There’s no way we don’t finish last in the metro

Rangers over Hurricanes is bold. Imo the top teams in the metro are CAR and NJD, with a bit of separation over 3rd place NYR.

Hockey isn't played on paper. I'd like to see how many people thought Columbus would be worse than the Flyers before the start of last season

I like the Rangers roster construction more than Carolina, although it's really close

Detroit dead last in the Atlantic, Montreal isn't finishing ahead of us. Most models have Detroit in the 96-98 point range if we can stay healthy.

Most the analytics predictions had Columbus as terrible last season.

I think their expectations relative to their talent and roster construction is probably a bigger gap than any other team in the league. Given their horrific bottom-4 on defense, mid Goaltending, and a slightly below league average offense, I think that team is going to crumble in a division as competitive as the Atlantic.

Montreal has somewhat low expectations and more upside on offense, they'll be bad but I don't see them as a bottom feeder

I think Red Wings will surprise people. If they can stay healthy.

I can 100% promise you there is not 1 model that had them as a bottom-3 team in hockey, let alone last in the Metro. There was not 1 single analyst that didn't have the Flyers finishing last in the division in 2022-23

I would think most people would have Philly finishing last. They suck right now

Hurricanes are better than the rangers, and probably better than the devil's too. Also don't see NJ winning the cup this season, in a couple more years maybe, but they lost a few big pieces of their defense and all the other teams in the conference also improved so I don't see it happening

I'm a Flyers fan and would love if they finished last, but I doubt Tortorella and Hart let that happen

I doubt the Devils miss Severson and Graves that much with Hughes and Nemec likely ready to take roles with the big club this year and think they comfortably have a top-3 offense in the league. If they add a better Goaltender at the TDL I think they're going to stomp their way to the Cup.

Carolina vs Rangers is really close. I like the general construction of the Rangers more, but you could easily make the case the other way

Detroit added DeBrincat, Compher, Sprong, Kostin and Fischer on offence and Holl and Gostisbehere on D. They're going to be a much more dangerous team than a year ago. Their PP easily could be in the top 12 or so and their PK should be vastly improved as well. Detroit's depth alone is better than most years we should be able to sustain some injuries and still be fine. Detroit in the next 5 years or so should have one of the premiere D cores in the entire league with Moritz Seider, Simon Edvinsson, Axel Sandin Pellikka and William Wallinder and Albert Johansson amongst others.

Unless half of the team goes down with injuries, They'll finish way better than last place. Montreal will be dead last. I can even see us potentially ahead of Boston as well.

I'd bet my mortgage that CAR finishes ahead of NYR this year

I'd even have Pitt finishing over NYR this year...

Carolina are the best team in the Metro... why so low? Carolina's defense mops the floor with the Devils' who lost Severson and Graves. They're going to be trying to use a rookie Luke Hughes (who say what you want, will be a downgrade from Graves as a rookie) and they replaced Severson with Miller... they also lost Sharangovich, Tatar... Toffoli isn't a PPG player and a quick look at his career stats show you that. He's going to be closer to his 50-60 point self, maybe 70 playing with Hughes. Palat is now another year older, Vanacek will have to repeat the year he had last summer... Schmid's going to be in his second full season in the league and that's when goalies really tend to struggle... and you're predicting the Devils to win the cup? I just wouldn't be so high on the Devils right now. In 2-3 years? Yeah, sure. Right now? yikes

DomL and JFresh both had them at 76 points and 27th or 28th in the league. Not exactly shocking they sucked last year. And I am not signing up to access other closed source analytics sites to get their predictions. The point being, I doubt anyone looking at the data was surprised CBJ was one of the worst teams last year. Their center depth was among the worst in the league and that is the most important position. Maybe will be better this year with Fantilli.

Holy W! MTL not last!

The odds of Buffalo finishing 2nd and the Rangers finishing above the Canes are about the same as my odds of getting a date with Margot Robbie.

I laughed too.

I think they have a lot of upside with their younger forwards and expectations are low enough that they won't spiral out of control at any point during the season. Obviously the backend is.... yeah not good at all, but especially if Caufield plays a full 82 games and gets back on track I think they'll outscore their way out of being a true bottom feeder

The point I'm making is people on here constantly make these super hard lines in the sands between teams that are ultimately close, when the actual results almost never end up that way.

Even with what you're saying, that still doesn't show anyone calling them a bottom-3 team in the league or worse than the Flyers. Had someone said on here a year ago that they thought Columbus would've been worse than Philadelphia, people would've absolutely lost their minds saying "there's no way Columbus is worse than Philly", "what are you braindead" etc... Hell, the original comment in this thread I'm responding to is one saying there's no shot that a team who finished 1 spot in the standings above us last year finishes below us.

Of course. Fans are hopelessly status quo in predictions. Average number of new playoff teams in the cap era is 6. Yet most fan predictions are overwhelmingly between 2-4 new playoff teams even though that would be a very static season. Same thing with fan predictions on postseason series and picking favorites. Fans pick the better record at mindlessly higher rates like it is the NBA even though the NHL has far more lower seeds "upsets." And most analytics models have lower variance than the actual outcomes. Further evidence that outliers are near impossible to predict from a qualitative or quantitative perspective.

FWIW, I think the top-3 Metro teams are all:

1) Very, very close in terms of quality

2) The top-3 teams in the Conference, period.

I think New Jersey has the best offense in the conference by a comfortable cushion right now, and think Hughes is going to be better than you're giving him credit for (Hell, I think Nemec will be getting significant playtime by January and is primed to do a fantastic job as well). Teams always add at the TDL, and I think that's when we'll see Jersey add a legit Goaltender to push them over the top.