1. Pitt (no-brainer)
2. NYR (unless King Henrik gets injured they should be here)
3. Philly (tons of injuries + no bryz, very similar team from 2011-2012, should finish 3rd)
4. Washington (should have a rough start in a tougher division that southeast but, will turn it around)
5. Columbus (Bob will need to play very well again, but, I don't know if he will)
6. Islanders (very few injuries last year to important players, average goaltending=no playoffs on the isle)
7. Carolina (it is just not all there)
8. New Jersey (maybe if they had Kovalchuk they could fight for 7th.)
Again a lot of this will depend on injuries, I think the Jackets and Isles could easily flip if Bob does not play well. And I think 5 teams will come out of this division for the playoffs.
There are so many variables it's crazy. Philly still has average at best D and is probably going to give up a large number of chances per game and have 2 goalies that really have some things to prove. Washington had the benefit of a terrible division last year and lost a fair amount of offense in Ribeiro. Their young guys are all a year older and have some new experiences and Erat should help but will Grabovski be the Grabovski of a couple seasons ago and a consistent 2-way player or more this year where he dropped off a bit.
The Islanders are every bit as good as Columbus, Washington and Philly but again are another team with 1 big area of concern. How many games can Nabokov play at a high level before he gets overworked? Can Poulin or one of the other young guys step up and take some of the load? At the same time they were a playoff team for a reason and on a big upswing so they should never be looked over.
Carolina and New Jersey can even be better then expected and surprise. Ward was one of the better goalies in the league until injuries so if he stays healthy and the fact their D should be better they might be in the running. New Jersey have much better and more consistent goaltending and as everyone knows if a team is comfortable in front of its goalie they'll play better. Yes they lost a premier offensive player but with all they brought in they are a more balanced team and better defensively at the same time. Ryder and Jagr each had 5 more goals then Kovalchuck last year. With big turnover usually there are some growing pains as we saw last year but New Jersey can't be written off
All this is why i feel it's the toughest divison. Yeah others will have a stronger top 2 or 3 teams but this one is probably the hardest to predict and anything can happen top to bottom
Edit: just from a numbers standpoint it's going to be very hard to have to WC im the same division, I don't really see how it would happen.