Drury would hang up the phone and block your number

Yeah, come on, Drury would want a 1st and your 3 best prospects for our amazing 30 goal scorer

Development baby!

I think it also has to do a lot with player style. I would think guys like marner and gaudreau would break sticks less than grinders or guys who primarily shoot one-timers.

It's ironic that the team that gambled their entire future on a cup run is from vegas...

I guess they never learned that the house always wins....

As a bandwagon Panthers fan , I think the key to beating Pittsburgh in the 1st rd is breaking up the Huberdeau-Bennett-Duclair line - great offensively, but all 3 are defensive liabilities and in the playoffs they can't afford to roll out that line against a team like Pittsburgh. Giroux should switch with Duclair.

Verhaeghe-Barkov-Duclair
Huberdeau-Bennett-Giroux
Marchment-Lundell-Reinhart

I think Florida will steamroll Pittsburgh. IMO it's going to be in 4 or 5 for Florida.

Dude you just increased the number of panthers fans to 2!

All 3 games this season have been close, and Sullivan is a great coach. I have Panthers in 6, but they need to adapt a little in the playoffs so they don't get burned.

I was at the isles-panthers series in 2016 - tickets were cheap and the arena wasn't even sold out, I have a feeling it's going to be different this time. Zito has built a great team.

Underappreciated team

For sure it will. Lightning-Panthers last year in Sunrise was a packed house every time (although admittedly that might have something to do with the fact that there were plenty of Lightning fans there as well, for obvious reasons). But even games that I've watched from this regular season (not against the Lightning) have been full. Winning is the best promotion.

They were winning in 2016, the difference is Zito has a plan + direction. What he's done over the last two years is incredible, I don't know if there's a GM out there who's better at identifying what his team needs and how they fit in the system.

Top 5 (in no particular order): Zito, JBB, Guerin, Yzerman, Sakic

Don’t think I’d have JBB or Guerin in my top 5

Why is Guerin there lol, he’s not done anything special in his time as GM. The Wild fans on this site getting to you or something?

WHAT?!
BLASPHEMY
I'd have JBB and Guerin in my TOP 3! (along with Zito)

But I'll bite anyways...who would you take?

I've only got one guy on my ignore list; part of the allure of this website is the bad posts.

everyone is certainly entitled to your own opinion. im not really sure what guerin has done to merit a top 5 place. hes pretty good, but theres better out there. I think JBB is the most overrated gm. if the stakced team handed to him didnt win 2 cups, he wouldnt nearly be praised as much. from a value standpoint, he has overpayed at every deadline deal hes made besides nick paul. over guerin and JBB id probably have don waddell and kevyn adams

Even for Nick Paul, Mathieu Joseph had 12 points in 11 games and looked like he fit in really well in the top 6 lol

That's basically my whole ignore list + a WPG fan Windjammer

MIN having $12-$14million in dead cap space in each of the next three seasons would take Guerin out for me.

Also extending Kulikov, Greenway, and Goligoski before Fiala is a massive miss too

Have been hearing a decent amount of buzz (not necessarily on here) that the East is quite a bit stronger then the West. Was bored lol so I wanted to see if this is really true or if the gap between the top and bottom teams in the east is boosting the EC teams points totals. First, I took the EC playoff teams and checked their record against the current WC playoff teams only, and Eastern Conference playoff teams are actually 62-66 (didn't take the the time to record OTL, just included them as losses) against Western Conference playoff teams. Below are the individual teams records:

EC
1. Carolina 11-5
2. Toronto 10-6
3. Tampa 9-7
4. Florida 8-8
4. Boston 8-8
6. Washington 7-9
7. NYR 5-11
8. Pittsburgh 4-12

WC
1. Minnesota 11-5
2. Colorado 10-6
3. Calgary 9-7
3. Dallas 9-7
5. Edmonton 8-8
5. LA 8-8
7. St. Louis 7-9
8. Nashville 4-12

Not necessarily saying the West is stronger than the east, just saying I don't think the East is that much better then the West.

Then, just for fun I decided to look at every current playoff teams record against other playoff teams, no matter the conference. Standings in order of winning %.

EC
1. Toronto 22-14
2. Carolina 22-16
3. Florida 21-16
4. NYR 19-18
5. Washington 17-21
6. Boston 16-20
7. Tampa Bay 17-22
8. Pittsburgh 14-25

WC
1. Colorado 22-14
2. St. Louis 22-16
3. Calgary 19-17
4. Minnesota 20-18
5. Edmonton 20-19
6. Dallas 20-20
7. Nashville 17-22
8. LA

Pretty interesting to see Tampa at 7. but considering the way they have played the past couple games I wouldn't be too worried if I was them. Also surprised to see the Leafs at 1. hopefully the continue this success in the playoffs, but considering their track record in the playoffs and how well Tampa has looked the past couple games I'm not overly optimistic. No real surprises in the West.

Ok hear me out. Kent Hughes for the gm of the year

Guerin signed Kaprizov, drafted Boldy and Rossi, stole Fleury from the Blackhawks, hired Dean Evason, etc. He (along with Evason) rebuilt the Wild from being a dead-in-the-water-on-the-fringe-of having-to-rebuild team to a contender in 2 years.

That argument against JBB is flawed bec. he didn't overpay, they wouldn't have won either Cup if he hadn't made those moves. There's no doubt that Coleman/Goodrow looked like a vast overpayment at the time, but it's not an overpayment if it leads to a Cup, and it did-twice. Without Coleman and Goodrow, the Lightning aren't winning in 2020 OR 2021. JBB did indeed inherit a good team, but he inherited one that couldn't win in the playoffs. He (along with Cooper) built them into 2X (and hopefully 3X!!!) Stanley Cup Champions.