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With prospect tourneys in full swing and training camp opening next week it's time to start diving in to the season ahead in earnest.
Through realignment the NHL has changed the landscape of the league. Condensing down to four divisions from six. This means some teams are moving to new divisions and in some cases a new conference.
Exciting new territory for them. Not so much for the St. Louis Blues, one of those staying put. They remain in the Central Division of the Western Conference. Longtime rival Detroit and newly minted nuisance Columbus depart for Eastern Conference. Atlantic and Metropolitan divisions respectively.
With loss comes vacancy and with vacancy comes new tenants.
The Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, Minnesota Wild, and Winnipeg Jets join the Blues, Chicago Blackhawks, and Nashville Predators make up a new group of seven.
The Stanley Cup went to the Windy City for the second time in four years this summer. Bad news for the Blues is that their most bitter rival is probably the most unchanged throughout the course of the offseason. Only Dave Bolland, Michael Frolik, and Viktor Stalberg depart. The Hawks know all about losing role players to the cap crunch hurting a team the season after winning the Cup, but this time around it's not likely to be the same. Those three are not of the same level as Dustin Byfuglien, Kris Versteeg, Andrew Ladd, and Troy Brouwer. They also bit the payroll bullet and paid to keep their winning netminder, Corey Crawford. Further, they aren't losing a "top-4" defenseman this time around. Last time Brian Campbell packed his bags for sunny FLA.
Bottomline, the division is Chicago's to lose till they actually lose it.
What a difference a season made for the Nashville Predators. The season before the lockout they enjoyed a deep playoff run with the best pairing, and arguably the best goalie, in the NHL. An offseason later they look more pedestrian than ever minus Ryan Suter. This summer GM David Poile played towards his strengths in building a deep lineup ready to suck the life out of the opposition in 1-0 victories. Gone are skilled Europeans Sergei Kostitsyn and Martin Erat. In are old school North American plugs like Matt Cullen, Matt Hendricks, and Eric Nystrom.
Nashville is tough to peg in to a slot because of head coach Barry Trotz's philosophy. Can't blame him for orchestrating his system around his strongest assets. Unfortunately that puts them on the overly defensive end of the spectrum with little obvious goal scoring ability. So if a couple players have a career year offensively they're nearly impossible to beat. If they produce in predictable capacities, then they're not a playoff team.
Some of their first round draft picks over the last few years are the ones to watch to see which way the pendulum will swing. Keep an eye on Colin Wilson and Ryan Ellis. Oh yeah, and that Seth Jones guy they drafted 4th overall.
The Colorado Avalanche are probably the ying to Nashville's yang. When Joe Sakic and Patrick Roy took over team construction one would think the Avs ay go in a different direction. LIke shoring up their porous defense. Instead it can be argued that they did the opposite. They drafted center Nathan MacKinnon first overall (instead of the afore mentioned Jones) and signed former winger Alex Tanguay. No significant trade or free agent resources spent on the blueline. Instead they will count on an influx of youth and depth personnel.
Their offensive potential makes them the most difficult wild card to make an accurate guesstimate. Their defensive gaps swing the meter from one extreme to the other. Believe that they'll be a threat to the established teams when they actually do it.
The biggest splash of the offsason as made when Dallas sent longtime all around leader Loui Erksson to Boston in exchange for Tyler Seguin. Will it help the Stars? Most likely so. Seguin, in theory, provides playmaking depth in the middle that was lacking all last season. It also frees up Jamie Benn to move back to the wing where he is a much larger scoring threat. below the blueline things are still suspect, but not as much. The addition of veteran puck mover Sergei Gonchar should provide a greater ability to exit and enter zones with the puck. Where Gonchar being on the ice will become problematic is when exits do not happen and his 39 year old body is exposed by the best the west has to offer.
Netminder Kari Lehtonen is Rinne-Lite. He can be a real difference maker for Dallas and has been everything they hoped he would be when they acquired him from Atlanta. Lehtonen's play plus the overall depth added over the summer (Rich Peverly, Shawn Horcoff, & prospect Valeri Nichushkin) puts the Stars much closer to competing than other bubble teams.
Times were Wild in Minnesota a year ago when they landed Suter and forward Zach Parise. The signings paid off in a sense as the Wild returned to the post season. It didn't enough because they flamed out in five games. Pierre-Marc Bouchard and Cal Clutterbuck have moved on and taking their places are Nino Niederreiter and Matt Cooke. A fairly lateral move. Where they will seemingly improve is in the addition of veteran Keith Ballard on defense and the growth of prospects like Jonas Brodin, Jason Zucker, Charlie Coyle and Mikael Granlund.
Don't rule out the Wild becoming the next "St. Louis Blues" type team. One that takes a fairly low spend in net, builds a team and system around keeping the puck away from the goalie, and uses depth to wear down their opposition and win a lot of games.
The final newcomer is from the far reaches of Canada, the Winnipeg Jets. A team looking through the barrel of the gun that will shoot them in to the Central's cellar. That said, there is reason for hope. From the production perspective they haven't lost much. They elected not to bring back Ron Hainsey (his 20 minutes will be somewhat difficult to replace) and lost Alex Burmistrov to the KHL. Joining the club are Devin Setoguchi and Folik. AAlso look for youngsters Mark Scheifele and Jacob Trouba to more than serviceably fill in holes.
The big question revlolves around Zach Bogosian and finally living up to his potential that he was drafted for. If he can netminder Ondrej Pavelec will be better as will the team overall.
As far as the St. Louis Blues much stays status quo. The major departure was that of winger David Perron. Andy McDonald's retirement was made a wash with the singing of Derek Roy.Ryan Whitney coming in on a PTO won't replace Alex Pietrangelo should he hold out, but he will add a nice bit of depth if he can make the club. It's all going to come down to goal scoring for the Blues and if Chris Stewart and Vladimir Tarasenko can do it frequently enough to tip the scales and balance them against their stifling puck hounding and possession.
My Prediction:
1. Chicago
2. St. Louis
3. Minnesota
4. Dallas
5. Nashville
6. Winnipeg
7. Colorado
The Blues and Wild are interchangable as are Dallas and Nashville.
St Louis Blues Blogger • 
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