Here are the answers to the questions that were submitted to me on Twitter
First things first, I do not have a fancy model to project standings. Those fancy models do exist and they pretty much unanimously predicted that the Penguins would win the Stanley Cup this year. I glanced at Micah Blake McCurdy's model for the 2016-17 season which you can find
hereand saw that it has the Kings at 101 points which is best in the Western Conference. I can't see it. This is what their roster looks like
Tanner Pearson Jeff CarterTyler Toffoli
Teddy Purcell Anze Kopitar Marian Gaborik
Dwight King Nick Shore Dustin Brown
Kyle Clifford Michael Latta Trevor Lewis
Jake Muzzin Drew Doughty
Rob Scuderi Alec Martinez
Tom Gilbert Brayden McNabb
I know that Darryl Sutter does an amazing job of making the Kings a possession juggernaut but where is the offense coming from? Marian Gaborik is out for 8 weeks and the team only has about 1.1M in cap space. This team is going to start to feel the pinch from the salary due to the contracts of Anze Kopitar (well deserved), Dustin Brown (brutal), and Jonathan Quick (overpay). Combine that with the fact they have a GM who just ran Team USA into the ground because of an incredibly flawed process and you can see why there should be some concern here.
What they have going for them is their division. Anaheim hired Randy Carlyle for some reason. Vancouver is terrible. Edmonton is still trying to get over the hump, and Arizona isn't ready to compete yet. Calgary should be better due to Brian Elliott and San Jose will still be good, but that isn't enough to suppress LA's points in the standings.
Jonathan Quick is neither as bad as some people think nor as good as others believe. He is in that range between average and above average. He will need to be above average next year given my assumption that offense will be difficult for the Kings.
Throw in all those variables and I think the Kings are a 92 point team. They are lucky to be in the division they are in and are another injury away to the wrong player (Kopitar, Doughty) from really being in trouble.
I am very interested to watch Colorado now that they have moved away from Patrick Roy. They were an unstructured mess during his tenure. They certainly have some skill guys whose production was hampered by the coaching. They aren't my dark horse though. Central Division is still a beast. I think Calgary has a chance to do well. They had 30th ranked goaltending last year and I don't think that is going to be the case anymore. Their division is terrible so they could pad their numbers that way.
I think I agree with your pick in the East. Carolina has been slowly building up their roster with younger talent. Their defense corp. should be a strength in the near future with Justin Faulk, Hadyn Fleury, and Noah Hanafin. Sebastian Aho. Their Score-Adjusted Fenwick was above 50% last year so they aren't getting killed at even-strength. They'll need Elias Lindholm, Teuvo Teravainen, and Sebastian Aho to help on the offensive front if they are going to make a push. The biggest concern here is goaltending. Can they refrain from giving Cam Ward 1A starts? We'll see.
I feel as though he will be a productive member for the Baby Penguins. I don't see a spot on the big club for him now or in the future.
I would start the year like that. I would give Sheary/Rust/Wilson a chance to succeed with Crosby and/or Malkin and re-evaluate after the 10ish game mark. If Sid and Geno aren't producing at 5v5 then you have to give them help. Those two drive the success of this team. They were able to produce with HBK existing in 2015-16 so I see no reason to bail on it just yet.
He could possibly be an upgrade but Pittsburgh isn't in a position where they need to target a player like him (good possession, low offense). I would much rather the Penguins utilize what they currently have in their system. Finding out what they have with Jake Guentzel seems like a better path to take than to trade assets to acquire a non-essential piece at this point. Not to mention Scott Wilson, Conor Sheary, and Tom Kuhnhackl all can play the left wing. Pittsburgh is in a good spot. They don't have to really make any trades at this point in time.
Guentzel-Crosby-Hornqvist
Kunitz-Malkin-Wilson
Hagelin-Bonino-Kessel
Sheary/Kuhnhackl-Cullen-Rust
Fehr
That is a best case scenario. I'm hoping that Guentzel can get some meaningful minutes with Sid in the remaining preseason games to see if there is even potential for this to happen. I have liked what I have seen so far. Eric Fehr is my extra man. Not because he is a liability but because I think the other players are better skaters and fit what the team is trying to do more. I would be looking to move his contract for cap space.
In the East I would look towards Pittsburgh Washington, New York Islanders, New York Rangers, Tampa Bay, Florida, Boston, and Montreal to make it. I see Detroit missing the playoffs for the first time in forever. Philadelphia can easily be in the mix with the Rangers being my team that is in jeopardy in the Metro Division. Their defense corp. is very problematic.
In the West I am looking at San Jose, Anaheim, LA, Nashville, Chicago, Dallas, Minnesota (Broudreau effect), and St. Louis. I think usual mainstays Chicago and Los Angeles aren't the locks that they used to be. Chicago is still good but that division is great. LA for the reasons mentioned above could be a team that falls off this year.
Pretty easily Justin Schultz. Derrick Pouliot is the 7th defenseman until proven otherwise. Pouliot is going to have to play better more so than Schultz will have to struggle in order for them to change places.
Nope. I think Laine is great, but so is Malkin. Evgeni Malkin is still one of the best players in the world at producing offense. To put things in perspective take a look at this list from last year
This list is not an average. It is cumulative. so despite missing 25 games Malkin was still one of the best in the league. He is a remarkable talent. He is a player I'm riding out the contract on.
I think Scott Wilson has the best goal scoring potential of his group of WB/S comrades (Sheary, Rust, Kuhnhackl). He would be in my lineup. Where that is I don't quite know yet. Potentially in a top six role if he keeps filling the net in the preseason.
As far as Letang and Subban go I think Subban will have more points. He produced offense at a better rate than Letang last year at 5v5 and that was with Michael Therrien doing everything possible to blame Subban for all of their "failures". Peter Laviolette is going to have a field day with Subban. PK is going to be electric in Nashville.
Tough to say when almost every team in the league is going to be at least somewhat interested in the player. If Winnipeg stays true to their demands (similar age, left handed defenseman) I could see Toronto moving either Morgan Reilly or Jake Gardiner for Trouba.
How lucky is Pittsburgh? In the cap era it is not a common thing for the champ to return this many players. I want to say the 2011-12 Los Angeles Kings returned a lot of their players from their Stanley Cup winning team. Here are the players who were with LA in 2011-12 that also played on their 2012-13 team at some point: Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown, Jeff Carter, Justin Williams, Mike Richards, Jared Stoll, Simon Gagne, Dustin Penner, Kyle Clifford, Trevor Lewis, Dwight King, Brad Richardson, Colin Fraser, Jordan Nolan, Drew Doughty, Jake Muzzin, Rob Scuderi, Alec Martinez, Matt Greene, Slava Voynov, Jonathan Quick, and Jonathan Bernier.
On a quick glance it appears as though the Kings only guy missing is Willie Mitchell.
Thanks for reading!
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