I would have CBJ over FLA and CHI over DET for Central.

Leafs are coming first in the Canadian

Edmonton loses their #1D and add Kyle Turris and a one-sided, defensively handicaped dman, and are suddenly the best Canadian team?

CBJ and FLA were virtually the same last year and FLA has gotten better in the offseason. And I think Bob will rebound a bit.

CHI over DET is what most will say, I just don't like the direction CHI is going and DET is moving up. They have some very good talent on the cusp of making a difference.

Their #1D hasn't missed a single game in over 3 years; they also added Puljujarvi, Ennis and Kahun (plus full seasons of Yamamoto and Jones); Bear and Larsson can (and will) take the top comp to shelter Barrie; and they were already the best Canadian team before any of these changes.

They were 2nd last year and got worse over the offseason. Oilers were 1st and have improved.

Explain how the leafs got worse?

Blue Jackets got destroyed because of injuries, yet they were a WC team. They improved by adding Domi and Koivu and didn't lose any big piece. FLA lost Hoffman, Dadonov, two top6 pieces. Hornqvist is a middle-six player at this point. Agree, Bobrovsky will probably be better but imo CBJ will be better.

Agreed



Johnsson, Kapanen > Vesey, Robertson
Brodie, Lehtonen > Barrie, Ceci

Offensively, they didn't get better. On defense, Brodie is an upgrade over Barrie. Lehtonen over Ceci but offensively. The Leafs' issue isn't only their personal, it's their system and no idea if this will get better. At best, they're the same team but they didn't improve.

You do realize both the teams had the same PPT right lmao. And the leafs missed JT for 6 weeks, Marner for 5 weeks, muzzin and Rielly for 2 months lmao. And they made a coaching change at the 1/4 point of the season. The leafs are clearly the best Canadian team, and have been for the last 4 seasons. They had a bad defence and addressed that situation by singing Brodie, and have a very good top 4 now. Edm had terrible D and no forward depth behind Leon McDavid and RNH.

How did they get worse lmao?

I edited my post.

Older and slower.

But maybe they got more of what they needed

.585 > .579


Injuries happen to every team, every season. JT missed 7 games... guess what? McDavid also missed 7 games. Hardly a doomsday scenario.


In the second half of the season they were not as good as Edmonton, in their last 30 games they went .567 vs .650 for Edmonton.


Best Canadian Team
2016-17: Edmonton Oilers / Montreal Canadiens (tie)
2017-18: Winnipeg Jets
2018-19: Toronto Maple Leafs
2019-20: Edmonton Oilers

One out of 4 ain't bad, I guess.


Two things: (1) that "terrible D and no forward depth" team was better than the Leafs last year (LMAO), and (2) they addressed the forward depth issue in the offseason.

Maybe

I'm surprised Bruins fans aren't freaking out that I have them in 3rd in the division.

The oilers literally finished 2 points ahead of
The leafs and they played one game more lmao. The leafs would have 100% finished higher if it wasn’t for injuries. The oilers have the best player in the world and haven’t even made the PLAYOFFS for 3 years

Over the last 3 seasons the leafs have had one of the best offences in the league and even had the luxury of having kadri, Johnson, kappy on the THIRD line. During these 3 years their d was absolutely terrible. If someone isn’t working, they’re bound to make a change lol. Everyone criticized them for not having a good d and placing too much money on their forwards lol. Ironically, when they take money from their forward core (trading johnsson and kappy) and use that money for defense (Brodie, lehtonen, bogo) ppl say they got worse lol? To me, they’re a much more balanced team with a top 3 forward core, top 10-11 defence core, and arguably have a top 10 goalie. This is by far the best team they’ve boasted in the Matthews era, sure they got worse on forward this summer, but they finally have a good d. They won’t have to score 4-5 goals a game to win, they will finally be able to defend lll

They addressed their forward depth issues by signing Turris and Kahun ? LMAO. they still have a terrible bottom 6. McDavid and drai lead the league in scoring and the oilers didn’t even make the playoffs 😂. I’m 100% sure that by signing turris and kahun that won’t change lmao

Well, nothing tells me their D is guaranteed to be better. As I said, the players weren't the only problems. Let them play and we'll see. But for me, the team didn't get better.

" This is by far the best team they've boasted in the Matthews era " Hope for you it's the first time you're saying that

The leafs D is clearly better on paper compared to last year, and much better than the Bruins hahaha. But somehow leads will still lose in 7 to you guys

U think they’ve had a better team than this one in the last 4 years ????

As I said, the players are better. But it's how they play that matters. Bruins were without 4 regulars (3 top4 guys) 2 years ago for a stretch of games; still kept games close and won some in OT. Dallas as well, 3 AHLers+1 7th D and yet they played well. It's not only about who but how. Isles don't have any top pair D and no big names but yet, they were one of the best teams defensively the past two years because of Trotz's system.



I haven't seen this team yet so I don't know. As I said, imo, similar resultats to last year. They gave up on offense to help the D. So a -1 and +1.

It wasn't just Turris and Kahun though. I listed several others - the fact that you chose to ignore this tells me that you're biased (as if your other comments weren't telling enough). Here are the scoring rates of Edmonton's forwards from last year, keeping in mind that anything over 0.69 P/GP is first line production and anything above 0.48 P/GP is considered "top-6" :

Draisaitl: 1.55 P/GP
McDavid: 1.52
Yamamoto: 0.96 *
Nugent-Hopkins: 0.94
Kassian: 0.58
Neal: 0.56
Kahun: 0.55 *
Ennis: 0.53 *
Turris: 0.50 *
Puljujarvi: 0.43 (NHLe) *
Chiasson: 0.37
Archibald: 0.34

So the Oilers have 4 "first line" players and 5 "second line" players. That's 9 "top-6" players... pretty sure their bottom-6 will be just fine: they have 2nd liners playing on the third line and third liners playing on the 4th line. Star (*) for the additions - including Yamamoto, who played less than half the season last year.

Let's compare Toronto:

Matthews: 1.14 P/GP
Marner: 1.14
Tavares: 0.95
Nylander: 0.87
Hyman: 0.73
Mikheyev: 0.59
Thornton: 0.44 *
Kerfoot: 0.43
Spezza: 0.43
Simmonds: 0.37 *
Engevall: 0.31
Vesey: 0.31 *
Malgin: 0.27 *

The Leafs have 5 guys who can be considered "first line" by production but only 1 in the second line range. That's 6 "top-6" players, and none of them are as good as Edmonton's top guys.

If you want to fret over lack of depth or a poor bottom-6, you'd be better off looking at the Leafs roster for next season, not the Oilers.