The NHL season is a mere month away, and excitement is beginning to generate around the world for hockey fans.
As the season approaches the questions arise over who will win their respective divisions, and who will just sneak into the playoffs.
In the next couple of days I will give my opinions on who will finish where in each division. Today I will reveal my predictions for in my opinion the strongest division in the NHL, the Atlantic:
1. Pittsburgh Penguins- 103 Points
2. New York Rangers- 101 Points
3. Philadelphia Flyers- 100 Points
4. New Jersey Devils- 94 Points
5. New York Islanders- 71 Points
The Pittsburgh Penguins have an unbelievable core of young talent. Players like Jordan Stall, Tyler Kennedy, and Maxime Talbot are excellent complementary players with plenty of upside.
The Penguins also added veteran experience in the offseason, with the additions of Miroslav Satan and Ruslan Fedetenko to go along with Petr Sykora. These players will add extra offensive power to a lineup already featuring superstars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
The Penguins also have solid defense and good goaltending. Despite the injury to defenseman Ryan Whitney, the Penguins defense remains solid, with puck-moving defenseman Sergie Gonchar and youngsters Kris Letang and Brooks Orpik.
The Penguins also have strong defensive blue-liners in Hal Gill, Rob Scuderi, and Darryl Sydor. Marc-Andre Fleury finally had his breakout season last year, and will look to continue to stay solid between the pipes.
It looks to be another fun season for the New York Rangers faithful, as they stayed solid at offense and vastly improved their defense.
The Rangers' offense definitely took a hit, with the loses of Jaromir Jagr and Martin Straka, but added play-makers like Markus Naslund and Nikolai Zherdev. Naslund is an excellent leader, who can still put up a decent amount of points.
The Rangers' bringing in of Zherdev was an excellent move, in my opinion. Zherdev has loads of potential, and put up 61 points for a bad Columbus Blue Jackets team. Imagine what he can do in New York, where he won't be a main focus of opposing teams.
The Rangers made excellent moves defensively, adding Wade Redden and Dmitri Kalinin. New York also has underrated defenseman Michal Roszival, who was excellent on the power play last season. Marc Stall and Dan Girardi also have much potential, and may break out this season.
The Philadelphia Flyers did not change much during the offseason, which is not a bad thing at all. The Flyers surprised everyone by making it to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Danny Briere, Mike Richards, and Jeff Carter provide a talented nucleus to go along with solid complementary players.
Players like Scottie Upshall, Joffry Lupul and Mike Knuble add solid blue-collar play to a very talented Flyers team—not to mention, Simon Gagne is finally coming back this season. Look for Gagne to be a huge boost to the Flyers' offense.
Philadelphia also possesses good defensemen and a solid tandem of goaltenders. Defensemen Kimmo Timonen, Braydon Coburn, and Randy Jones will provide good defensive play at the blue line, and with goaltenders Martin Biron and Antero Nittymaki, the Flyers will be set at both ends of the ice.
12 comments Last one added 10 months ago — Leave a Comment
Eric K 10 months ago
Nice article, agreed with just about everything, except the Devils making the playoffs.
While Rolston will boost their goal scoring numbers, Holik is far removed from his prime as a forward. Their defense is still great, namely because of Brodeur, but with the offensive firepower that the Rangers, Pens, and Flyers have, I have a hard time beleiving the Devils will be able to stay in the race.
Add to that how much Tampa Bay has improved offensively and Buffalo's hunger to return to the playoffs, and I feel that the Devils will be on the outside looking in for a change.
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Aaron Brenker 10 months ago
Good thoughts, They definitely could miss the playoffs, but I just think whenever you have Brodeur in net you got a chance to make the playoffs.
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Steven Chang 10 months ago
I think you are just hopeful. Why would the Devils miss the playoffs? They didn't have Rolston and Holik last season but Brylin and Asham and they still made it. In fact, if not for the slight mistep the last 2 weeks of the season they would have been #1 in the division.
I feel you guys are selling the Devils short, as always. 94 points would be the lowest they have finished in a while.
The Devils also play very well against teams from the west, now that we play each team at least once. Can the same be said for the Rangers and the Flyers?
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NYI Fan Central 10 months ago
Aaron, no appologies necessary but your article did not make a lot of sense or at the very least forgot most of last season.
DiPietro can carry a club to a playoff spot by himself and the defense is improved without Bergeron and Berard.
The Islanders were a team in a playoff spot until the flu and four hundred man games lost to injury took their toll and that was with being a low scoring team. Still they won six games in a row at the deadline and were right there until more injuries hit.
Why would you think Comeau, Bergenheim and Okposo could not replace Satan, Fedotenko or Vasicek who all had twenty plus game streaks without goals. Bergenheim, Comeau are solid young players, Okposo has star potential and Tambellini is a first round pick with scoring ability.
Campoli and Gervais have plenty of upside.
Isles had a good divisional record and were not blown out of a single game of the thirty two last year, I'm not expecting them to go 9-0 to open the season against the Rangers or Devils again but frankly losing games to Pittsburgh where they take fifty three shots or blowing out the Pens 4-1 late last season hardly looks like a mismatch on paper even with the changes both teams made. Isles played eight games against the Pens a year ago and none of them were skill shows dominated by Crosby and Malkin.
