Where do we finish in the Central this year?

[Wild11MN]

Title says it all.

Click to read more...

 

[FVM]

1st. That's the Boudreau way.

 

[Digitalbooya]

Chicago
Dallas
Nashville
Minnesota
St. Louis
Winnipeg
Colorado

 

[Wabit]

Dallas
Nashville
Chicago
Wild
STL
Jets
Avs

Wild/STL tossup for 4th/5th, so I picked 4th.

 

[hirawl]

2nd behind the Stars. Hawks won't make the playoffs.

 

[Sharppi]

Last, as everything goes to ****.

 

[gphr513]

I honestly have no idea. Could see us finishing in the top 3 or missing the playoffs all together.

 

[TaLoN]

3rd.

 

[Lapa]

3rd or 4th.

 

[Uberdachen]

Main board is pretty unanimous about us finishing 2nd to last, so I feel like that puts us at 2nd in the division. Science.

 

[57special]

Last, as everything goes to ****.

Koivu, Parise, and at least one of, if not two of our top 4 Dmen would have to go down for extended periods of the season for this to happen. And remember, I'm pessimistic about this season. I have us finishing fifth, same as last year. I'm beginning to think that the upside on Nino, Coyle, Granlund, Zucker simply isn't there. They will top out as middle sixers. With our top liners ( Koivu, Parise, Poms, Staal) all declining, who will take their place? All our hopes for high end production are placed on Tuch, and Ek and Kunin further down the road.

COL is simply too crap, and if the Trouba holdout messes up WPG's D, they will be too. Buff is cool, but he can also be a Trainwreck defensively, and takes stupid penalties. Not sure if that's who you want leading your D.

 

[Minnesota]

COL is simply too crap, and if the Trouba holdout messes up WPG's D, they will be too. Buff is cool, but he can also be a Trainwreck defensively, and takes stupid penalties. Not sure if that's who you want leading your D.

Colorado is the only team I see us comfortably staying ahead of.

Winnipeg has solid defense outside of Trouba (Byfuglien, Meyers, Enstrom). They have Morrissey almost ready to make the jump. Goaltending is about to get a huge upgrade once Hellebyuck wins their starting position.

Offense will be their real bread and butter, though... Scheifele, Wheeler, Little, Perreault, Stafford, Burmistrov. Then consider their up-and-comers: Ehlers, Laine, Connor (all have elite, top line potential IMO). Not to mention Armia, Petan, and Dano all have upside.

 

[Nharris31]

Colorado is the only team I see us comfortably staying ahead of.

Winnipeg has solid defense outside of Trouba (Byfuglien, Meyers, Enstrom). They have Morrissey almost ready to make the jump. Goaltending is about to get a huge upgrade once Hellebyuck wins their starting position.

Offense will be their real bread and butter, though... Scheifele, Wheeler, Little, Perreault, Stafford, Burmistrov. Then consider their up-and-comers: Ehlers, Laine, Connor (all have elite, top line potential IMO). Not to mention Armia, Petan, and Dano all have upside.

I won't trust Winnipeg until Pavelec is not on the team at all.

 

[Nharris31]

2nd behind the Stars. Hawks won't make the playoffs.

I would love for a person In the national media to have some guts and guess this. But it will never happen.

 

[Minnesota]

I won't trust Winnipeg until Pavelec is not on the team at all.

True, he's terrible... Probably bottom-5 in the league.

Luckily he's only signed thru 2016-17. If Winnipeg's smart, they'll have Hutton/Pavelec split time, with Hellebyuck sprinkled in.

 

[Marlowe Syn]

I honestly think 2nd with Chicago & Dallas nipping at our heels. As long as BB can keep this team from having winter meltdowns of Yeoian proportions. That will get us an extra 10-12 standing points right there. Hopefully the locker room atmosphere will be better. Coach won't back down just because you're a star. He didn't take Selanne's poop in Anaheim. I think that will help keep our younger players more motivated. Now that they will get rewarded with more ice time.
It sucks he didn't become our much needed #1C, but Granlund looks to make for a mighty dynamic wing. Like PMB with a pair. Coyle is coming in with a defined role for once. Parise/Staal/Coyle is looking good for far. Granted it's one preseason game. We have the best blueline in the division imo. At least the only team with five legit top 4 Dmen. I think this team will surprise. We are a better team now than we were at the end of last season.

 

[PuckInTheNards]

Koivu, Parise, and at least one of, if not of our top 4 Dmen would have to go down for extended periods of the season for this to happen. And remember, I'm pessimistic about this season. I have us finishing fifth, same as last year. I'm beginning to think that the upside on Nino, Coyle, Granlund, Zucker simply isn't there. They will top out as middle sixers. With our top liners ( Koivu, Parise, Poms, Staal) all declining, who will take their place? All our hopes for high end production are placed on Tuch, and Ek and Kunin further down the road.

