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In this edition of the hotstove we predict teams that will disappoint, or fail to meet expectations, in the 2016-17 season.
Todd Cordell
I'm going with the Chicago Blackhawks. They were not very good at 5 v 5 last season - they actually had a negative goal differential in that game state - and relied on exceptional seasons from Patrick Kane, Artemi Panarin and Corey Crawford to get by.
Duncan Keith has had some injury issues, Brent Seabrook is on the decline, and they're pretty shallow on the wing after Kane, Panarin and the aging Marian Hossa.
Factor in that they play in the league's toughest division and I think this could be a tough year for them (compared to others). They may still make the playoffs but I see a lot of people predicting they'll make it to/win the Stanley Cup and I think they might struggle to grab a Wild Card spot.
Honorable mention goes to the New York Rangers. I really like their forward core but Dan Girardi and Marc Staal are poor players logging a ton of minutes and that has hurt the Rangers. They also rely too heavily on Henrik Lundqvist, who I think will start to slow down a little bit as early as this season.
Peter Tessier
There's a lot of talk about Chicago being that team but for me it's almost like an early exit from the post season for them is just rest for another run. Will this year be different? I think the team that really has to be concerned is St Louis. Not because they won't do well but they won't do well enough again and some desperation sets in with management. They are team with loads of talent and depth but never seem to pull it all together if it doesn't happen this year what comes next?
James Tanner
I think the team that will have the biggest disappointment this season is the Dallas Stars. They already had a weak defense and then they lose Goligoski and Demers.
They replaced them with the inferior Hamuis, who is 33. Not that he's terrible, but if he's supposed to come in and pair with Klingberg on the top pairing, I think that's a fairly weak top pairing for a supposed contender.
Then you follow that up with Oduya, Johns, Lindell and Benn, maybe a rookie or something.
Add in their terrible 2 co-starters who are a combined 155 years old, Benn coming off core muscle surgery, and Seguin seemingly always injured and I think it's possible this team could miss the playoffs altogether.
Then again, everyone could be healthy, the bottom (other than Oduya) could all be decent, underrated players and they could be the competitor everyone thinks they are - I definitely like their depth at forward.
To be clear, I am not saying Dallas will be a terrible team, I just think that of the teams with high expectations they are the most likely to fall on their face.
John Jaeckel
Chicago.
The Blackhawks were uncharacteristically bad 5-on-5 last year, but so good 3-on-3 that the even strength was largely masked in terms of wins and losses.
They relied too much on Kane/Panarin/Anisimov for scoring, because they never adequately filled the hole left on Jonathan Toews' line when Brandon Saad went to Columbus.
The Hawks should be deeper and marginally better on defense because of offseason additions, but barring some front office move to bring in veteran help at LW, the forward lines could feature 2-3 rookies perhaps being asked to fill roles they are not ready for.
The West is very strong 1-10 and if Duncan Keith's knee injury has any impact on his regular season play, the Blackhawks could get in a hole early as far as making the playoffs.
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