Predict the Atlantic Standings

[Panthaz89]

And yet a lot of people here are predicting they’re 7th or 8th in the Atlantic when Boston, Tampa, Ottawa all got worse.

tbh the only safe projection is that the Canadians aren't making the playoffs that's about the only team I don't see competing for a spot considering the competition.

 

[Team Cozens]

I agree that they're worse defensively clearly, but ROR hardly played in the regular season and the Leafs were on pace to be a 110+ point team without him. Bunting was no good defensively. Kerfoot and Holl were good defensively and will be a loss at that end.

Leafs are also a lot softer from a hitting perspective. Kerfoot had more hits than Domi and Bertuzzi combined last year. Bunting had even more hits and Noel Acciari was a beast and hitting machine in the playoffs. I honestly don't get what Treliving is doing at all.

 

[Nico Cauzuki]

Hey, I'd enjoy seeing Boston fall, but your prediction would require a 40-50 point drop that feels extreme

Boston were a good team but personally i think they overachieved abit last year and losing your 2 best centers will have a big impact on those lines specially your #1 center and captain maybe im wrong i guess will see but personally i think Boston drops alot next season

 

[WhereAreTheCookies]

While true, I think it's fair to note that they've added real value on paper. They flirted with a playoff spot for a long time last season, yet many people seem to rate them only based on the post-TDL version of the team.

They did find ways to win early last season, but as it wore on we saw a team with a lack of firepower when they needed it. They were bottom 10 in scoring and 11th worst in goals against. Maybe they get some defensive improvement, or better goaltending from Reimer than they did from Ned, but is that enough to offset their clear lack of scoring? Are adding Gost, and upgrading Kubalik to DeBrincat going to add significant goal totals?

The lowest scoring playoff teams last season were the Wild, Islanders and Jets who all still scored more goals than Detroit while allowing 50+ less over the course of the season. That's a tough gap to close. We are seeing the league trending upward in goal scoring, and last season Detroit lagged behind in that department. We also saw Husso start out hot, but fell back to earth around midseason.

I think there are just a lot of questions around how that roster will gel, and given the high roster turnover the past 2 seasons I think it's a legitimate concern. They also were claimed as the most improved team last off-season, and it did result in some minor improvement but not to the level needed to make the playoffs.

I'm not knocking them, but Yzerman himself seemed to be trying to temper some expectations when he said he was about a year behind Buffalo and Ottawa.

 

[Tufted Titmouse]

Oof

 

[Jerzey Devil]

Toronto
Florida
Tampa
Buffalo
Ottawa
Detroit
Boston
Montreal

 

[Fogelhund]

View attachment 731033

Oof

Congrats to Boston on putting together their regular season run last year, and taking one final stab at things. Boston has been a team many thought were in decline for many years, and yet they still kept competing. Bergeron should be a first ballot HOF guy, and one of the best all round C's in the league. Losing him, Krejci and Hall.... I mean this lineup doesn't look good. I don't know how you pull a rabbit out of a hat with this group, but I guess we'll see. Solid D still, and G... but the forward group isn't so good. Not a lot of available ammo to make trades either, but we will see. Wildcard at best?

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

Congrats to Boston on putting together their regular season run last year, and taking one final stab at things. Boston has been a team many thought were in decline for many years, and yet they still kept competing. Bergeron should be a first ballot HOF guy, and one of the best all round C's in the league. Losing him, Krejci and Hall.... I mean this lineup doesn't look good. I don't know how you pull a rabbit out of a hat with this group, but I guess we'll see. Solid D still, and G... but the forward group isn't so good. Not a lot of available ammo to make trades either, but we will see. Wildcard at best?

You answered your own question, the D and the goaltending that's how you do it.

 

[Fogelhund]

You answered your own question, the D and the goaltending that's how you do it.

I get it... but the marginal difference in quality between a good team and wildcard isn't that huge. Bergeron was a huge part of their Defensive presence too. That's why they play games though, so we shall see. But that lineup.

