In this edition of the hotstove we share our picks to finish atop the Eastern Conference in the regular season.
Todd Cordell: Tampa Bay Lightning Tampa Bay was one of the best teams in hockey last year and they made it to the Stanley Cup Final before they could finally be stopped.
They didn't lose one notable player and all of Steven Stamkos, Alex Killorn, Victor Hedman, Tyler Johnson, Nikita Kucherov and Ondrej Palat, among others, are in their prime or just entering it. That doesn't even factor in Jonathan Drouin who should be a much bigger contributor this season.
When all is said and done I think the Bolts will beat up on the teams in their mediocre division and parlay that into a division and conference title.
Tim Chiasson: Pittsburgh Penguins The Penguins winning the East was my bold prediction in a hotstove from a few days ago. There's no need to backtrack on that already.
Obviously health is key, and if the Penguins can remain healthy then there is no way any team in the Eastern Conference will stop them. They just added one of the best goal scorers in the NHL over the past several seasons to their already superstar-loaded roster.
While the Blackhawks were racking up Cup wins in the last six years they watched a combined group of seven players (Hossa/Sharp/Toews/Kane/Keith/Seabrook/Hjalmarsson) miss 240 games. During the same span, the Penguins watched three (Crosby/Malkin/Letang) miss 345.
The Penguins dominance hasn't been because of lack of talent, and an already powerful roster just got more damaging to opposing teams.
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