Right now, in the "way too early" stages of the summer, i'd break the West down something like:
Playoff Locks:
-Chicago.
-Anaheim.
-Minnesota.
-St.Louis.
After that, it's basically a huge Royal Rumble that could shake out in pretty much any order:
Los Angeles - hard to imagine they finish as poorly as last year, but they're also still down a crucial top-4D and losing a bunch of significant players, others aging like ours, Center depth sort of whittled away...adding Lucic is going to be interesting to see which version they get - rarely have we seen scoring for a player "improve" under Sutter.
Winnipeg - seem to be a team on the rise, really strong defence and a lot of good young players, but unreliable goaltending and i think it remains to be seen how much of an impact Ehlers can have as a rookie (if he sticks). Haven't done a ton else to make themselves significantly better or worse really. Not a true juggernaut.
Dallas - still have the offensive dynamo thing going for them, even more so now, bolstered goaltending in a big way and the young defence will all be a year older and wiser, still a potential achilles heel though for sure.
Calgary - in tough to replicate last season's surprise results, adding Hamilton is obviously big, a potential full year of Bennett helps as well, not losing Giordano would be big...but then, i think these big adds probably help to compensate for some luck last year to pretty much a net-neutral.
Nashville - had a great bounce-back season last year, but the way they tailed off hard late in the year has to be concerning. One of the deepest defences in the league, but counting on replicating a lot of "break out years" offensively and a linchpin as unreliable as Ribeiro. Bit of a paper tiger.
Colorado - much improved defence which has always held them back...but expect a downgrade offensively. Iggy is a year older and he was already ancient, O'Reilly is gone, Tanguay is also ancient. Soderberg is...okay, but still a clear downgrade from O'Reilly. A lot of "potential", but still not a juggernaut looking team.
San Jose - doubt they implode like last year...but who knows, lateral looking moves in net unless Jones really breaks out, pretty much lateral moves across the board and clearly something is foul in their "locker room culture" the way things ended last year, kind of an unpredictable team as there's a ton of talent there to be much better.
And i'd put the Canucks anywhere right in and around that mix.
And then there are the "Bad Teams":
Arizona - obvious, they're the frontrunners in the Matthews sweepstakes, just a very terrible roster that showed how terrible it was down the stretch last year winning...basically never.
Edmonton - McDavid and all, their defense is still very poor. They're counting on huge years from Sekera as a #1D, and someone line Reinhart stepping straight in as an impact top-4D to really turn things around on the blueline. They still have no "top pairing". And that's not to even touch their overall team defence and the strides needed there. Don't expect that to be an overnight turnaround.
I think the West is a stacked conference in that there are really only those two "weak looking teams" this season. Every night is going to be a dogfight for position among the rest. But at the same time, among that big lump of "playoff contender" teams, there isn't a one among them that i don't think the Canucks can hang with on any given night.
It's not so much that the West is full of unbeatable Juggernaut teams, so much as the parity is just incredibly strong and set very high at essentially a "playoff team" level. Meaning...whichever way it shakes out, 5th in the West may not be that far removed from 3rd last in the West...and playoff-worthy teams are probably going to miss the playoffs again.
Key to a playoff berth is probably going to be making sure you run the table on the bottom-feeder East teams, and schedule-wise, just operating like last year...throw your best game at the most "winnable" outings, and shaking off any blowouts that happen in the "throwaway" games. And most importantly...the luck of staying healthy.
Most injured teams among those contenders are probably going to miss out in the end.
The sad thing is being a "playoff team" means precisely f*** all before the team gets the cup.
Teams that try and fail are mercilessly punished, teams that throw their arms and legs in the air expecting (and actually getting) free s**t.
