- Despite the amount of signings today, I'm not sure anyone below us has done enough to really alter the standings besides New Jersey(at least in regards to us).
I see strong potential for improvement in several teams around/below us.
I will be very surprised if Utah isn't better than Arizona was last year. Upgrading Moser/Dumba to Sergachev/Marino is a large improvement that should take some load off Durzi. Cole is a decent short-term guy to play 4/5 minutes and Valimaki is still there. They are noticeably better 1-5 on the blue line than they were last year. They still have $20M+ in cap space (with 19 guys rostered) to extend Hayden and bring in additional middle of the lineup support if they want. And that's before we consider whether any of their excellent prospect pool proves ready to contribute in limited roles.
Seattle gave out some ugly contracts that should age real terribly, but in terms of a single-season improvement from last year, adding Montour and Stephenson brings improvement in two key areas and it is pretty reasonable to expect one of Beniers/Wright to take a step forward.
The Sens made a large upgrade in net. I'm not wild about replacing Chychrun with Jensen on pure ability/age, but it balanced their left/right sides and Jensen's skillset is more in line with defending than Chychrun's. I think they have more work to do, but I see tangibles steps forward in preventing goals against, which was by far their biggest issue.
With the Devils, that is 4 teams who were within 15 points of us in the standings that have provided real reason to believe in a single-season improvement.
Buffalo and Detroit both exist in the 'believe it when I see it' category, but both have substantial cap space to address needs. I would say the jury is still very much out on what these two teams will be next year.
Looking beyond 'these teams specifically could jump us' I also see clear improvement within our division. We can debate about how much better/worse/stagnated Colorado, Dallas, and Winnipeg will be, but none of them became noticeably easier nights for the Blues. Nashville got better.
Arizona Utah got better. Chicago added actual NHL players at every position and got better. Minnesota (like us) hasn't really moved the needle one way or another. On paper, banking points against the teams we play the most is going to be a much taller task than it was last year.
Finally, we were a pretty damn healthy team last year. All 9 forwards who averaged 13+ minutes a night played 71+ games last season. 3 of the top 4 D played 77+ games and the 4th (Krug) played 60. Neither goalie got hurt. Odds are pretty good that we are going to deal with more significant/consequential injuries this year.
And all these assumptions about repeating last year rely on Buch staying, the goalies being top 5-10 in the league again, and no other trades for futures off the current roster.
There is still a lot of time before camps open and a decent chunk of RFA and roster logjam situations where teams that just reconfigured their depth charts with UFAs will need to move out some guys to make everything work. There are also the Buffalo/Detroits of the world who are facing major pressure to make the playoffs within the market, didn't land the day 1 UFAs they were targeting, and are likely aggressively shopping for other solutions. Llike every year, there should still be some fairly significant changes around the league between 7/2 and opening night. But just as we stand right now, I see a lot of avenues for the Blues to get jumped by a good chunk of teams.