Which of the Top-8 clubs do you think will go ALL THE WAY and which'll FALL FLAT?

[VanIslander]

The Christmas break is a week away and while there are plenty of horses in the race the top-8 leaguewide can expect to have a shot at the Cup in the spring.

Which of these do you (as the year ends) think could hoist Lord Stanley's Cup?

1 ANAHEIM 32 21 6 5 47 95 83 10-3-3 11-3-2 8-2-0 W7
2 PITTSBURGH 30 20 6 4 44 98 71 11-4-1 9-2-3 6-2-2 W1
3 CHICAGO 31 21 9 1 43 95 61 10-3-1 11-6-0 9-1-0 W1
4 ST. LOUIS 30 20 8 2 42 89 70 11-3-1 9-5-1 7-2-1 W4
5 NY ISLANDERS 31 21 10 0 42 99 89 12-3-0 9-7-0 6-4-0 W2
6 DETROIT 31 17 7 7 41 92 79 11-3-4 6-4-3 6-2-2 L3
7 TAMPA BAY 32 19 10 3 41 107 86 12-4-1 7-6-2 5-4-1 L2
8 NASHVILLE 29 19 8 2 40 78 57 11-2-1 8-6-1 7-3-0 L1

Click to read more...

 

[The Macho King]

Tampa's been awful lately.

 

[VanIslander]

ALL THE WAY: Chicago.

They have the experience, talent and depth in case of injuries to go all the way.

FALL FLAT: Long Island.

They are overachieving and a second round exit would be an applauded season for them.

 

[CornWillis]

I think Anaheim's in a terrific spot atm.

LA vs Chicago
St. Louis vs Nashville

Ducks vs Jets
Canucks vs Sharks


Biggest hurdles would be the Blackhawks and the Kings and they would take each other out in this scenario. They'd have little trouble in a playoff series vs the Jets/Canucks/Sharks.

 

[Shaftception]

Chi is the safest bet as they're the deepest at every positiion, best scoring differential and will only increase as the season goes on.

Pit on the contrary is the best team with zero chance of winning. Unless they somehow con enough gm's to upgrade multiple top 6 wingers without sacrificing the farm elsewhere, it's a guarantee they'll lose to the first team that either A) Is fast and/or physical enough to out-possess them consistently like Nyi and Nyr did or B) is stout enough defensively to double the centers and force the wingers to try and beat them (which none of them are capable of doing on their own) like Bos, Nyr, or every top western team are capable of. Every top playoff team will meet one of those criteria, if not both. How they can have one of the top records with such an exploitable roster flaw is embarrassing.

 

[Android 16]

All the way: CHI

Fall flat: NYI

 

[RaindanceMaggie]

All the way: Chicago

Fall flat: Tampa

 

[maxb221]

All the way : Chicago

Fall flat : Pittsburgh

 

[Seath The Scaleless]

Chicago to go the distance.

Detroit falls flat.

 

[HighNote]

All the way: Blues

Fall flat: Preds

 

[kingsholygrail]

Chicago all the way.

Tampa Bay falls flat.

 

[Bill Waters*]

Leafs.


Habs fall.

 

[thunderhorse]

Tampa's been awful lately.

Don't worry. They're playing the Flyers tonight. Playing the Flyers is a panacea for them. Sadly, Forsberg being honored will be overshadowed by the approximately seven thousand to 1 final score.

 

[jacks*]

Leafs.


Habs fall.

Sorry but it's a 82 game season not a 48.
Hawks/Islanders

 

[Captain Mittens*]

Of those teams Chicago all the way. I could easily see the rest (minus Detroit) falling flat

 

[NEWFowler]

The top 4 all have a reasonably good shot at winning it all. The rest of them, I'm not sold on.

 

[Butchered]

Tampa Bay has already fallen flat. They're going to make the playoffs pretty easily probably, but as it stands now, they're not really the Cup threat I thought they were.

Still too soft, still too inconsistent and still not willing to put in 60 minutes of effort.

 

[torlev*]

The Christmas break is a week away and while there are plenty of horses in the race the top-8 leaguewide can expect to have a shot at the Cup in the spring.

Which of these do you (as the year ends) think could hoist Lord Stanley's Cup?

