Quick, make a nothing trade so you don't get sent to forums!...aka Capfriendly death.

I don't know if this team is CLEARLY better than minnesota... likely scenario is that 5 make it in the central and only 3 in the west

It’s not a bad team. I think it depends on how well Reichel does if they choose to put him on the top 6. They have definitely done some serious upgrades, and they have a good chance of making it. Colorado, Winnipeg will all be above them. For third, I agree Chicago, and St. Louis will be battling for third, and then one of them will get the fourth. The wild card from the pacific could up to a number of teams, but I think it will be either Minnesota, or Dallas. It will be interesting to see how it will looks like, but on paper, they should secure a playoff spot.

The Central is very deep. I think they'll certainly have 5 teams. NSH is the only one that clearly got worse IMO. Losing Ellis and Victor will hurt and team that was already a sub par offensive team. I think MIN will feel the affect of losing Suter a bit, BUT Suter stayed in the division...so that a plus for Dallas. As for MIN, Kaprisov isn't a surpise anymore. Teams will have had more time to figure him out. Let's see if he can keep it up. DAL's Robertson is really good and their defense is even better. They offense is quite old, but can't count them out by any means. I think MIN is the odd team out. Their division was extremely easy last year. Facing harder competition on a regular basis is not what they experienced last year.

The real optimism for the hawks is that no team in the NHL (except for Seattle) added as much talent as the Hawks. The (3) hardest positions to find are #1C, #1D, Vezina caliber Goalie. Toews, Jones, MAF.

John Hayden now more than ever.

No matter where Toews is. He is not the 1C unless Kane is on the line. Every teams 1C is matched up against Kane because that’s the real threat.

John Hayden for fooooks sake! He went to Yale!

Small technical correction. Every team's SHUTDOWN line goes against Kane because Kane is the best offensive weapon the Hawks have. Sometimes that overlaps to being the #1C, but not always. Toews is a #1C on approx. 50% of NHL teams.

Can’t wait to play Vegas in the first round.

We are at the very least competing for a playoff spot.

Chicago are a weird one, they could come as high as 3rd in the division (They're not better than Colorado or Minnesota) and they're in that fight with Winnipeg and Dallas. I do think they're the 6th best team in the Central, but they could surprise. This really depends on what Fleury we see

I think we are clearly better in net and up front. Minnesota defence is probably better but its significantly weaker tlast year while the hawks D is improved. Suter and Soucy out for goligoski and kulikov in is a downgrade

i think we're bettet than minnesota, and winnipeg is better than both

You're not better than Minnesota. Fleury Lankinen < Talbot, Kahkonen, Minnesota's D core > Chicago's D core. Chicago will need a BIG return from Toews or Strome to be better than them, otherwise, I don't think they're better than Minnesota.

As for Winnipeg, that D core still has question marks. Dubois is still a question mark, Schiefele being so brainless is a questionmark. There's a lot of issues with Winnipeg (I didn't mention Hellebuyck's backup issue)

I will wait 6 months to give you a fair evaluation,

Reigning Vezina winner is worse than Cam Talbot? Lankinen .908 SV % with a FAR worse defense infront of him AND a MUCH harder division worse than Kaapo's .902 SV%? CHI wins the goalie comparison by a country mile.

***edit*** I actually like Talbot and Kaapo. It's just that there's no comparison here. MIN was in the easiest division last year.

Kaprisov isn't anything new anymore and MIN lost Suter and Soucy. Those three facts will hurt at least a little.

As far as Toews goes. It's just too unknown to say whether he's back to old form or not. All signs thus far is that he'll need to shake off some rust, but that he'll be a good #1C. In fact he'd 100% be MIN's #1C already....even if he isn't back to his Selke caliber #1C.

100% agreed. WPG is very good.

Fleury also played in the easiest division last year... sure he won a cool trophy playing behind a far better defense, but he's renowned for consistency issues. Lankinen started well, until he fell apart. Talbot was INCREDIBLE last year, and he didn't exactly have a great team in front of him. Now they go back to a still subpar division, but with some major expectations? Yeah, I have no issues saying that I think Chicago's netminders are not as good as Minnesota's right now.

That's fine. I still think the central will have 5 teams in the playoffs. I understand TBL, CAR, and FLA are gone. Those are three cup contenders in my mind.