NHL Eastern Conference Predictions

13. Toronto Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs are in a period that fans dread to hear, a period of rebuilding. It appears as they will not bring back Mats Sundin and have turned things over to Alexei Ponikarovsky, Matt Stajan, and Nik Antropov.

Their offense will enjoy moderate success but the defense and goaltending will struggle. Pavel Kubina and Tomas Kaberle will be strong, but other than them, the defense is extremely weak.

Say what you want about Bryan McCabe, but I would much rather have him then Jeff Finger. In goal, the Leafs will ride out Vesa Toskala and Curtis Joseph, and when the team is out of contention, look for them to call up Justin Pogge. The only reason they will not finish last in the league is because of the two teams worse off than them.

14. Atlanta Thrashers

The team that will finish second to last in the East will be the Atlanta Thrashers. They used to be a team with a ton of offense and no defense. Well, now they don't have much of either.

Losing Marian Hossa last year hurt superstar Ilya Kovalchuk, who will still manage to score more than forty goals. Other than him, this team will struggle to score.

They are also weak on defense, with the exception of Ron Hainsey and Tobias Enstrom, who will provide much needed help to their power play. Goaltending is also very shaky as Kari Lehtonen has yet to prove himself as a reliable number one goalie.

15. New York Islanders

Finally, the worst team in the Eastern conference will be the New York Islanders. Their leading scorer will come from one of these three guys: Doug Weight, Bill Guerin, or Mike Comrie. If that's the case, it is a huge problem.

They lost Miroslav Satan and Ruslan Fedetenko during the offseason and even though they struggled, I would rather have the two of them instead of Frans Nielsen and Blake Comeau.

One would think their goalie position is strong because of Rick DiPietro, but he has been injured in each of the last two seasons. If that continues, one must ponder how bad the contract Garth Snow gave him really is.

Player Point Predictions

1. Alex Ovechkin: 72 goals, 53 assists, 125 points

2. Vincent Lecavalier: 45 goals, 54 assists, 99 points

3. Sidney Crosby: 30 goals, 64 assists, 94 points

4. Evgeni Malkin: 50 goals, 38 assists, 88 points

5. Jason Spezza: 40 goals, 47 assists, 87 points

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