The Star: Maple Leafs face Canadiens, Bruins, Red Wings in new Atlantic Division

[Pyrophorus]

Correct ..

Detroit's farm team Grand Rapids Griffins won the Calder Cup championship lead by their prospects. Internal help is on the way shortly.

Last season, people said that AHL success means nothing (when it came to us), even had stats.

Why does that switch this year?
The BSens and Bulldogs victories haven't dragged their parent teams anywhere.

 

[Baba Ganoush]

Boston
Detroit
Montreal
Toronto
Ottawa
Tampa Bay
Florida
Buffalo

 

[Pyromaniac3]

Detroit second after barely making the playoffs last year?

Their reputation preceeds them.

They had a lot of injuries on the blue line. Once everyone was healthy, they took off.

 

[leafspring*]

Spezza is a #1 center > than anything the Leafs have.
Karlsson has a Norris trophy and is > than anything the Leafs have.
Anderson league leading 1.69 GAA & .941 SV% > than anything the Leafs have.

3 key positions on a hockey team and Ottawa > Leafs in all 3 categories. Bobby Ryan is just as capable of scoring 30+ goals a season as Kessel is, as he has done in many times previously.

Ottawa Senators head coach Paul MacLean has won the Jack Adams award as the NHL's coach of the year last season >> Carlyle.

Ottawa has 22 players under contract and >> $11 mil in free cap space at present.

So where are the Leafs better than Ottawa?

This seems like a wormhole to the past when we dumped them every play-off after they were favourites during the regular season to win the cup etc lol.

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

Spezza is a #1 center > than anything the Leafs have.
Karlsson has a Norris trophy and is > than anything the Leafs have.
Anderson league leading 1.69 GAA & .941 SV% > than anything the Leafs have.

3 key positions on a hockey team and Ottawa > Leafs in all 3 categories. Bobby Ryan is just as capable of scoring 30+ goals a season as Kessel is, as he has done in many times previously.

Ottawa Senators head coach Paul MacLean has won the Jack Adams award as the NHL's coach of the year last season >> Carlyle.

Ottawa has 22 players under contract and >> $11 mil in free cap space at present.

So where are the Leafs better than Ottawa?

Depth and coaching. Yes it is true Spezza EK and Anderson are better than anything the Leafs have but after that? the sens don't match up.

Yes Spezza is better than all our centers but Turris isn't, neither is Zack smith or JOB

EK is better than anything the Leafs have but Phaneuf, Gardiner, Gunnarsson are all better than Methot, Cowen, or Corvo.

Kessel is better than any winger the sens have including Ryan, and Michleak, Concher and Mac simply can't match Lupul, JVR and Clarkson

Ottawa wins goal but for how long? if Bernier is as good as people think this will be a lot closer.

As for coaching give me the guy who won a cup as a head coach over the guy who won as an assistant any day.

 

[ImpartialNHLfan]

Ottawa finished 1 point behind the Leafs 57 points to 56 and Ottawa played without Spezza (played only 5 games) and Karlsson (played in 17 games) most of the year and missing their #1 goalie Anderson (played 24 games) for a large portion as well.

This year all 3 are going to be back and ready to go.. Doing nothing in Ottawa would allow for massive improvement simply by their star players returning from injury.

I forgot the leafs had no injurys all last season
along with gardiner being scratched for way too long

 

[bert]

Last season, people said that AHL success means nothing (when it came to us), even had stats.

Why does that switch this year?
The BSens and Bulldogs victories haven't dragged their parent teams anywhere.

Actually Ottawa had 12 players from the team that won two years ago in the lineup this year with all the injuries they had. Its actually the only reason they made the playoffs and won a round.

Cant believe how little love Detroit is getting.

In the second half last year they were the 2nd best team in the west beat the ducks and went game 7 in overtime to the cup winner.

They have added Alfredsson Weiss and Darren Helm who was hurt all of last season.

The young D core they had got better as the season went on as they learned Babcock the best coach in the worlds system.

They also have players like Datsyuk, Zetteberg, Kronwall etc. They have real solid goaltending in Howard and debatably the best forward group in the NHL.

Zetteberg Datsyuk Alfredsson
Tatar Weiss Franzen
Abdelkader Helm Bertuzzi
Nyqvist Anderson Samuelsson

Darren Helm is one of if not the best third line centers in the NHL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2k3qEnTlz8 an example of what he is capable of.

I think Detroit and Boston battle for 1 then its a dog fight for the last two spots between Toronto, Tampa, Ottawa and Montreal.

 

[EDDIE20*]

I think Ottawa is grossly overrated. They are a good team, but damn the ottawa love fest going on in the main board and just around the league is mindboggling.

Posters are getting jumped for saying that ottawa isnt as good as sens fans think.

You think that's bad? Just say that so and so is better than Karlsson and there will be a huge thread of arguments and you will be told you don't know what you're talking about.

 

[Cpt Maple Leaf]

A load of crap imho. No way the div ends up close to that, TO should have beaten Boston, and Ottawa, meh. , Detroit, not impressed at this point. Gotta put something in print I suppose...

I would bet my bottom dollar that TO finishes higher than the oft-over-estimated Det

 

[Leafidelity]

Detroit gets entirely too much respect. Living on past accomplishments at this point. They barely made the playoffs last year in a vastly inferior division.

