I completely understand it given the injuries to start the season, but this feels like year three or four straight where the consensus around here was that this was the year the bruins would step back.

I have a really hard time seeing both Ottawa and New Jersey being better.
That said i have an even harder time seeing either the wild or the rangers in the final. I could see the rangers missing the playoffs.

With the Bruins I had a hard time putting them there, every time you bet against the Bruins they do even better than the year before. I just think the injuries they have (best forward and best defenseman) is going to be hard to replace that production.
With Ottawa I think they did a good job this offseason and have the goaltending depth to do well without Talbot plus their young guys are only going to get better.
The Devils have an amazing top 6 which was reinforced with Palat, they are going to have a full year with Hamilton who was finished top 10 in Norris 2/3 past years. Also no chance they have as bad goaltending luck as they did last year (they used 7!!!!)
The Rangers have a sick team with the best goalie and their young guys (Laf, Kappo, Miller, Fox, Schneider) are only going to get better (a lot better). They also have superstar pieces
The Wild was a team I might regret putting into the finals but they have an elite goaltender who put up okay numbers on a terrible Blackhawks team and was good on the Wild. Plus Kaprizov will take a leap, and they have great depth on both forward and D

Don’t get me wrong, its the bruins two best players. That’s going to hurt, particularly with mcavoy. But what are they going to miss? 15 games? Maybe 20? I think they can tread water for that stretch given the depth. The top six still looks pretty good, and having lindholm back there to anchor the D will certainly help things.

Ottawa’s off-season was incredible. No argument there. I still think they’re a year away though.

The devils on the other hand…ya, i don’t see it. An amazing top six? Hughes is awesome, but I certainly worry about injuries with him. Hischier is good, but I think I would wait for him to have a season north of 60 points before thinking of him as an amazing top six center. Then there’s Palat who is certainly a good second liner, and Brett who had a breakout year. But beyond that, what are we calling amazing? Who’s got the better top six, boston with the injury to marchand, or jersey?

I’m not a fan of their blue line at all. I’m not a fan of dougie, and think he has massive holes in his game. I think it’s kind of telling that teams generally seem to get better once he’s off the roster.
Then there’s the goaltending, the biggest issue. The devils chose to address that problem by taking a backup goalie from another team that had really bad goaltending.

I just can’t see the devils making any sort of a jump forward that would have them sniffing the playoffs.

Canucks are making playoffs over VGK. Vegas' goaltending is bad and depth is questionable.

I just wanted to go back to this post because I wanted to say "ha" (and yes I am petty for this)

Ya. I’ll take this. Two out of three ain’t bad.

Let’s re-visit this while we’re at it. Good call on the bruins and sens chief.

Hahaha that Devils disrespect was unreal, not that you were the only one going into the season.
Happy they've been proven a lot of the doubters wrong so far.

I completely agree. They’re playing fantastic. I still think they’re one very big piece away: that all situation true #1 D. That said, they’re definitely a force right now

I get what you mean but I’m really not worried about that as 5 out of 6 Devils D can excel in big minutes at 5v5.
Marino and Siegenthaler are playing among the league’s best in a defensive capacity, Hamilton is still one of the most gifted offensive defenders in the league.
Besides, could be that the Devils have future all situations guy in Nemec.

On the whole I believe that the Devils D corps are their overall strongest department, ahead of both the Forwards and Goalies.
I just hope they can keep it up and that there’s a playoff appearance at the end of it.