As we draw closer to the NHL preseason, it comes time for us to look ahead and think about the rest of the Pro Hockey world’s chances at the Playoffs or, heaven forbid…the Stanley Cup.
At long last, we make our way to Seattle’s home division; the Pacific. I have sometimes referred to the Pacific Division as a Monkey Knife Fight; wildly entertaining but also chaotic, violent, and completely impossible to truly predict. In a way, I suppose that’s still true…after the 2nd team in the playoffs. Since Seattle’s introduction to the league, the Pacific has actually been kind of sedate; part of it is two of the best players in the sport playing out in our holy time zones (Mountain and Pacific) and on different teams, meaning that at least two of the playoff spots are spoken for…but the Pacific has been unbelievably competitive, and that means anything that happens is liable to cause significant change to the standings at any given time.
Let’s get into it. If you need a reminder of how we do things in these previews, the top of this article will prime you.
Let’s get into it.
Absolutely Making It
1. Vegas Golden Knights
Won the dang cup. Basically proved all of their relentless and heartless player movement was objectively the best way to do professional hockey. Lost a ton of talent due to cap jail.
Might be right back at the top of the division anyway.
Gag me with a spoon.
The Knights indeed had to pay the Cup tax this year as most assumed they would; they lost Reilly Smith, they’re still deeply in cap debt…
…and that’s about it, because they didn’t lose anything else. Everything that made them such a frustrating experience last year and the year before is true this year. Eichel’s still here. Whitecloud’s still here. Mark Stone and Jonathan Marchessault are still here. Ivan Barbashev gets to stay, thanks to an extension. Keegan Kolesar still here to break heads. They even got to keep Adin Hill! Nobody knew if this guy was anything and turns out he’s a Stanley Cup winner and their long-term solution in net. Even their weaknesses get turned into strengths.
The Vegas Golden Knights annoy me not because their social media presence definitely lives by the concept of trying too hard, nor because they basically proved that being mercenary with your talent works and we all have to live in a world where that’s true, but because they simply refuse to die. Nothing ever sticks to them.
Please let this be the team Seattle shocks next.
2. Edmonton Oilers
Let me put my opinion of the Edmonton Oilers this way:
Any team that has Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl. Mattias Ekholm, Evan Bouchard, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Zach Hyman are free to join the NHL Playoffs whenever they feel like it.
Any team that has Cody Ceci, Brett Kulak, Mattias Janmark, and that knockout combo of Skinner and Campbell in net is free to leave the NHL Playoffs whenever they feel like it.
This has been the tale of the Edmonton Oilers in the McDavid era to this point; a team full of individually extremely talented players who dominate the regular season because they are extremely talented players…and then there’s the rest of the team, who actively drag those high-end talents backwards. Their keys to victory are, as always, keeping Connor McDavid healthy because McDavid is a human cheat code. Everything else feels static. Their goaltending remains…mercurial, and will likely be their biggest x-factor aside from Cody Ceci related meltdowns and potential injuries to single-most-injured-man-on-planet Darnell Nurse, who has done a lot of heavy lifting of Ceci over the past couple of years.
I don’t even hate the decisions they’ve made to bring things up to speed; Connor Brown I’m sure will have a good year, and locking in Evan Bouchard looks like one of the best defensemen Edmonton has had in years! My problem comes down to “Are you going to finally figure out where your strengths are and do the damn thing?”
Well, like I said…their place is set whether we like it or not all thanks to 97 and 29 in bright orange and blue. It’s up to them to finally take advantage of it.
Probably Making it
3-4. Seattle Kraken
Finally. We’re talking about our home squad again.
The Kraken had kind of a quiet offseason, but that can be good. With so much being made about a number of players signing extremely short deals in order to cash in on the long-awaited cap relief, having a pretty sedate offseason where all their ducks are put in a row and bring in a couple of half-decent ringers to replace outgoing talent can be very assuring, especially if you know that the team already has a bright future ahead of it.
Part of the reason why is the strength of the system: built primarily on puck possession and butter-smooth transition that puts a team capable of rolling four lines highlighted by the likes of Matty Beniers, Jared McCann, Andre Burakovsky, and Jordan Eberle an extremely tough beat night-to-night. Their found money in the Tolvanen-Gourde-Bjorkstrand line remains intact and ready to be the most obnoxious group of players in recent memory. Concerns are raised a bit by the addition of Pierre-Eduard Bellemare, who, in my opinion, still needs to wrest control of that 4th line center spot from Shane Wright, but otherwise wingers in Brandon Tanev and Kailer Yamamoto would be a perfect counterbalance for inexperience or being long in the tooth.
But of course…most of the discussion of the early season will almost certainly revolve around Wright.