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

I get it... but the marginal difference in quality between a good team and wildcard isn't that huge. Bergeron was a huge part of their Defensive presence too. That's why they play games though, so we shall see. But that lineup.

I agree that lineup looks awful and they don't have futures to fix it.

That being said Boston always finds a way, until proven otherwise they have earned the benefit of the doubt

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

They did find ways to win early last season, but as it wore on we saw a team with a lack of firepower when they needed it. They were bottom 10 in scoring and 11th worst in goals against. Maybe they get some defensive improvement, or better goaltending from Reimer than they did from Ned, but is that enough to offset their clear lack of scoring? Are adding Gost, and upgrading Kubalik to DeBrincat going to add significant goal totals?

The lowest scoring playoff teams last season were the Wild, Islanders and Jets who all still scored more goals than Detroit while allowing 50+ less over the course of the season. That's a tough gap to close. We are seeing the league trending upward in goal scoring, and last season Detroit lagged behind in that department. We also saw Husso start out hot, but fell back to earth around midseason.

I think there are just a lot of questions around how that roster will gel, and given the high roster turnover the past 2 seasons I think it's a legitimate concern. They also were claimed as the most improved team last off-season, and it did result in some minor improvement but not to the level needed to make the playoffs.

I'm not knocking them, but Yzerman himself seemed to be trying to temper some expectations when he said he was about a year behind Buffalo and Ottawa.

I'll try and answer the bolded key points in order.

Scoring will be better despite losing Bertuzzi and Vrana who barely played for Detroit last season. Debrincat for Kubalik is a clear upgrade and we're likely to see DeBrincat used as the primary weapon next to Larkin this season. In addition to this they added Daniel Sprong who scored 20 goals for the Kraken, Klim Kostin who scored 11 goals in 57 games for the Oilers, and Christian Fischer who scored 13 goals for the Coyotes. JT Compher scored 17 goals for the Avs is a clear upgrade in every single facet of the game to Pius Suter, the previous 3C. Hronek for Gostisbehere is pretty close to even. Then there are at least 2 forward prospects and 1 other defense prospect that could be called up in the season to provide some offense in Carter Mazur, Marco Kasper and William Wallinder. Yes, Detroit will score more next year.

As for Husso and why he fell to earth, he was forced to play with an injury when Detroit's backup options were Magnus Hellberg and Alex Nedeljkovic. Lyon is a clear upgrade on Hellberg. I remain skeptical of Reimer as an upgrade over Ned, but I really doubt that he could be worse.

On paper they looked fair to middling last year and were competing for a playoff spot into February before the wheels fell off. Part of this was the untenable situation with Vrana's suspected substance abuse issues keeping a top sniper out of the lineup. Nobody was anticipating that Bertuzzi would end up with TWO broken hands. Or that Ned would play himself into a minor league demotion when he was a Calder finalist 2 seasons before. Or that Rasmussen would break his kneecap while having a career year. Or that Chiarot would be the absolute worst partner for sophomore Moritz Seider (although fans on this board called that out after game 5 of the season...). The offseason acquisitions this year are much more in line with Coach Lalonde's and GMSY's long term vision of a hard to play against defensive hockey team.

Onto defense, Detroit's third pair of Robert Hagg and Gustav Lindstrom may have been the worst third pairing in the league, and the worst Detroit has iced since we saw Dennis Cholowski and Madison Bowey there. Adding Holl to the third pair and adding Edvinsson to the roster for the year are very clear improvements to the team's defense. And even Gostisbehere is a (slight) upgrade to Filip Hronek. Furthermore, Detroit replaced their 3C, Pius Suter, with JT Compher, which I think needs to be mentioned again. Compher was a pretty important defensive player for the avalanche last season and received Selke votes. I don't expect 50+ points from him, but 40 and playing key shutdown minutes, PK?

