Weakest Division: Central vs Pacific

[Hatter of the Beach]

While the Kings are on the come up, look at their roster and ask yourself if you honestly think they would make the playoffs in any other division.

You have your answer

 

[Mr Positive]

All three teams in this discussion were injured (Girard, Kumeper, Kadri, Nurse, Drai, etc). I’m not debating which team is the most injured, the only thing I’ve debated is the fact that the Blues getting to 6 games automatically makes them better than the Oilers, I watched all the games and do not believe that to be the case.

Avs versus Blues to me was the more lopsided series. You mention context but there is no context to explain the stats the Blues put up against Colorado. They had a SCF% of 37.07 and a HDCF% of 37.12%. To put that into perspective the worst team analytically in the entire regular season (Arizona) had numbers of 43.43% and 42.77%. They legitimately got absolutely dominated but those who only see that it went to 6 games will not understand how badly they got outplayed and just assume they are better than the Oilers.

It's pretty clear that the Oilers injuries were more impactful. The #2 forward on the roster and the #1 D were playing handicapped. I'll give the Avs kudos of course for being deeper and more able to adapt to their injuries but the real comparison for purposes of this thread is with St.Louis, Minny and Nashville. Imo Edmonton is clearly better than any of these at least, especially with Minny and St.Louis downgrading in the offseason

For this thread I'm leaning towards the Central being better because the best team in either division is Colorado. That goes a long way to me.

But, along with the downgrades in the Central, the upgrades in the Pacific are eyebrow raising. Oilers have a better goalie. LA and Anaheim got better. SJ got worse. I'll say thr Flames are marginally worse but at least the Tkachuck for Weegar swap will upgrade their D so it could mean an upgrade. Sesttle got better by a lot. Then there is Vegas, who were in chaos last year but should settle down and play closer to how they did a couple years ago.

So it is a bit of an interesting question for which division is better. To me, I can't give the Pacific any credit because upgrades and downgrades on paper mean little in the NHL. I'm just saying don't be surprised if everyone in the Central declines in comparison to the Pacific

 

[TK 421]

All three teams in this discussion were injured (Girard, Kumeper, Kadri, Nurse, Drai, etc). I’m not debating which team is the most injured, the only thing I’ve debated is the fact that the Blues getting to 6 games automatically makes them better than the Oilers, I watched all the games and do not believe that to be the case.

Avs versus Blues to me was the more lopsided series. You mention context but there is no context to explain the stats the Blues put up against Colorado. They had a SCF% of 37.07 and a HDCF% of 37.12%. To put that into perspective the worst team analytically in the entire regular season (Arizona) had numbers of 43.43% and 42.77%. They legitimately got absolutely dominated but those who only see that it went to 6 games will not understand how badly they got outplayed and just assume they are better than the Oilers.

And yet the Blues won 2 games against the Avs and the Oilers won 0.

You're considering all injuries to be equal, disagree hard with that one and I think that about does it for me. Fwiw I think you're leaning on metrics without understanding WHY they may be similar despite very obvious differences in circumstances between last year and 2 years ago.

 

[spiny norman]

Lopsided result.