Shane Wright is 19 years old as of this writing and will continue to be so until January of next year…meaning that he will once again be subject to the annoyance of the CHL-NHL agreement regarding Canadian talent. That particular annoyance plagued his rookie season, which had him playing in the NHL, the AHL, International Play, and then the OHL, in that order. He could be subjected to that again, and we would have to hear for months again how the Kraken are “screwing up his development”. I like the idea of him possibly being granted an exception so they could play him in the AHL that was floated by The Hockey News, but once preseason starts…all eyes are gonna be on him again. It’s up to Shane to live up to those lofty expectations.
As per usual, the big X-factor remains goaltending. Philipp Grubauer, our dearest Grubert, finally showed some real flashes of what made him a Kraken in the first place last year, and they were more than willing to trust him, and he needs to make that trust real for 50+ games in the regular season. Martin Jones has left for bigger pastures, and Chris Driedger needs to take the reigns of the backup role immediately. He’s already shown he can handle the AHL plenty; it’s time he finally takes the NHL backup job and take it for good. Otherwise? The worst-case scenario feels like them just remaining a wild-card team against such a difficult Pacific, with stretches where they bounce between 1st, 4th, 2nd, back to 1st for two days, and then settling in by the end of the season firmly in the playoffs again.
If they can integrate their small changes well, things should be very fun for the Kraken in the now and in the future!
3-4. Los Angeles Kings
Meet Seattle’s bunkmate for the year.
Becoming the shock winner of the Pierre-Luc Dubois sweepstakes was quite a pickup for the Black and Silver, as it puts a guy who by all accounts should thrive in the possession-heavy system of LA onto an already tough team; Anze Kopitar will still be here and has yet to actively drop off in terms of his vaunted 200-foot, two-way game, they’ll probably get a full season out of Quintin Byfield which is great, Kevin Fiala remains enjoying his best life on the west coast, Trevor Lewis returned to his draft team after some time away in what is assuredly a depth role…it’s hard to say there’s really a big hole in their roster that needs addressing.
My real concerns for them, if any can be said to exist at all, come down to fit. Losing Vilardi and Iafallo kinda stinks, but the Kings on paper are more than talented enough to replace them without concern, and they have PLD, so everything should be good, right?
Well, here’s the thing. PLD has to want it too.
For as much as Dubois has been a net positive on both of the teams he’s been on, he has also been extremely moody about getting to play in places that either don’t like him enough or don’t want to move on from him once he’s done with them, so getting him to buy in is going to be paramount. Further, the losses of Alex Iafallo and Gabe Vilardi do take a bite out of the team’s overall defensive effectiveness (not by a lot, but it is there) that will require either Viktor Arvidsson or Arthur Kaliyev to make strides towards living up to it; two guys who are far more comfortable as offense-first wingers than anything else. Further, their goaltending is also a pretty big question mark; losing Korpisalo leaves the Kings with Phoenix Copley, who played a decent .904 SV% in 37 games, and now Cam Talbot, who just came off of one of his worst seasons in the NHL with an .898 SV%. In fairness, Ottawa’s defense was atrocious last year, and that doesn’t reflect Talbot’s larger body of work, which is a career .921 SV%. That is still a big bet on a 36-year-old goaltender.
Still, if those are your concerns coming into Game 1 of the regular season, you’re in decent shape. I look forward to all matchups with the Kings, and may the better team which is the team in Seattle end up in the third spot in the Pacific comfortably.
Might Make It
3-5. Calgary Flames
The Calgary Flames have been self-immolating ever since hiring and then handing out a well-deserved canning to Daryl Sutter. They’ve lost quite a bit in the interim, and replacing it has been troublesome.
Otherwise, it’s a weird season for them. They still have a strong center core in Lindholm, Kadri, Backlund, and Ruzicka. They have Johnathan Huberdeau, who is still really, really good; Andrew Mangiapane still seems like a special player. They still have Mackenzie Weegar, they still have all these wonderfully talented players, and yet…they keep underachieving. I don’t know honestly what keeps mentally beating them besides themselves. Because they should be great!
Instead, they’re just alright. That’s strange.
If there’s anything that I think has been pulling them into the depths, I think it’s their steadfast refusal to let goalie prospect Dustin Wolf cook in net. Their current netminders: Jacob Markström and Dan Vladar, have been deeply disappointing; but they’ll likely also have a stranglehold on the goaltending position because…well…they’re both moneyed, and next to impossible to move. This puts them in an unenviable position where even their strong defense needs to be playing at peak efficiency, or they’re gonna be on the back foot more often than not in games they really should be winning.
If they had less talent, they’d probably be a shoo-in for a spot in the Why Are You Like This?-tier. Mercifully, there’s a chance, thanks to the many major updates in coaching and a lightly refreshed roster…that they could finally get it together and go to the playoffs, especially if they’re willing to rotate in Wolf and maybe drop guys like Dillon Dube into their depth…but I’m not terribly optimistic about this. This might be a long, drawn-out “almost” of a season.
Again.
Maybe Next Year
5-6. Vancouver Canucks
It would be so cool if the Canucks and Kraken were competing for a playoff spot at the same time. Tragically, it seems we’re still waiting on that, even though the Canucks definitely have made some strides toward being there.
