And now...predictions (no, not ours)

It's August, which is to hockey what the Sahara is to moisture. It's a pretty dry month. That being the case, some folks just can't resist jumping the gun on predictions, even though we have six teams above the opening night cap (leaving them some personnel moves to make) and another half dozen within $2.0 million of it (suggesting that they might be in the market for some salary relief).

But, we do have predictions, and they serve as good as any topic of conversation as the last slow crawl to training camp proceeds. For your argumentative enjoyment...