1 ANAHEIM 32 21 6 5 47 95 83 10-3-3 11-3-2 8-2-0 W7
2 PITTSBURGH 30 20 6 4 44 98 71 11-4-1 9-2-3 6-2-2 W1
3 CHICAGO 31 21 9 1 43 95 61 10-3-1 11-6-0 9-1-0 W1
4 ST. LOUIS 30 20 8 2 42 89 70 11-3-1 9-5-1 7-2-1 W4
5 NY ISLANDERS 31 21 10 0 42 99 89 12-3-0 9-7-0 6-4-0 W2
6 DETROIT 31 17 7 7 41 92 79 11-3-4 6-4-3 6-2-2 L3
7 TAMPA BAY 32 19 10 3 41 107 86 12-4-1 7-6-2 5-4-1 L2
8 NASHVILLE 29 19 8 2 40 78 57 11-2-1 8-6-1 7-3-0 L1

All of these are very good teams. Of these though, I’d say the Islanders are most likely to stumble. It’s just growing pains. They’ve got some good young players, but growing pains are likely. They’ve also been pretty fortunate to benefit in a big way from shootouts and overtime. Which is a fair bit of luck. (and yes, some skill too).

Detroit too. Old. An injury or two, and they could suffer. They don’t have great depth, IMO.

 

[Bouboumaster]

Habs will win it, carey pricing all opposition in the process.

 

[IAmBobo]

Leafs vs Hawks finals

 

[Maple Leaf]

Leafs vs Kings Final

Leafs win in 7

Isles fall into the abyss

 

[ashenhigh]

Detroit too. Old. An injury or two, and they could suffer. They don’t have great depth, IMO.

How do you explain last year then? We were older, more injured, with less depth.

 

[13th Floor]

All of these are very good teams. Of these though, I’d say the Islanders are most likely to stumble. It’s just growing pains. They’ve got some good young players, but growing pains are likely. They’ve also been pretty fortunate to benefit in a big way from shootouts and overtime. Which is a fair bit of luck. (and yes, some skill too).

Detroit too. Old. An injury or two, and they could suffer. They don’t have great depth, IMO.

Agreed with what you said about the Isles likely to fall because of growing pains. They just don't have the experience in their core to go all the way yet, and they will face growing pains (although it does point to how big it was to bring in two Cup winners right before the season started).

The only thing I disagree with is that winning in OT and SO is luck. I have no idea how winning in OT is luck, but I'd even argue against the SO being "luck" to win. The bottom line is that they have one of if not the best shootout rosters on paper. They are winning them because they are better than everyone else at them. It helps when you can pick high-skilled forwards with a top 10 pick in the draft year after year. The Isles need to get to their seventh shooter (Bailey) before there is some kind of drop-off in my confidence that they can score and he went 3rd yesterday and scored for the winner. That's behind (in no order) Tavares, Okposo, Nielsen, Strome, Nelson, Grabovski. Then you have Bailey, Grabner, Cizikas, and Kulemin. There's 10 players on the forward ranks that have hands and multiple shootout moves. Bottom line is --- they are good at shootouts for a reason.

What IS accurate however, is that this won't work in the playoffs. Doesn't mean it's luck now. Just means they will have to win 5 on 5 in the playoffs, which will be tough for them without the experience.

 

[BMOK33]

Defense wins...the Isles, Bolts, and Ducks are giving up too many goals thus far...I think the Ducks will and maybe already have stabilized on the defensive end, they were giving up a surprising amount of goals for awhile. Isles and Bolts IMO are not winning the cup, they need help still on D. Nashville is the only solid defensive team in there I question, they need to score goals, its one thing to be low scoring but they probably cannot keep up this degree of defensive shutdown for 82 games, they'll need to get scoring once they're in the postseason.

 

[boredmale]

Defense wins...the Isles, Bolts, and Ducks are giving up too many goals thus far...I think the Ducks will and maybe already have stabilized on the defensive end, they were giving up a surprising amount of goals for awhile. Isles and Bolts IMO are not winning the cup, they need help still on D. Nashville is the only solid defensive team in there I question, they need to score goals, its one thing to be low scoring but they probably cannot keep up this degree of defensive shutdown for 82 games, they'll need to get scoring once they're in the postseason.

Thing about the East is any team can win it then lose to the Western team. lol

Although like a fool I'll probably keep on predicting Boston or Pittsburgh winning the conference