It's a team that's going to rely on rookies. In net, on D, at C. Their theory for improvement is they're going to be led by rookies. So there's a huge range for how well that could go, especially with Dahlin. But the safe bet is all of them start by getting small minutes. All of them make a handful of mistakes that cost games. All of them show their promise and all of them are better in March than in October. But I would expect the team to start very cold.
They lost two of their top scorers from last year, so I do expect scoring to decline. They added Dahlin, but lost their top defensive center. They did upgrade goaltending, which will be a bigger impact than many think.
I think overall it's a gamble on how fast those rookies make an impact. Anytime you're built around youth the team is hard to predict with certainty.
But if I had to pick a most likely outcome, I think in the 60s for points and bottom 5 is the safest.