Honestly the top 6 might get beat out down the middle by some other teams, the bottom 2 d pairings have some slight concerns but nothing major, and the bottom 6 lacks a little strength,

Would it hoist the cup right now maybe, would it beat Either Tampa the last 2 years, or Pittsburg in 2016-2017 probably not, but its got some depth within the lines, but who else do ya got if 1 of these guys go down? Whos the next man up? Saros and Nedeljkovic are both pretty young they may not be able to properly handle the level they need to be at.

Saros kinda proved he could this past year imo i think they could win but you anything can happen

It could if it made the playoffs and beat all the teams it faced in a best of seven series.

I personally think that Hedman-Carlson pair is just ridiculous

Yes.

What teams have better top 2 centres? Edmonton and who? Maybe Pittsburgh or Toronto? They’re top 4 in the NHL at least.

No question a cup champ.

Honestly the following teams are slightly higher for me personally, edmonton toronto pittsburg tampa colorado winnipeg, (if petterson was signed vancouver).

I think barkov is really really good, but he isnt better than any of those teams top line centerman
and couturier is also solid, but he isnt better than drai, tavares, malkin, Point/stamkos/cirelli, Nate/Landeskog, Wheeler, and i dont think hes better than bo.

Most of those teams are always going for it too so those are this teams competition if they run into one of those teams i dont think they are stronger down the middle, now do i think their top 6 overall is better

Probably at least better than Toronto or Vancouver, the rest i think it would be a game to game thing.

Oh i certainly wouldnt count this team out at all,

But a bottom pairing with a combined games played of 40 makes me a little worried,
there are a couple other fringe things that make me worried about the bottom 6, which in turn makes me slightly worried about the top 6,

Saros has had a great start to his career thats for sure but ya can never know with goalies especially when they are young. Ned has had a much more rocky career so far, great last season but i dont think carolina got rid of him for no reason, they saw something that was gonna inhibit his game in some way and they made that decision.


The biggest issue i have with the team is injuries just completely screw it over

like if hedman or Carlsson goes down who in the hell is stepping up to fill those minutes.

If pasta goes down there is no one there to replace him.

Im a leafs fan so i can say this pretty heavily

Zach hyman needs either a great shooter or a great passer to do anything with the puck, offensivly hes a workhorse who will almost never lose a battle for a puck
but hes not great at actually scoring from anywhere but about 3 feet from the net, hes not gonna be able to replace what pasta brings.

I though that Barkov wasn’t underrated anymore, but it appears some stragglers are still left.

Landeskog and Wheeler aren’t centres, and even if they were, they still aren’t close to being the player Couturier is.

I have absolutely no idea how you can put Pettersson over Barkov. Barkov produces more points than Petey, while also being a Selke-caliber centre. There is absolutely nothing that you could use to compare Barkov and Pettersson and say that Petey is the better player right now.

Same goes for Couturier and Horvat. Horvat’s career high is 61 points, meanwhile Couturier has been close to a point per game for the last 4 seasons, and is maybe the best defensive C in the game.

Point is a bit better than Barkov. Cirelli, however doesn’t come close to Couturier. He scores at half the points pace of Coots and isn’t as good defensively as Couturier.