Last, Yzerman made his statement after a very disappointing end to the month of February at the trade deadline, not July 1st. It was meant to be a signal to the team that there would be a lot of changes, and there were. Detroit upgraded every position this offseason. I'm expecting a 20+ improvement in GF and a decrease in GA by at least 20. I don't know if that's good enough to get them into the postseason, but I certainly think it puts them closer and will keep them in the discussion for a playoff spot longer.

 

[norrisnick]

I'll try and answer the bolded key points in order.

Scoring will be better despite losing Bertuzzi and Vrana who barely played for Detroit last season. Debrincat for Kubalik is a clear upgrade and we're likely to see DeBrincat used as the primary weapon next to Larkin this season. In addition to this they added Daniel Sprong who scored 20 goals for the Kraken, Klim Kostin who scored 11 goals in 57 games for the Oilers, and Christian Fischer who scored 13 goals for the Coyotes. JT Compher scored 17 goals for the Avs is a clear upgrade in every single facet of the game to Pius Suter, the previous 3C. Hronek for Gostisbehere is pretty close to even. Then there are at least 2 forward prospects and 1 other defense prospect that could be called up in the season to provide some offense in Carter Mazur, Marco Kasper and William Wallinder. Yes, Detroit will score more next year.

As for Husso and why he fell to earth, he was forced to play with an injury when Detroit's backup options were Magnus Hellberg and Alex Nedeljkovic. Lyon is a clear upgrade on Hellberg. I remain skeptical of Reimer as an upgrade over Ned, but I really doubt that he could be worse.

On paper they looked fair to middling last year and were competing for a playoff spot into February before the wheels fell off. Part of this was the untenable situation with Vrana's suspected substance abuse issues keeping a top sniper out of the lineup. Nobody was anticipating that Bertuzzi would end up with TWO broken hands. Or that Ned would play himself into a minor league demotion when he was a Calder finalist 2 seasons before. Or that Rasmussen would break his kneecap while having a career year. Or that Chiarot would be the absolute worst partner for sophomore Moritz Seider (although fans on this board called that out after game 5 of the season...). The offseason acquisitions this year are much more in line with Coach Lalonde's and GMSY's long term vision of a hard to play against defensive hockey team.

Onto defense, Detroit's third pair of Robert Hagg and Gustav Lindstrom may have been the worst third pairing in the league, and the worst Detroit has iced since we saw Dennis Cholowski and Madison Bowey there. Adding Holl to the third pair and adding Edvinsson to the roster for the year are very clear improvements to the team's defense. And even Gostisbehere is a (slight) upgrade to Filip Hronek. Furthermore, Detroit replaced their 3C, Pius Suter, with JT Compher, which I think needs to be mentioned again. Compher was a pretty important defensive player for the avalanche last season and received Selke votes. I don't expect 50+ points from him, but 40 and playing key shutdown minutes, PK?

Last, Yzerman made his statement after a very disappointing end to the month of February at the trade deadline, not July 1st. It was meant to be a signal to the team that there would be a lot of changes, and there were. Detroit upgraded every position this offseason. I'm expecting a 20+ improvement in GF and a decrease in GA by at least 20. I don't know if that's good enough to get them into the postseason, but I certainly think it puts them closer and will keep them in the discussion for a playoff spot longer.

Game 1 of pre-season... It looked weird in the Red/White game but figured it might be due to the non-competitiveness of that game. Confirmed early in the first game against actual opposition.

We were stuck with it for 34 games...

 

[Tufted Titmouse]

Leafs are also a lot softer from a hitting perspective. Kerfoot had more hits than Domi and Bertuzzi combined last year. Bunting had even more hits and Noel Acciari was a beast and hitting machine in the playoffs. I honestly don't get what Treliving is doing at all.

Wow, you don't like something the Leafs are doing, what a shocker.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

Game 1 of pre-season... It looked weird in the Red/White game but figured it might be due to the non-competitiveness of that game. Confirmed early in the first game against actual opposition.

We were stuck with it for 34 games...

Now that Lalonde has learned his lesson I'm not anticipating watching Chiarot with Seider unless something catastrophic happens like 3 other left defensemen injured at the same time. Chiarot should be stapled to Holl next year and not allowed over the boards unless they're together.

