The Nashville predators boast one of the best overall rosters in hockey.
Few teams can send out such skilled wingers as James Neal and Filip Forsberg on separate lines on the left side, and no team can rival their defense, which is absolutely insane.
P.K Subban, Ryan Ellis, Mattias Ekholm and Roman Josi. It may be the best group of defenseman ever assembled in the salary cap era.
But who is gonna play net?
Despite the incompetent interns at the NHL Network naming him 10th on their list of best goalies, I would rank him 30th.
PK Rinne is the worst starting goalie in the NHL.
I tried unsuccessfully to include a pretty chart showing how Pikke Rinne compares very, very unfavorably to Mike Smith, but I just couldn't get it to look right. You'll have to trust me here, or search "Ian Flemming Save Charts" and do your own research. Sorry. Anyways, I don't know if anyone would dare say Mike Smith is a top ten goalie in the NHL, but compared to Rinne, he's practically Jaques Plante.
If the Predators get a real goalie, I won't hesitate to name them the Stanley Cup favorite going into the season.
Who's Playing Defense?
As it stands, the Oilers enter the season with a very questionable blue-line. They have Oscar Klefbom and then a ton of questions. Sadly, they have the General Managing equivalent of Randy Carlyle to fix their problems.
The Oilers have a legit first-pairing super-star-in-the-making in Oscar Klefbom. If he's healthy, you can all but guarantee they make the Playoffs. But after him?
Brandon Davidson is essentially found-money as a 6th round pick, Davidson is one of those guys who'll always be effective because of his ability to limit shots. Add in the potentially defensively elite Adam Larsson, and the Oilers have 3 of the 6 necessary blue-liners locked down.
The rest of the Oilers D is a huge question mark. Darnell Nurse, to be polite about it, has been disappointing to a Patrick Stefan level. As far as hype goes, he's a Matrix sequel multiplied by a Chris Gaines record.
Mark Fayne can limit shots, but he's not great at it and can't do anything else. Griffin Reinhart is all but a bust and, while he's an OK #4, Andre Sekera isn't anything to brag about either.
I don't expect anything creative or all that intelligent out of Peter Chiarelli (honestly if the Oilers replaced him with Kevin Lowe they'd improve tenfold - that's how bad of a GM he is) but a smart GM would solidify his defense by signing David Rundblad and Barret Jackman to cheap UFA deals. Adding two very underrated players would make the Oilers a much, much better team than they are today. They could then ice a lineup of:
Klefbom - Larsson
Davidson - Rundblad
Jackman -
And let Faybn, Sekera, Nurse, Reinhart and Oesterle fight it out for the 6th spot.
This would require trading zero of their forwards, would feature zero risk and has such high reward chances that you can't even properly graph it on a risk/reward chart.
Don't Do it
Just one more note on the Oilers: do not trade Nail Yakupov.
Who cares if he hasn't lived up to expectations? He is not going to bring back much in a trade and he is thus much more valuable to the Oilers as a player than an asset.
Trading him makes absolutely no sense at this point. He should be a lock for 30+ on McDavid's wing.
If only you could trust this team to make sensible moves!
Last Place:
The NHL has another potentially generational player ready to be drafted next season in Nolan Patrick. He was 5th in WHL scoring last season despite not even being old enough to be draft eligible. In fact, he was 17 years old and everyone who scored more than him was either 19 or 20.
So who has the best shot at him?
To my eye, it's obvious that last years three worst teams will all be better: The Leafs will have too much talent to finish last, the Oilers will make the Playoffs and the Coyotes........well they could still be there, but I think there's worse teams.
My pick for worst team in the NHL in 2016-17 is the Detroit Red Wings.
When your best player is 35 and has topped 60 points just once in the last five seasons, you're in trouble. When you have 10 million locked up in two goalies who are both, at best, mediocre, you're in trouble. And when your defense consists of Brendan Smith and a bunch of duds, you're going to finish in 30th place.
I think the Sedins + better goaltending will be just enough to keep the Canucks ahead of the Wings and Senators.
How the West was Won :
The West is going to see some huge changes. LA, Chicago and Dallas will all be moving down the standings. Minnesota, Edmonton and Nashville are moving up. The Sharks will be the team to beat and the Blues will maintain their status as an elite team.
Last Year's eight playoff teams were: Chicago, St.Louis, Dallas, Anaheim, LA, San Jose, Minnesota and Nashville.
This year, the Oilers, Jets, Flames and Avalanche all expect to get in.
I think three of those teams will be making it at the expense of the Blackhawks, Kings, Stars and Ducks.
The Kings and Hawks are aging and lack cap-flexibility. The Stars have a horrible group of defensemen and bad goalies. The Ducks hired Randy Carlye.
I think San Jose, Minnesota, Nashville and the Blues are the class of the conference.
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