Hey ! I'm doing my preparation for some hockey pools. I'm a habs fan, but I want to know the other teams better. I have some questions :

1. Where will St Louis finish in the ranking?

2. What will most likely be the PP?

3. Who is likely to have a breakout year or who will surprise in terms of point production? Who is advantaged by the line combinations?

4. Who is likely to have a bad year in point production?

5. How many games each goalie is likely to play?

1. Where will St Louis finish in the ranking?
Blues should be in the fight for 2nd/3rd in the Central with Minnesota, Nashville, Dallas. Probably safe to project them into the playoffs as long as they get solid goaltending.

2. What will most likely be the PP?
Last year the PP consistently produced because of having 2 strong units. I assume Kyrou will fill in for Perron on the top unit and the PP1 and PP2 are something like:
Kyrou-ROR-Tarasenko-Thomas-Krug
Schenn-Saad-Buch-Faulk-Leddy (no news on Perunovich's injury but he would QB this unit if healthy)


3. Who is likely to have a breakout year or who will surprise in terms of point production? Who is advantaged by the line combinations?
They prefer to mix the lines up quite a bit during the season so it's hard to say, but if the Buchnevich-Thomas-Tarasenko line sticks together they should put up big numbers. They have good chemistry (dual threat-passer-shooter) and the ROR line handles the tougher matchups. Last year when they were together Thomas had a point streak of 17 games (8G-21A-29P and +16) so I could see him exploding on the score sheet. Not sure if it would qualify as a breakout tho, he had 77 pts last yr

4. Who is likely to have a bad year in point production?
I wouldn't expect Barbashev to match his totals from last season (23-34-60). He may end up lower in the lineup and playing a more structured game, and he probably doesn't shoot 23% again. I could also see Schenn struggling to produce; his style of play is worrisome as he gets older and unless he ends up at LW with ROR his TOI is going to drop.

5. How many games each goalie is likely to play?
It would just be a guess, STL has been looking for a consistent, perrenial starting goalie for 20+ years. Binnington 60 starts, Greiss 15, Hofer 7