 

[bert]

Leafs are also a lot softer from a hitting perspective. Kerfoot had more hits than Domi and Bertuzzi combined last year. Bunting had even more hits and Noel Acciari was a beast and hitting machine in the playoffs. I honestly don't get what Treliving is doing at all.

I mean if you actually think that Kerfoot is more physical you need to watch the games. They are definitely going to be harder to play against than last year.

 

[MoreGore]

And yet a lot of people here are predicting they’re 7th or 8th in the Atlantic when Boston, Tampa, Ottawa all got worse.

Very shallow analysis would say that an offseason is the only part to compare a team from one season to the next.

Ottawa lost Debrincat and Talbot, added Kubalik and Korpisalo. A slight downgrade perhaps. What is not included is Norris (5gp) and Chyhrun (12gp) being added. There is also the 5 million in cap space, and the decision around Hockey Canada (Formenton and Batherson) to be determined.

 

[bert]

Now that Lalonde has learned his lesson I'm not anticipating watching Chiarot with Seider unless something catastrophic happens like 3 other left defensemen injured at the same time. Chiarot should be stapled to Holl next year and not allowed over the boards unless they're together.

Which teams will salivate over. There is no way these two can be a pairing on the road. They will get eaten alive.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

Which teams will salivate over. There is no way these two can be a pairing on the road. They will get eaten alive.

Again, can't be worse than Hagg and Lindstrom. That is in contention for worst defensive pairing I've ever seen in my life.

Holl is just fine as a 3rd pairing defenseman. Chiarot's big problem was not deferring to his partners that were clearly better than him when playing with Seider and Hronek. If Chiarot plays with Holl then Chiarot can be the guy that plays the puck. Or he can be traded. Detroit is loaded with good LD prospects that can come in and help.

 

[bert]

Again, can't be worse than Hagg and Lindstrom. That is in contention for worst defensive pairing I've ever seen in my life.

Holl is just fine as a 3rd pairing defenseman. Chiarot's big problem was not deferring to his partners that were clearly better than him when playing with Seider and Hronek. If Chiarot plays with Holl then Chiarot can be the guy that plays the puck. Or he can be traded. Detroit is loaded with good LD prospects that can come in and help.

Who's going to move the puck out of the zone when they cant change on an icing?

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

Who's going to move the puck out of the zone when they cant change on an icing?

Their center? Or they're going to chip it off the glass?

The problem with Chiarot was, despite whoever he played with, he never passed to his partner unless his partner was already covered. I'd rather he play with the worst defenseman on the roster than the best.

 

[wintersej]

View attachment 731033

Oof

Lysell, Boqvist, Lauko, Merkulov all in before Greer and Steen, but yeah, its a team that really needs a #1C.

The thing is that they still have elite defense and goaltending and a PP lead by one of the games best goal scorers. They won't get home ice without any other moves, but they ain't gonna fall off a cliff, and next offseason they will be very cap rich to go center shopping.

 

[WhereAreTheCookies]

I'll try and answer the bolded key points in order.

Scoring will be better despite losing Bertuzzi and Vrana who barely played for Detroit last season. Debrincat for Kubalik is a clear upgrade and we're likely to see DeBrincat used as the primary weapon next to Larkin this season. In addition to this they added Daniel Sprong who scored 20 goals for the Kraken, Klim Kostin who scored 11 goals in 57 games for the Oilers, and Christian Fischer who scored 13 goals for the Coyotes. JT Compher scored 17 goals for the Avs is a clear upgrade in every single facet of the game to Pius Suter, the previous 3C. Hronek for Gostisbehere is pretty close to even. Then there are at least 2 forward prospects and 1 other defense prospect that could be called up in the season to provide some offense in Carter Mazur, Marco Kasper and William Wallinder. Yes, Detroit will score more next year.

