Are the Red Wings a contender? It's weird but they seem to have almost everything it takes to be one this year other than a workhorse Dman. They've got a balanced blueline (Kronwall, DeKeyser, Green), a great forwards group, and a great goaltender.
P.S. For anyone else reading and buying into the propaganda in the previous thread...don't. It grossly simplifies the concepts that underlying statistics are built upon to make the poster posting it feel smarter than (s)he really is.
Even-strength (i.e. non-special teams) shot-differentials, over the course of a full season have an obvious and direct correlation to winning. Unless you're talking about teams with atrocious goaltending (The Carolina Hurricanes) or teams that take idiotic amounts of penalties (The Winnipeg Jets), there is a trend that's more than repeatable towards deep playoff runs.
Possession from a "good" cycle that results in just one good scoring chance shot is not greater in value to multiple shot-attempts because over time, the shot attempts being suppressed still add up into positive differentials. That is the key. There are many, many ways to score but few reliable ways to stop the other team from scoring. Even goaltenders like Lundqvist and Price can't stop everything when they're getting hemmed in and facing 50 shots, no matter how easy they are to stop, deflections happen, tired defenders happen. A guy like Quick can make just 18 saves in a game and post a shutout more easily. That's how Kipprusoff went from a nobody to a superstar, and that was an era before advanced "stats", but the same principles applied. Also offensively over a full season the skill level of these pro athletes averages out. Plus, "perimeter attempts" still create more rebounds (which create good scoring chances), deflections, offensive zone faceoffs (which are the best way to defend), and ultimately less opportunities to turn the puck over in the neutral zone (the neutral zone is a huge part of what something like "corsi-differential" identifies.. If anything though, overvaluing "time" with the puck also ignores the nature of the game, a lot of the best scoring chances come off of bang-bang forechecks and red line turnovers. Corsi/Fenwick become indicators of these all-important things.
Can you lose games while being the better team? We lost to the Blue Jackets a few games ago while carrying the vast majority of the play. But I bet you if you look at the tape, it's a lot easier to show Hamilton and co how to avoid turnovers leading to odd man rushes, than to look at the tape of the Coyotes game on Friday and show the guys how to carry the play at all, which they failed to do. That's the difference.
"Advanced" stats aren't a substitute for the eye test, but they're a guideline for it. And criticising their status as being advanced? Just plain pedantic.