The new season is approaching. Carlsson and Celebrini have new 18M AAV deals. Bedard hurt his other shoulder. The Panthers got hte other Tkachuk, and Barkov is back.

The Rangers should be improved as well, their defensive corps is miles better and they should see some offensive improvement from the key youngsters, plus they picked up Dorofeyev.

I'll go with Car/Buf as the EC division champs, with NYR, FLA, WAS, and MTL as my non-wildcard playoff teams in the East.

In the West, Colorado will switch places with Dallas in their division, and Minnesota will again be the third non-wildcard.

The Pacific will continue to be ridiculous. Edmonton, VGK and SJ make it to the playoffs out of that division.

Preseason is almost over, regular season coming.

I'm predicting the Rangers finish second in the metro. This is more optimistic than most in Rangers-land. The difference is less that I have more belief in the Rangers than everyone else, and more that I don't believe in the Caps as a solid 2nd place team.

If the panthers dont run into injuries, and can get decent goaltending, they going to be hard to beat

Agreed, the Panthers will be solid. The Atlantic looks to be the toughest division again, with Florida, Buffalo, Montreal all appearing to be poised for excellent years. TBL is a bit on the wane at this point I think, but still dangerous.

The regular season starts tonight. Toronto just picked up Marichenko(sp?) from Columbus. Can they overcome 60 years of futility? Will McDavid stay in Edmonton? Yeah, they got Babfluff as a coach, but he’s not in net.
In the east I like Florida and Montreal. Out west I really like San Jose, the Celebrini kid is really impressive.

Celebrini is a monster, and he seems like a really grounded kid too. Love his game.

Well Vic, your Rangers are off to a rip roaring start. Losing 3-0 to Boston.

Yeah that sucked. First 2 periods looked like preseason, Boston wins their 11th straight home opener.

SHESTY!!!!!

That was *much* better. I'm expecting to look good against the red wings too.

It might be a long year in Edmonton, in two games they’ve given up 13 goals.

I haven't had time to keep up with anything but the Rangers so far, early results are always weird though. Especially with drastically curtailed practices and less preseason - we basically just have a couple of preseason games that count in the standings now. Particularly Edmonton - they start slow every year, then McDavid gets 30 in 12 or something and they are right where they need to be at the all star break.

That was great. Igor on pace for 20 goals/20 assists, maybe he can play on the second line when Garand starts in goal.