Monday, October 01, 2018

The Peerless Prognosticator Brings You: The Atlantic Division Prognostos


It’s time for the Peerless to proffer his prodigious prognotos for the 2018-2019 season, and we start with the Atlantic Division...

1.  Tampa Bay Lightning

The Bolts will be the early season favorites to “WIN IT ALL!”  Then again, they were an early season favorite last season, too.  They did set a franchise record for wins (54) and points (113) last season.  But they limped into the postseason with a 6-6-1 record in their last 13 games of the regular season.  They looked impressive in the first two rounds of the playoffs, dispatching the New Jersey Devils and Boston Bruins with five-game series wins against both.  They had the Eastern Conference Final on their racket in Game 6 against the Washington Capitals, but then they failed to record a single goal in Games 6 and 7 to bow out to the eventual Stanley Cup champs.  Bummer.

Why they will go far… Tampa Bay has arguably the best and deepest forward group in the league.   They have the defending Norris Trophy winner (top defenseman) in Victor Hedman.  They have a still improving goaltender in Andrei Vasilevskiy.  To the extent the Lightning have issues, they are of the sort that top-shelf contenders have – who plays on the bottom defensive pair, how the bottom six forwards sort out.  If any team in the league resembles the Caps in terms of year-to-year stability, it’s this one.

Why they will come up short… How the Lightning ultimately lost last season was confounding.  This was a team that was shut out only once in the regular season (a 3-0 loss to Boston in March, for those of you scoring at home), and in the playoffs they were not shutout in any of their first 15 games until they were blanked twice by the Caps in Games 6 and 7 of the Eastern final.  In each of the Caps’ four wins in that series they held Tampa Bay to two or fewer goals.  Will this late swoon have a hangover effect?  Will teams scour films of that game to find ways to stop the deep Lightning offense?  And Vasilevskiy, who allowed 23 goals in the seven games to the Caps, needs to demonstrate he has the stamina to finish what he starts in terms of a solid season.  There is also the matter of the front office, where Steve Yzerman stepped away from his position as general manager in September to become a “senior adviser” in the organization.  Assistant GM Julien Brisebois steps into that position, and he has long been thought of as a GM in waiting, but there is that uncertainty with a new manager and how his in-season moves will work out.

2.   Toronto Maple Leafs

If Tampa Bay is the “old school” choice as the top team in the Atlantic, if not the East (or even the league), the Toronto Maple Leafs are the “young guns” favorite.  And they are still young.  The trio of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander combined for 76 goals last season, and of the group Nylander was the oldest at 21 (although he is in the midst of a contract dispute).  And it’s not as if Nazem Kadri, who added 32 goals, is a graybeard; he was just 27.  They looked a bit discombobulated early in their first round series against Boston last spring, falling into a 3-1 hole, largely because they couldn’t score (they couldn’t stop pucks, either, but that is another matter).  They scratched their way back to tie the series, and they took a lead into the third period of Game 7.  However, Boston scored early in the last frame to tie the game, and then they added three more goals to win going away.  Youth, apparently, is not always served.

Why they will go far… How many teams in the league have a second line center as good as John Tavares?  Well, now the Leafs do, having signed Tavares to a seven-year/$77 million deal with the Leafs this past summer.  If you subscribe to the idea that teams need to be strong down the middle to succeed, this more than offsets the loss of winger James van Riemsdyk, who moved on to the Philadelphia Flyers over the summer.  Toronto tied for third in scoring offense last season.  They will be better this season.

Why they will come up short… Part of being “strong down the middle” is having a stout defense and an impenetrable goaltender.  Toronto has neither.  Not that their defense is awful or their goaltender is a sieve, but neither their defense nor their goalie are better than Tampa Bay or among the top echelon in the East.  And, this was not a great possession team last season (17th in shot attempts-for percentage at 5-on-5/49.81 percent).  Hey, the Caps weren’t, either, but their defense and goaltending was better than what Toronto will ice this season.  As for the latter, Frederik Andersen doesn’t have to be Patrick Roy in front of this offense, but he did rank just 16th among 45 goalies with at least 1,500 minutes in save percentage (.918) and was 28th in goals against average (2.81).  If that is the level of play at which he tops out, Toronto will win a lot of games and be very entertaining doing it, but they will likely come up short in the postseason.

