If the division's did stay the same and they won't who is Buffalobetter than in the Metro?
Pittsburgh? maybe in 3 years but not now.
Washington? see Pittsburgh
Philadelphia? not with Carter Hart
Rangers? they have the best prospect pool AND a strong roster.
NYI? Not as long as Trotz is there
NJ? probably but even they have better goaltending.
Columbus? not with that defense.
as it stands Buffalo is better than NJ and that's probably it.
as for the Atlantic they aren't better than Toronto, Bostonm Tampa, Montreal or Florida adding Hall doesn't change that
Pittsburgh and Washington are older. Both lost one of thrir goalies.
Islanders lost players
Philadelphia is inconsistent. Hart is very young. If he goes on a losing streak the season us lost.
Islanders are older
Columbus has a lot of turnover
Rsngers sre young
Devils are young
Carolina in decent shape.
In a shortened season all bets are off. Historically more teams are close after 4 games before separation occurs or some teams have slow first 30 games. Other teams that started hit in first 30 fall but can still be in the playoffs...assuming not expanded. This past year Vsncouver has a strong start and slowly faded where in an 82 game season they might have missed the playoffs.
In the Atlantic buffalo and Montreal seemed to add the most of any teams .
Tampa has uncertain nay if without Stsmkos to start and they trade some players away. Thrn cup hangover effect too.
If the go with just 8 teams, wild card up for grabs by anyone.
In the metro because all teams are good you don’t have easy games thus it can draw everyone down, in the Atlantic there is rebuilding Ottawa and detroit who might be easier to play this bumping up everyone in the division by say 4 points.
With a 48 game schedule you might have no interconferrncr games.yiu might not have games outside your division.
For 8 team divisions you prbably have 6 games against eachother
With a 7 team division they play each other 7 times for 42 games
If more than 42 games could be still within division or random assignment games.
If the start mid January the season likely ends late April, then 9 weeks of playoffs. To end June/early July.
They want to be done before nbc has summer Olympics in mid July sending their crews out.
MTL, Boston and the Sabers will be close, a few points apart in my opinion. It shouldn't be seen as a huge gap.
Buffalo and Montreal have made some of the biggest changes of all teams and not been in the area of losing players. Both teams also have a young component so big jumps could occur.
With a short schedule it’s who goes on a hot streak their first half really matters.