Donald Brashear scoring shorthaned goals does not impress me.
As for the Division:
Fedotenko, Satan, Sykoya are support players at best who struggle and Fluery has to last a full season and give the Pens goaltending with an avg defense. Rangers moves on defense and offense are highly questionable with Dmitri Kalinin and Redden on the backline coming off terrible season or Zherdev who Columbus had enough of and Naslund who's going from one team that plays a trap to another well past his prime, that's a much weaker team without Avery, Straka, Jagr that had problems scoring with those players.
Rangers allowed the least shots per game last year in the East and altered the mix for players who struggle on defense. Another three plus months of Lundquvst playing sub five hundred hockey with a goals against below 9.00 is not going to work if his workload increases.
Devils added a few vets but Holik is not going to solve their problems on defense or protect Brodeur from a big workload. Flyers goaledning and defense still has a lot of holes and last year's club was eiher losing ten in a row or winning ten in a row, they have a solid mix up front but they are injury prone and their defense and goaltending do struggle for long stretches.
Top to bottom in this division you could flip a coin, it's that close.
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Aaron Brenker 10 months ago
OK good points, but I just don't think it's realistic to say the Islanders will finish ahead of the Rangers, Flyers and Penguins. They could maybe finish ahead of New Jersey, but I think it's gonna take a few years before they get to the playoffs, but hey I could be wrong.
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NYI Fan Central 10 months ago
Sorry Adam but we disagree.
Islanders opened 3-0 against the Rangers last season and after that won twice at Msg in March and April with half the roster out. The Rangers were hardly a dominating club making the playoffs three days before the regular season ended themselves and were one of the lowest scoring clubs in the league. A year ago Isles again won the season series and finished two points behind them and outside of the Simon game took points in seven of eight head to head contests.
Islanders have been to the playoffs four of the last six years, what's realistic is they are competitive and do make the playoffs when healthy.
If you think they can finish ahead of the Devils they can finsh ahead of any team in this division and going 6-0 against the Devils to open last year is no fluke.
You watched the games against Pittsburgh? Where did the Isles look overmatched in any way last year in those eight games? Ruutu, Brashear and a deflection off Witt were three of the Pens one-goal wins against the Isles last year, the other a 53 save effort from Caron.
Isles went 0-8 against Florida and Boston, that's why they missed the playoffs combined with the injuries.
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Aaron Brenker 10 months ago
Hey man I totally know about injuries, I'm a Panthers fan and I believe we led the league in man games lost, so I feel your pain. Do you think the Islanders can win the Atlantic?
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Eric K 10 months ago
"Brashear and a deflection off Witt were three of the Pens one-goal wins against the Isles last year, the other a 53 save effort from Caron."
Brashear plays for the Caps, not the Pens, and the 53 save effort came from either Conklin or Sabourin, Sebastian Caron played in the Swiss League last season.
"Fedotenko, Satan, Sykoya are support players at best who struggle"
I guess Sykora's 28 goals, 63 points (his highest point total since 2000-01) puts him in the "struggling" category? As long as he is playing alongside Malkin, he will not struggle, I look for him to break the 30-goal mark this season.
Your other points are valid, the Islanders record didn't reflect their competitiveness last season, and the injury bug did bite rather hard.
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NYI Fan Central 10 months ago
I did an article on why the Islanders can win the Atlantic, a lot of things have to fall into place but this is not a strong Atlantic division.
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Eric K 10 months ago
Additionally, how a division which saw 4 of its' 5 teams make the playoffs last season cannot be considered a strong division is way off-based.
The Atlantic is by far the strongest division in the East, and arguments could be made that its' the best division in the league.
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Nelson Santos 10 months ago
NYI fan central. I think NYI will suffer most the loss of Ted Nolan. He was able to get more out of his players than anyone including the players themselves thought possible. One never knows how this new coach will fare.
And the ATL division is the strongest in the league.
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NYI Fan Central 10 months ago
Eric,
It was Georges Laraque who had the shorthanded goal in one game (I wrote Brashear) and Ty Conklin was in goal for the fifty two shot save win (not Conklin) but still does not deflect from the point Islanders played well within their division and if it's as strong as some think that's plenty of proof they should be competitive again this year.
My point about Sykora is that's he is not consistent from year to year. Fedotenko has bounced around the conference and when he was healthy and at his best he did a good job here last year but he's too inconsistent. Satan had a bad knee but has been awful for the last two years and more streaky than ever. He still has his wrist shot, his slap shot is gone and rarely does he show any speed.
A strong division does not have three teams make the playoffs with only a few days left in the season, Pittsburgh was the only club that had a strong second half and they seem to change to a trap strategy at times.
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Nelson, Isles could struggle without Nolan but a lot of reports from a former team official on his blog (Chris Botta) said Nolan had problems with his veteran players and did not want to play the young players and had problems with the assistant coaches.
Snow, Nolan handled things poorly saying they could work together this summer and then going the other way in July.
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