terpsfball09
Crabcakes and ACL tears
I have yet to see any analyst proclaim them a Stanley Cup threat. Most are saying that they are an up-and-coming team in the West, that their offense is loaded, and they will go as far as their young and inexperienced defense can take them. Some are predicting slight regression even. I disagree. I see them as about a 6-seed in the West behind Chicago, Anaheim, St Louis, Los Angeles, and maybe San Jose.
How has San Howsay gotten better though? sure, our defense is very...limited. But they played fine post olympics last season. If they continue, I don't see us finishing behind the Sharks, or even the blues for that matter. It appears to me that we have removed our worst player and added some pretty good forward depth. Spezza, Hemsky (only heard positive things about the skills/talents he possesses, even though I don't know him that well), a decent backup goalie, and a guy on D like Oleksiak who should be much better than last year. Our D is the same... the only difference is that we know where the top 2 lines belong, and the third line is going to be gonchar and a, hopefully, more talented young guy where they wont see nearly as much time anyway.
We lost whitney, which makes us better by default. We lost chiasser (even though i always believed he was just average, maybe slightly above, and only played his best when he was with whitney anyway). Not only did we lose some expendable players, we're gonna have our entire core progress, more than likely. Val's gonna be good, Oleksiak's gonna be better, and our powerplay is gonna be MUCH better. We have new guys like Spezza and Hemsky who are superb controllers of the puck, and limit turnovers. We'll actually be able to form some sort of a structure on PP's now, instead of just rushing it in and trying to catch them off guard.
St. Louis lost some pretty big names like ryan miller and Sobotka, and their only key addition was Statsny. I, personally, believe we are at or maybe even slightly above St.Louis' level. They have a fantastic defense and a talented first line, but a pretty bad goalie and their struggles with depth showed themselves against chicago in the playoffs.