3.  Boston Bruins

For a franchise that has the outward image of a solid Original Six club, this bunch has been all over the map over the last five seasons.  In 2013-2014 they won 54 games, and then they missed the playoffs the next two seasons.  Then, they clawed back into the postseason in 2017 after a 44-win campaign, following that up with another 50-win season last year.  What they haven’t done in the last five years is get past the second round (in three tries) in the playoffs after reaching the Cup final in 2013.  Their success last year was forged by being strong on both sides of the puck, finishing sixth in scoring offense (3.26 goals per game) and fourth in scoring defense (2.47 goals per game), fourth on the power play (23.5 percent) and third in penalty killing (83.7 percent).

Why they will go far… It really is their balance.  Teams that can be effective on both sides of the puck and in different situations can deal with hiccups or slumps if one part of their game goes to rot for a spell.  And if last season is an indicator, that balance does prevent slumps.  The Bruins were a club that did not lose more than three consecutive games after November 15th and did not lose as many as three consecutive games in regulation all season.  Pencil in Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak for at least 30 goals.

Why they will come up short… Call it talking out of both sides of our mouth, but it is the “balance” here, too.  A team with the balance of the Bruins might be a better fit for the grueling six month slog that is the regular season than the eight week postseason.  Perhaps the Bruins do not have the extra gear or the top-end talented individual to push them deeper in the playoffs.  And, they are not getting any younger.  Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci, David Backes.  All 32 or older, and they missed a combined 61 games last season.  Zdeno Chara is still on the back end, but he is 41 years old and has missed 35 games over the last five seasons.  And heaven help the Bruins if they have to face the Caps.  Goalie Tuukka Rask has a career record of 1-10-5, 3.07, .889 against them.

4.  Florida Panthers

The first time this franchise went to the postseason they went all the way to the Stanley Cup final.  That was in 1996.  Since then, the Panthers have been in the postseason four times in 21 seasons and have not won so much as a playoff round.  They finished one point out of the dance last season, though, which did provide some measure of hope for Panther fans that better days were coming.  When one considers that three of their four 20-plus goal scorers were 24 or younger last season and that they have a foundational defenseman in Aaron Ekblad, Florida might have it in them to make another push upward in the standings.

Why they will go far… They probably won’t.  But they do have young talent, including Aleksander Barkov and Ekblad, who are becoming among the best at their positions in the league.  That is nice to build on, and it could be enough to make the playoffs, but advancing?  It might take a special set of circumstances (read: “the right matchup”).

Why they will come up short… Their top goalie has a lot of mileage.  Roberto Luongo will turn 39 before season’s end and has appeared in 1,001 career games, one of only three goalies in NHL history to hit the 1,000 game mark (Martin Brodeur and Patrick Roy are the others).  And, he has appeared in only 75 games over the last two seasons combined.  James Reimer is the backup at the moment, but he has had declining save percentages and rising goals against averages in each of the last three seasons.

5.  Buffalo Sabres

This could be the most improved team of the 2018-2019 season.  Heaven knows, Sabres fans would be appreciative.  Only once in the last six seasons have they topped 80 standings points, they haven’t reached the postseason since 2011, and they have gone through five coaches in the last six seasons.  Phil Housley gets a second season in charge after a difficult first season in which the team started poorly (0-4-1 to start the season), struggled after that, and ended the season playing for a first-overall draft pick (3-10-1 in their last 14 games).  They got that pick, defenseman Rasmus Dahlin.

Why they will go far… Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  The first order of business is to become competitive, although there could be times this season when this club looks like a possible playoff team.  They will have some high-end young talent in Jack Eichel, Sam Reinhart, Rasmus Ristolainen, and Dahlin. They just won’t have enough to make a sustained push to the postseason.  That’s a year or two away.