COL is simply too crap, and if the Trouba holdout messes up WPG's D, they will be too. Buff is cool, but he can also be a Trainwreck defensively, and takes stupid penalties. Not sure if that's who you want leading your D.

This is EXACTLY where I'm at. I haven't been this pessimistic in a long while. I think we're in the lottery for the next few years.

 

[Wabit]

Nashville, STL, Chi, Jets (w/Trouba) all have pretty solid top-4's when healthy at least on paper. I think our defense depth can take an injury to a top-4 better than the other teams.

 

[Digitalbooya]

This is EXACTLY where I'm at. I haven't been this pessimistic in a long while. I think we're in the lottery for the next few years.

Maybe that isn't a bad thing if it's top 7 picks. It's the lottery picks in the 10-14 range that kept us mediocre for so long.

 

[Wild11MN]

Results are kinda what I figured. All over the place. We could legit finish in any spot.

 

[NotYou]

Koivu, Parise, and at least one of, if not of our top 4 Dmen would have to go down for extended periods of the season for this to happen. And remember, I'm pessimistic about this season. I have us finishing fifth, same as last year. I'm beginning to think that the upside on Nino, Coyle, Granlund, Zucker simply isn't there. They will top out as middle sixers. With our top liners ( Koivu, Parise, Poms, Staal) all declining, who will take their place? All our hopes for high end production are placed on Tuch, and Ek and Kunin further down the road.

COL is simply too crap, and if the Trouba holdout messes up WPG's D, they will be too. Buff is cool, but he can also be a Trainwreck defensively, and takes stupid penalties. Not sure if that's who you want leading your D.

Yeah, pretty much. At this point parise is the only guy on our team I would want to play on the top line. Koivu was serviceable last year, I don't expect that to last much longer though. Granlund might turn it up as a winger. Other than that, the young guys simply aren't that good. Look at all the young players around the league playing great hockey. Then look at coyle, nino, and granlund looking good for 10 maybe 20 games before being invisible again. Our guys are on a different level. And it's not a good one.

Coaches can hold a team back. I'm not a big believer in a coach turning mediocre talent into a consistently good team. I don't think yeo held us back, but our only hope is that he did. D keeps us in 5th, barely ahead of the jets who will crush us next year. Miss playoffs. Drink.

 

[Arturia Pendragon]

Such a hard pick. My first instinct is to go with the most balanced teams in the central as the top-3, but even then those (IMO) are:

Chicago
St. Louis
Nashville
Minnesota

Unbalanced:
Dallas (More offense than defense)
Colorado (Same as Dallas)
Winnipeg (they are very close to a balanced team, but that goaltending...)

Gotta go with this IMO:

- Chicago (top dog until they prove otherwise, that Panarin kid... Campbell should help the Defense a bit)
- Nashville (A full year of Johansen and Forsberg, plus Subban with Josi? Yes please.)
- St. Louis (I see quite a few similarities with them and us, but the difference maker is Tarasenko for me.)
- Minnesota (Could be in a dog-fight with St. Louis all season for third place... if only Staal was a bit more predictable for what to expect this season.)
- Winnipeg
- Colorado
- Dallas

 

[NotYou]

Such a hard pick. My first instinct is to go with the most balanced teams in the central as the top-3, but even then those (IMO) are:

Chicago
St. Louis
Nashville
Minnesota

Unbalanced:
Dallas (More offense than defense)
Colorado (Same as Dallas)
Winnipeg (they are very close to a balanced team, but that goaltending...)

Gotta go with this IMO:

- Chicago (top dog until they prove otherwise, that Panarin kid... Campbell should help the Defense a bit)
- Nashville (A full year of Johansen and Forsberg, plus Subban with Josi? Yes please.)
- St. Louis (I see quite a few similarities with them and us, but the difference maker is Tarasenko for me.)
- Minnesota (Could be in a dog-fight with St. Louis all season for third place... if only Staal was a bit more predictable for what to expect this season.)
- Winnipeg
- Colorado
- Dallas

How are we balanced? Colorado is the only team that might have a forward group worse than ours.

 

[Wabit]

How are we balanced? Colorado is the only team that might have a forward group worse than ours.

Av's top heavy at FWD, but little depth. MacKinnon, Duchene, Landeskog are all better than any of our FWDs, that Grigorenko kid could have a breakout season.

 

[NotYou]

Av's top heavy at FWD, but little depth. MacKinnon, Duchene, Landeskog are all better than any of our FWDs, that Grigorenko kid could have a breakout season.

Agreed, except for grigorenko. I don't see much in him. I think our depth vs their meh depth beyond those few guys makes it arguable. We could very well have the worst forwards in the division. Either way, we aren't "balanced." We're a team built on defense. That doesn't = balance