I am not sold on them being anything other than first round fodder but they have excellent goaltending, a decent defence, and pretty good forward depth and a tonne of speed. Their holes are much smaller than most of the teams in the Metro.

Lets be honest here, if Carolina doesn't get at least a little better than average goaltending they miss the playoffs. New Jersey, needs goaltending, same with the Islanders. All 3 can miss easily. Throw Philly in that bus as well. Washington was terrible at 5v5 last season, any sort of decline in special teams for them could be extremely problematic. Pittsburgh is vulnerable, literally every team in the Metro has a lot of good pieces but also glaring problems that are not easy to solve and could completely derail their season. The Atlantic doesn't have that, they are extremely top heavy sure, but they also don't have teams with such glaring holes outside of Detroit and Ottawa and possibly Buffalo.

'Possibly' buffalo he says ahaha. Buffalo will be god awful again this season.

My only point was that Montreal is bad compared to 3/4 of the metro no matter their goaltending situations. Dont know why you added that last paragraph.

Keep doubting the Jackets MFers, see how that’s gonna play out

I think you are letting your emotions guide you here. The Metro doesn't have a surefire top team anymore. They have the old guard that still has some gas left in the tank and up and coming teams. However, each team has some glaring weaknesses that could scuttle the season. I think the level playing field will mean all the teams in the metro will be close and that could result in a lot of lower point totals when teams split the season series 2-2. Which is why I say they won't be that strong of a division. You could win it with a 100 point season and finish 3rd with 95 points.

Emotions? My team is the Canes and only the Canes.

I know

And it seems like you are rating their division higher than they should because that means they are better than they actually are. The Canes are a decent team but their goaltending is a huge question mark once again, and their depth is lacking. They have a terrific system and a terrific defence but even average goaltending could see them lose 5-10 points from last years totals. I see a tonne of problems for most of the teams in the Metro and since no one is really above or below the rest of the pack, what you'll see is a bunch of average teams fighting for 3 spots, I am not sure anyone in the Metro is really that strong. None are bad but in the other divisions you have teams that look very strong and then a bunch of so so teams. The Metro is the only division that is made up of entirely so so teams.

I agree that they dont have the strongest teams in their division like Tampa, St Louis, or SJS. But the metro is the toughest division in the league and there shouldn't even be an argument about it.

That is a matter of perspective, I think its fair to say the Metro is the most even, which makes it the toughest to win the division. But without a top team or two, are they really that powerful? On paper, no team in the Metro matches Tampa, TO or Boston. None, and I don't think anyone can really argue that. Are any teams on paper as good as Nashville, St Louis or even Colorado? I don't see it. Vegas? No.

So if you have 7 teams that are all close to each other but none of them are powerhouses you have a tough division to separate yourself but you are still below the top teams in the league. The metro just looks like everyone is just average or even a little above, so unless every game ends with a shootout win, I think you'll see one team that hits 100 points and wins the division, 2 other teams that are in the mid 90's who fill out the top 3 and then the rest of the division who will all finish close 94 points or so and less.

That is where I think teams like Florida and Montreal will benefit. They'll have easy games against Detroit and Ottawa that will help them get extra points where the Metro will be taking points away from each other without anyone really becoming a basement dweller or elite team.