 

[Baba Ganoush]

in this thread, Detroit = underrated, Ottawa = overrated

 

[My Sweet Shadow]

Asides from Boston, I don't really see anyone being a lock. Detroit underschieved last year, but they aren't the powerhouse that they were a decade ago. Montreal probably overachieved last year; how Price bounces back and how their rookies handle their sophomore season will be big factors in dictating how their season goes. Ottawa should have a healthy team next year and it will be interesting to see what effect replacing Alfredsson with Ryan has. Their success will depend on if they can get the same quality goaltending that they did last year and how well MacLean's coaching style holds up with the addition of more offensive-oriented players in his lineup (Spezza, Karlsson, Ryan, MacA). Florida and Buffalo are right-offs. Tampa will still score a ton after replacing Lecavalier and Pouliot with Filppula and Drouin, but they did absolutely nothing to improve what was one of the worst defense/goaltending in the league.

All in all, it'll be a dogfight right until April, but I think 3rd's definitely not much of a stretch. At the very least, we should be strongly in contention for the wildcard spot.

 

[Budsfan]

This division may be weaker than last year and really the only team that has been added, that may be a threat is Detroit.

Tampa Bay and Florida, two teams that shouldn't pose too much of a problem, look like they have been added because of Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, where a lot of the hockey Snowbirds originate and they should benefit greatly financially, when those teams play there and it's probably the reason they were added to this division.

Since a lot of games are played, within our own division, we should be racking up more points this year but of course there is no guarantee and we will have to see, where this all goes but I like our chances, to clinch in the top 3.

 

[Liminality]

I think Anderson is still a question mark in a lot of ways for Ottawa. The only seasons he's had really good stats is when he has played 5 games in 2006-2007, 17 games in 2007-2008, 18 games in 2010-2011 and 24 games in 2012-2013. Whenever he's had a season over 30 games he's been pretty average. Can he carry a full workload or even split time with Lehner for 40 games at a high quality?

My bet is that Lehner steals the #1 spot from Anderson over the course of the entire season.

Which means bad news for us of course lol.

 

[astro7]

Of course, leave it to the Star to take yet another jab Leaf fans when it came to the new owner and he culture change. I don't see Leaf Nation eating that up at all. In fact, most find him embarrassing. The only ones eating that crap up is the Star.

I hope the Leafs will do well next season. Like always, I will keep my expectation ridiculously low and hope for the best. Anything is possible with the Sens, they have a good group. Detroit will be interesting in this conference. I think they will do well too.

I also think that Winnipeg will surprise a few. They came this close to making the playoffs this year.

 

[blueberrie]

I love our division. Every team has HUGE question marks and it'll be a great battle to make the playoffs.

 

[My Sweet Shadow]

Detroit gets entirely too much respect. Living on past accomplishments at this point. They barely made the playoffs last year in a vastly inferior division.

I somewhat agree with the respect part, but they're position was mostly due to a poor start in a lock-out shortened season. And "vastly inferior division"? Chicago...St.Louis...even Columbus. The only weak team was Nashville.

 

[rdawg1234]

Detroit is getting OLD guys, everyone's in their early-mid 30's and that will catch up with them very, very soon.

veteran team and they will not be easy at all, but this is not detroit of 2008-2009, it's a a very good but aging detroit that is going downhill somewhat.

Ottawa is solid but very very young, they just dont match up with us depth and toughness wise.

we're definitely top 3 in the division IMO, only clearly behind Boston and not by much.

 

[The Apologist]

1. Detroit
2. Toronto
3. Ottawa
4. Boston
5. Montreal
6. Tampa
7. Buffalo
8. Floridia

But really, I think the top 6 could end up in any order and two very good teams may miss the playoffs altogether

 

[RASHBEEP]

Detroit second after barely making the playoffs last year?

Their reputation preceeds them.

Agreed, they seem to be a team on the downswing.

 

[The Legend]

Can someone explain to me why you make the playoffs based on how you finish in your division, but you play opponents in the playoffs based on how you finished in the conference?

 

[Jack Bauer]

Ottawa finished 1 point behind the Leafs 57 points to 56 and Ottawa played without Spezza (played only 5 games) and Karlsson (played in 17 games) most of the year and missing their #1 goalie Anderson (played 24 games) for a large portion as well.

This year all 3 are going to be back and ready to go.. Doing nothing in Ottawa would allow for massive improvement simply by their star players returning from injury.

Lupul and Gardiner played 1/3 or 1/4 of the season for us.

I think both teams made equal gains in the off-season.

Should be a pretty tight finish again I would say. Injuries will be a big factor again.

 

[Brock Radunske]

This seems like a wormhole to the past when we dumped them every play-off after they were favourites during the regular season to win the cup etc lol.

I agree. If you look at the make up of the teams from when we used to bounce them in the first round, they're eerily the same. Ottawa is back to the high offence skill team and the Leafs are back to the blend of character, skill and grit.

I don't see any reason as to why a playoff series would end any different than it did in the past

 

[Mess]

Detroit second after barely making the playoffs last year?

Their reputation preceeds them.

Toronto 57 points verses Detroit 56 points were separated by a single point last year after 48 games. Hardly a significant difference between the teams, and not a full season.

Leafs finishing 5th in the Eastern Conference and Detroit finishing 7th in the West was based on level of competition. in each conference.

 

[ACC1224]

Toronto 57 points verses Detroit 56 points were separated by a single point last year after 48 games. Hardly a significant difference between the teams, and not a full season.

Leafs finishing 5th in the Eastern Conference and Detroit finishing 7th in the West was based on level of competition. in each conference.

Although one Team appears to be trending up while the other down.

Is it fair to say Detroit also now finds themselves in a tougher division?