Metro…Carolina and New Jersey are best forward groups, I’d say by significant margin. Penguins and Rangers are both aging high-end groups and should be the second tier. Philly and Columbus are younger cohorts with more depth than people realize. Islanders and Capitals, both old and mid, should be bottom two.

Oh this is by division, I get it now, Minnesota is ranked way too high in the Central, Evason should've got the Jack Adams Award for what he's getting out of that group.

Colorado doesn't have the depth to be ranked 1st in the Central.
Florida is too high in the Atlantic and if center strength is a key factor then Boston should be lower, could argue Detroit ahead of Montreal too.
Washington and the Islanders could maybe swap spots but its close.

Damn, would like to see the defense rankings, league wide D rankings would make for an interesting debate.

Canucks have better forwards than the Flames and Kraken

VAN has very good 1 and 2C and thats it. Kadri and Hubes prolly rebound this year [yes, despite those contracts likely ending poorly... like JT] and SEA had one of the best offenses the league last year.... soooo?



You can click on my profile to see the ranking on Dcore.

MIN and BOS have one of the best wingers in the game with good winger depth and have some center depth each in Hartman, EK, Coyle. I don't think you realize how bad the central is as opposed to MIN being that strong on F?

Johansen and Colton are upgrades over Compfer, and they have the 2nd best forward in the show at 1C with one of the best wingers which is similar to FLA who also upgraded with ERod. But yeah, I'll put DAL over COL despite Benn/Seguin likely to lose another step this year.

DET and MTL have good 1C's but nothing comparable to BOS, FLA, OTT after that.

Assume WSH has healthy Backstrom.



Wheeler and Bonino are the only players over 32 on the Rangers and Laff/Kakko should improve this year making up for that.

Smith is an upgrade over Zucker for PIT [who has the 3rd best F in the league and ageless Malkin 2C] and both NYR and PIT had better production from F's last year to CAR who added Bunting but Staal likely loses a step .... will Jarvis/Drury outgrow Laf/Kak? Prolly not.

CBJ did nothing but add to D this offseason and PHI lost Hayes [bad contract/decent player] and added nothing.

Zibanejad, Panarin, Kreider, Trocheck, Goodrow and Vesey are 30+

Average age of forwards:
PIT: 31.3
WAS: 29.8
NYI: 29.8
NYR: 29.4

CAR: 27.1
NJD: 26.6
PHI: 25.8
CBJ: 25.0

Minnesota has Kaprizov and Boldy who are great and then it really fades after that, Hartman is a 3rd liner masquerading as a 1C on a team that doesn't have one, E-Ek is good but on a whole the Wild aren't strong down the middle and their forward group lacks depth, again Evason is doing Yeoman's work with that forward group.
The Blues are stronger at center and deeper overall at forward then Minnesota is.

Canucks are pretty deep on the wing as well. Kuzmenko, Boeser, Garland, Mikheyev, Beauvillier, Pearson, Hoglander, Podkolzin, and Joshua

And the Canucks also had a very good offense last year. They scored more goals on the season than Vegas and Calgary who you have ranked ahead, as well as Carolina, Ottawa, Pittsburgh, and Winnipeg who lots of people would say have great talent