Why they will come up short… Here is where we scratch our heads and ask ourselves, “when was the last time a defenseman taken first overall was a high-impact player befitting that selection?”  We have little doubt that Rasmus Dahlin will be a fine player, a superb player, even perhaps a great player someday.  But looking at defensemen taken as first-overall picks, one might have to go back to Denis Potvin (1973) as a player who genuinely fulfilled the promise normally attributed to a first overall pick.  A top defenseman, even a “generational” one, might be a necessary element to a winner, but it might also be an “insufficient” element.  There are still too many missing pieces here.

6.  Montreal Canadiens

The Canadiens have been an interesting team of late, largely for the wrong reasons.  In their most recent drama, Max Pacioretty was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights for forward Tomas Tatar, forward prospect Nick Suzuki, and a second-round pick in the 2019 Entry Draft.  In ten years with the club, Pacioretty scored 226 goals, 18th in that storied franchise’s history.  They did welcome back Tomas Plekanec as a free agent, who after spending his first 14 seasons with the Canadiens was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs at last spring’s trading deadline.  That probably is not an upgrade.  But this is a team that won only 29 games last season.  They haven’t won fewer in a full season since 2000-2001 (28).  Montreal is not a town that suffers that kind of misfortune gladly.

Why they will go far… Carey Price.  When he is healthy, he is among the best goalies in the game.  Five times in 10 full seasons (not counting the abbreviated 2012-2013 season) he appeared in more than 55 games.  In four of them he had a save percentage north of .920, and four times his goals against average was 2.35 or lower.  However, he has appeared in fewer than 50 games in two of the last three seasons.

Why they will come up short… Last year they couldn’t score (2.52 goals per game/29th in the league in scoring offense), and two of their top four goal scorers are gone (Pacioretty to Vegas and Alex Galchenyuk to Arizona).  They couldn’t much stop anyone from scoring, either (3.15 goals per game allowed/25th).  They have some young potential in Max Domi and Jonathan Drouin, but that is as yet unfulfilled.  Brendan Gallagher’s ability to annoy teams into submission only goes so far.

7.  Detroit Red Wings

The Detroit Red Wings missed the postseason for a second consecutive year in 2017-2018.  The last time that happened, Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” was the number one hit on the Billboard charts (1983, a fifth consecutive year missing the playoffs).  They won 30 games last season, a number that was last lower in a full season in 1989-1990 (28).

Why they will go far… If this team wins more than 35 games it will be a moral victory.  They do have young talent such as Dylan Larkin, Anthony Mantha, Tyler Bertuzzi, or Andreas Athanasiou.  But it isn’t clear that these are “core” players for the future.  Forwards Filip Zadina and Michael Rasmussen – both top-ten draft picks in the last two drafts – can’t come along fast enough.

Why they will fall short… While the Red Wings might be in a rebuild mindset, they remain too old at too many positions.  Seven players who appeared in at least 65 games last season were 31 years old or older.  Of that group, Henrik Zetterberg has hung up his skates due to injuries, but the other six are still on the roster.  And, both goalies – Jimmy Howard and Jonathan Bernier have reached or passed their 30th birthdays. They haven’t yet ripped things down to the studs to make way for the next generation.  This is going to take a while.

8.  Ottawa Senators

Finish seventh in the division a year after going to the conference final, and lose your best player in the off-season?  Yeah, good luck with that.  It was inevitable, but when the Senators traded defenseman Erik Karlsson to the San Jose Sharks (with forward Francis Perron) for a first-round pick in 2020, a second-round pick in 2019, Chris Tierney, Dylan DeMelo, Josh Norris and Rudolfs Balcers, it was not just turning the page, it was throwing out the book and starting another story.

Why they will go far… Yeah, right.  It is not as if the Senators are barren of talent or skill; they still have Matt Duchene, Marian Gaborik (back injury from which he might not return this season), Mark Stone, and Bobby Ryan on the roster.  But it is a team of odd-fitting parts with the talent it has having more value as trade assets at some point.

Why they will fall short… Because they’re not very good.  Ottawa managed only ten wins and 24 standings points in 84 games in their inaugural season in 1992-1993.  That level of futility is safe from threat by this team.  But this team is not going to be a lot better.  The highlight of their season might be what they get at the trading deadline.



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