I feel like Arizona is going to have a youth driven miracle year one of these years. There will be a couple tankers though. I'm just going to focus top 10, it's probably a fair range.
I don't see how Arizona could bottom out again. They just consolidated assets to get Stepan and Hjalmarsson, and although it won't make them contenders or anything, they could be a bubble team.
Not convinced at all the Arizona is gonna turn it around this upcoming season. I agree they sure made some big moves to try and turn it around but they're still relying on a lot of young players to do the heavy lifting, all of whom have had some worrisome stumbles in their development. Both Domi and Duclair had bad sophomore seasons, Dylan Strome is hardly looking like a surefire bet
And then there's Hjalmarsson and Stepan. Both are upgrades over what was there before but I'm not sure they're gonna move the needle THAT much. Lastly, Antti Raanta is an unknown quantity. He could do what Mike Smith couldn't do following his big extension, or he could be great. Hard to say.
They finished 22 points ahead of us last year, and they've improved their team on last year with the exception of the goal tending position. Losing Smith will hurt, but with the improvements in other areas I think they'll have a similar season.
The Avs will improve, but barely.
I'd be flabbergasted if we finished ahead of them. We're walking into next year with the same team. And seemingly two rookie D-men, three if you include Mironov that will make the team without picking someone up on waivers.
Miss read the poll and voted for 2nd OA pick.
I think we'll pick 2nd OA but will finish between 3-6th. Last year was such crappy luck that I can't imagine we'll lost that bad on the lottery again... right?
Is Brady Tkachuk projecting to be as good as his brother? He's ranked exactly at the same spot that his brother got drafted (6OA)
Better at this point
Who are those rankings from?
If you want some early rankings:
Future Considerations https://futureconsiderations.ca/top-rankings-2018/
Hockey Prospect https://www.hockeyprospect.com/2018-nhl-draft-rankings-hockeyprospect-coms-early-top-31/
I know it will change but as of July, there were four LHD in the top 10, that's pretty incredible.
No that wasn't me, I'm not down on McIsaac. He might not end up my favorite D from this draft but I doubt I'll end up disliking him. Maybe it was just I said don't anoint him #3 yet because we have a long, long way to go and many, many options out there. Yeah he has a lot of good tools, size, good skater, two way game. I think he can be a bit of an ahole, which isn't exactly bad because we need to get away from our collection of softies but gotta watch and see that doesn't spill over to other things. I've seen him be a bit more inconsistent than you'd like (obviously all kids of this age are to a degree). He had a rough first game at the Hlinka but picked it up after that.
I watched the game vs Sweden and he was exactly that when on the PK, he was very physical without going over the line. Im curious to see how his offence shows up this season because this is the only real area of concern I have about him.
These games can be watched online.
This should be an exciting draft year for the Avs. Lots and lots of good players available, even if the drop to 4 happens. I think the strength of the NA class is overshadowing Europe a bit right now... there are some good Euros to go along with this NA class. This would be a great year to get a 2nd first round pick.
...or two
People hate the idea of the Isles pkg but the closer we get to the draft it'll start to look real nice
At this point, I have resigned myself to hoping for the Isles package of two firsts and two seconds. Then take all the D.
I kid. Kind of.
Side note, looks like there might yet another Andy MacDonald in the NHL in a few years.