Starting this season without our entire 1st pairing from last year and possibly our #2 center kinda has me believing this is going to be our typical down year.
We only made the playoffs by 4 points last year.
This year will be interesting to me. Starting without players is sort of a blessing and a curse. It allows an opportunity for players like White/Chabot to actually get quality ice time (obviously up to coaching on how much time). But if they don't play well, it could be a disastrous start to the season. But I do think it is also good to learn how to play without Karlsson tilting the ice so drastically in favor of Ottawa. If we could play decently without Karlsson, we'd already improve our team.
And to the point of only making it by 4 points, again very valid, but do you really expect our top 6 to struggle offensively like they did last year (I personally don't). Ryan only getting 25 its, Stone dealing with concussion symptoms for the first while, no MacArthur and add in learning a new system and no #1 goalie for a good chunk of the year (even though Condon did well). I personally see our team in a bit more positive light. I think offensively we are definitely improved and our bottom 6 is also better than last year.
The question is, how much improved are we relative to other teams, does the loss of Methot have a huge impact (or does our system or a prospect or Oduya make up for that just fine).
Which I couldn't say, the Atlantic is a difficult one to predict. Each team has significant question marks imo but each team has possibility to improve upon last year (although I think Detroit doesn't have much playoff hope).