As for Husso and why he fell to earth, he was forced to play with an injury when Detroit's backup options were Magnus Hellberg and Alex Nedeljkovic. Lyon is a clear upgrade on Hellberg. I remain skeptical of Reimer as an upgrade over Ned, but I really doubt that he could be worse.

On paper they looked fair to middling last year and were competing for a playoff spot into February before the wheels fell off. Part of this was the untenable situation with Vrana's suspected substance abuse issues keeping a top sniper out of the lineup. Nobody was anticipating that Bertuzzi would end up with TWO broken hands. Or that Ned would play himself into a minor league demotion when he was a Calder finalist 2 seasons before. Or that Rasmussen would break his kneecap while having a career year. Or that Chiarot would be the absolute worst partner for sophomore Moritz Seider (although fans on this board called that out after game 5 of the season...). The offseason acquisitions this year are much more in line with Coach Lalonde's and GMSY's long term vision of a hard to play against defensive hockey team.

Onto defense, Detroit's third pair of Robert Hagg and Gustav Lindstrom may have been the worst third pairing in the league, and the worst Detroit has iced since we saw Dennis Cholowski and Madison Bowey there. Adding Holl to the third pair and adding Edvinsson to the roster for the year are very clear improvements to the team's defense. And even Gostisbehere is a (slight) upgrade to Filip Hronek. Furthermore, Detroit replaced their 3C, Pius Suter, with JT Compher, which I think needs to be mentioned again. Compher was a pretty important defensive player for the avalanche last season and received Selke votes. I don't expect 50+ points from him, but 40 and playing key shutdown minutes, PK?

Last, Yzerman made his statement after a very disappointing end to the month of February at the trade deadline, not July 1st. It was meant to be a signal to the team that there would be a lot of changes, and there were. Detroit upgraded every position this offseason. I'm expecting a 20+ improvement in GF and a decrease in GA by at least 20. I don't know if that's good enough to get them into the postseason, but I certainly think it puts them closer and will keep them in the discussion for a playoff spot longer.

While I don't disagree that Detroit could, and theoretically should improve over last season. Did they do enough to jump any of the playoff teams (Boston, Toronto, Tampa & Florida) or even the Sabres and Sens who are both young teams expecting growth from within and continuity over a ton of UFA's? Both obviously have question marks in goal, but at least in the case of Buffalo they can usually outscore those problems. Reimer and Husso were both sub .900 goalies last season, and while Husso may have played injured, most of the teams in the league can list key players who played through injuries, or were entirely lost for the bulk of the season. Health will be a factor in league standings for some teams like it always is.

Finishing 7th in the division doesn't necessarily mean people believe they will be a terrible team, it's more just a point of how competitive the Atlantic is expected to be.

 

[JediOrderPizza]

Can confirm Hagg and Lindstrom was brutal to watch.

Wings are finally pushing out guys that shouldn't be on nhl rosters via free agency and prospects coming up.

 

[JediOrderPizza]

While I don't disagree that Detroit could, and theoretically should improve over last season. Did they do enough to jump any of the playoff teams (Boston, Toronto, Tampa & Florida) or even the Sabres and Sens who are both young teams expecting growth from within and continuity over a ton of UFA's? Both obviously have question marks in goal, but at least in the case of Buffalo they can usually outscore those problems. Reimer and Husso were both sub .900 goalies last season, and while Husso may have played injured, most of the teams in the league can list key players who played through injuries, or were entirely lost for the bulk of the season. Health will be a factor in league standings for some teams like it always is.

Finishing 7th in the division doesn't necessarily mean people believe they will be a terrible team, it's more just a point of how competitive the Atlantic is expected to be.

The Wings are not expecting growth from within? Raymond bouncing back, Seider having a complete year, Berggren getting better, Rasmussen, Edvinsson, Kasper, Mazur, and Soderblom are all options within for this year.

 

[ricky0034]

While true, I think it's fair to note that they've added real value on paper. They flirted with a playoff spot for a long time last season, yet many people seem to rate them only based on the post-TDL version of the team.

including you

that Athletic article you posted doesn't factor in guys that got traded at the deadline at all