For sure, that’s why I specifically said on paper. I think it’s marginally better there but there was a lot that went right last year so we’ll see how it plays out. I expect Miller and Boeser to score a bit less. Pettersson hopefully can be closer to 22-23 and/or more consistent, but we’ll see. At the same time, Mikheyev went like 60 games while scoring 1 goal and the PP was pretty bad after the trade deadline, so there’s some room for gaps to get filled in. If they struggle to score like they did after the all star break, they’ll be a bubble team, but I think they can be somewhere in between that and the early season high scoring.
I hate career years as an argument.
For one aside from JT who is in his prime and TBF has been basically having a career year every season but 2022-23,
Brock was finally healthy physically and mentally and his die-hard fans felt this was always what he would become.
Hoglander and Quinn haven't even hit their prime so not sure why anyone would expect them to regress? Do people say that about Cale who's a year older? Or guys taken in 2019 with Hoglander, Like Caufield etc?
Joshua is the only one who really came out of left field and combined with his previous play and his high shooting% this might have been his career year but even then there's tons of examples of players especially power forwards hitting late once given bigger roles or just putting it together. Shit we literally saw it with JT. There's also Tage on the Sabres, Hyman on the oilers, Chandler on Vegas etc.
Personally I feel that as nuck fans we've had every single excuse thrown our way since Tochett , Allvin and JR turned the team around as top why this team is a mirage.
I mean it mostly came from two distinct fanbase but the lengths gone to in order to prove that were hilarious and each time one was debunked, another reason was presented, so on and so forth.
Now it's players all had career years, which I think is stupid and I explained why, nevermind the fact we added over 55+ goals from last seasons roster.
Then it's Demko is injury prone, despite that not being so cut and dry, the team showed beyond a doubt they can win games without Demko including against literally the two best teams since February and that was in the playoffs.
Finally now it's our defense when in reality, the two least effective dmen in the regular season were Cole and Zadorov and Soucy injured for a large chunk of the season. Our record with Soucy was impeccable and our four best dmen and highest leveraged and minute leaders all are back. Our bottom pairing this season based on regular season stats is actually better and nastier with Vinny not even a finished project yet.
We also have 3.5 million in cap as I explained above to improve the D corp if needed, which at the deadline with double retention gets you one hell of an upgrade if someone becomes available.
I dunno man, I look around at what other teams did in the west and see the oilers do nothing to fix their d but brought in two forwards, one who is made of glass and the other won't solve the issue of who takes over on nights when McDrai doesn't average over 2.5 points a game because their record sucks when those two aren't combing at that pace. Our forward depth, goaltending and defense blow them away.
Vegas got a little weaker. The stars who I like a lot got a little bit weaker, the Kings became irrelevant. The Avs are in cap hell and have a ton of questions, I respect the Preds for going all in but those are risky contracts and that team is really old but at least they addressed their needs. The Jets lost a lot and did squat to get better.
All these teams created more questions or at best stayed the same yet so far this summer there has been no threads about them regressing yet we have this one and a poll was done. Very odd but not surprising based on the amount of vitriol that seems to follow this team now that we are winning again