Elias Petterson might be one of the more dynamic talents in the entire conference, Pius Suter was a great pickup for their depth, Andrei Kuzmenko looks like he’s the real deal, and Conor Garland might be the most quietly consistent player in the entire league! JT Miller is pretty good at the offensive side of the game. Carson Soucy definitely is a half-decent player when not trying to do something that suggests a fey mood struck him! There is hope here!
Last year, Vancouver’s defense was so bad it singlehandedly crippled their ability to do much of anything, and still only missed the playoffs by about 9 points. Losing Demko for a time also didn’t help that whatsoever. If the Canucks management can say they fixed one thing, it’s definitely that defense. They also added an element of surprise in Carson Soucy’s patented “Carson why did you do that” penalty, but it’s definitely one that makes the Canucks marginally more difficult to play against!
It’s a pity the rest of that forward corps isn’t really all it’s cracked up to be.
Anthony Beauvillier is a decent player, but he’s not a patch on the loss of Bo Horvat. Brock Boeser has basically resigned himself to being mediocre forever, and while their depth definitely looks like it isn’t going to give up any braindead plays…It’s also not terribly interested in doing any plays that end in shots. There’s a real undercurrent to this team that the Canucks may be relying on Petterson, Kuzmenko, and Quinn Hughes to get anything done while relying on their defense and their goalie to fix things if the other team gets the puck. In a contract year for Petterson.
So hey, no pressure! Given how passionate that fanbase is, I’m sure they’ll take being in a holding pattern with the best Canucks player of the past ten years possibly on his way out very well!
7-8. Anaheim Ducks
So after some time of rebuilding, I have to ask the Ducks…When does the magic begin?
Anaheim has a lot on their plate; They still need to figure out what the future of Ducks hockey is going to be and namely need to figure out what it’s gonna do with its erstwhile goaltender John Gibson, who has been tasked with backstopping one of the most heinous NHL defenses of the past couple of years. Gibson will likely fetch a pretty penny if he can capture his previous form, and the Ducks can move on to the Lukas Dostal experiment, as well as the “make sure Troy Terry and Trevor Zegras have someone to play with” experiment, which up to this point has largely been underfunded or ignored beyond guys like Mason McTavish and maybe Leo Carlsson.
Okay, so not entirely…but it’s still a long work in progress, and frankly, it’s still taking an upsetting amount of time for this team to be respectable enough to win. While guys like Radko Gudas are definitely a step in the right direction in terms of pure hockey impact (let’s not talk about how he definitely lives up to the Ducks old stereotype of being a bunch of goons), they still have an unproven or actively bad d-corps that is graduating to the NHL all at once, and a forward corps that’s still trying to establish that it is in fact alive, something it often couldn’t do outside of playing Seattle (for whatever reason).
The good news is that it might be slightly better than last year, but they still need to figure out a more workable identity for this team coming into the next couple of years, or they’ll still be playing catch-up. All this rebuilding and for what?
When will the magic of the mid-2000s Ducks take hold again?
Why Are You Like This?
8. San Jose Sharks
The Sharks are going to be unbelievably bad this upcoming year. On purpose? Absolutely, but it bears repeating that if you have the option to watch, do so knowing you might just see some mind-bendingly, spine-breakingly poor hockey.
Especially now that Erik Karlsson’s in the other conference. That’s just about the last good player they had left outside of Tomas Hertl.
The reason San Jose is like this is due to a number of absolutely horrendous bets that took a powerhouse of the 2010’s and dropped it squarely into the basement, with rookie GM Mike Grier left to pick up the pieces and start anew with very few options to do so.
To take the edge off, the Sharks are making a couple of shrewd bets to maybe not be the worst team in the entire NHL by taking on some project players, namely starting with Filip Zadina, who was let go from Detroit because of his talent not translating into goals-scored, and Anthony Duclair, who was a victim of Florida’s meteoric rise coinciding with having to pay a few players…who also has trouble translating his very real talent into goals-scored if not properly supported. That’s a good start toward potentially getting this team back on its feet, because the rest of the roster kinda…sucks.
The potential of Kevin Labanc becoming a 2-way player has otherwise died, the Sharks had to take on Mikael Granlund, who was a major part of the Penguins woes, and while Logan Couture may still have something left in the tank…I don’t know if he’s gonna be able to will this team to success, even with the potential of getting to play with Mike Hoffman and Duclair. The less said about San Jose’s defense as it stands…is probably for the best. It might be one of the worst in the entire league.
It’s rough out there in NorCal. But that’s the plan.
The Sharks are in for the long haul breakdown, and that means pain on most fronts, even if good things manage to squeak through. Grin and bear it, Sharks fans. This is for the best.
We’re done with Divisional previews! I personally will be taking a quick jaunt to the beach, and will then return with preseason content, with all the writers we know and love in tow! Along with a number of fun new things!
Until then, Keep Calm, and Post Zoidberg When We Win.
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