1) Tampa
2) Florida
3) Boston
4) Carolina
5) New York Rangers
6) Toronto
7) New York Islanders (I'd have them higher but they've had some really bad years since the ECF)
8) New Jersey
9) Washington
10) Pittsburgh

I get what you mean with the depth with the Metro, but they're all like average-ish teams. Whereas with the Atlantic you had some absolute juggernauts, the gap between them is massive. In my honest opinion I think Tampa/Florida/Boston would have absolutely ran through the Metro if any of them were in that division over the last 6 years.
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Carolina gets destroyed by the Rangers. Not sure how you came to your conclusion.

Back to the drawing board buddy.
 
Still glad to see so many haters bringing up the Pens. Means all those years of winning still have chapped some asses.

Penguins don’t even deserve to be on this list. It would be extremely foolish for them to even flirt with the wildcard and have them somehow buying at the deadline.

Let them bow out gracefully. They deserve it.

To answer the question though…

Bruins and Rangers are going to take the wildcard spots and make for some very interesting series against Washington/Toronto. Both series those teams can upset the top seed.
 
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