I guess I should man up and post my regular season predictions for each conference. Without further Preamble...
Western Conference:
1.) Detroit - Great coach, amazing defensemen, two game breaking forwards and improving youth in a terrible division. Even a Hasek injury can't de-rail the Red Wings
2.) San Jose Sharks - Scary forwards led by two of the best centers in the league. Maturing youth crop, good starting goaltender and the Phoenix Coyotes to beat up on 8 times.
3.) Colorado Avalanche - Lots of goals, decent blueline, potentially adequate goaltending.
4.) Anaheim - Still have Pronger and Giguere. Perry and Getzlaf will likely take a step forward as well. Loss of Selanne will hurt and Bertuzzi still sucks though.
5.) Nashville - Reports of their demise have been greatly exaggerated. Still better than Chicago, St. Louis and Columbus.
6.) Calgary - Iginla, Phaneuf, Kipper and Regehr should be able to get this club into the post-season, whatever the Iron Mike effect turns out to be.
7.) Vancouver - Goaltending and defense too good to be denied.
8.) Dallas - On a downward slope. Coaching and Turco will sneak them into the post-season though.
9.) Minnesota - Could easily trade with Vancouver or Calgary depending on the Gaborik factor.
10.) LA Kings - Get a goalie, then we'll talk.
11.) St. Louis - Slowly climbing the ladder. Weight and Tkachuk aren't what they once were though.
12.) Edmonton - Too much youth, not enough defense. Or offense, come to think of it. Also, tough division.
13.) Columbus - Not enough anything on this club.
14.) Chicago - Samsonov and Lang aren't going to make the difference here. Havlat is guaranteed to be sidelined for 15 games.
15.) Phoenix - Worst team in the league by quite a wide margin I would say.
Eastern Conference:
1.) Ottawa - Might be the class of the league. Heatley, Spezza and Redden in their contract seasons. Top divisional rival (BUF) got weaker.
2.) NYR - Hard to not be impressed with a top 6 that includes Gomez, Jagr, Drury, Shanahan and Straka. Blueline is steady if unimpressive, but Lundqvist is the real deal. Should have an excellent PP.
3.) Florida - By virtue of winning the perpetually weak SE division. Florida has a couple of elite players in Jokinen and Bouwmeester, some maturing contributors in Horton, Weiss and Olesz and a decent complimentary crop (Dvorak, McLean, Allen, Stumpel) and some better than average goaltending in Vokoun.
4.) Pittsburgh - Crosby, Malkin, Gonchar, Staal, Whitney. Enough firepower to make up for defensive deficiencies. Scary PP.
5.) Buffalo - Took some hits in the off-season, but still have offensive depth and a good starting goalie.
6.) NJ Devils - Brent Sutter will squeeze every last ounce of effort out of this line-up. Brodeur is still a top 3 goalie and Elias/Gionta should bounce back.
7.) Atlanta - Kovalchuk and Hossa squeak them into the post season again. Lehtonen continues to improve.
8.) Toronto - Toskala and Blake manage to make enough of a difference.
9.) Tampa Bay - No goaltending at all, no forward depth and no Boyle for 6 weeks. St. Louis and Vinny can only play so much.
10.) Carolina - Staal bounces back, but there's still precious little defensive depth and I dont have faith in Ward.
11.) Philadelphia - Some improvement thanks to off-season moves. Not a lot of goals beyond Gagne-Briere-Knuble and not a lot of defense beyond Timonen-Smith. Biron is question mark as well.
12.) Montreal - "Difference makers" at forward are nightmares at ES (Koivu, Ryder, Kovalev) and no way do they repeat that PP performance this year. Markov, Komisarek and Hamrlik are good, but not good enough.
13.) Boston - Fernandez will be exposed by the Bruins. Chara can't play the whole game and there's precious little depth beyond him. Their forwards (Savard, Sturm, Bergeron and Murray) can outscore their opponents...on the powerplay.
14.) NYI - A lot of cast-offs (Comrie, Sim, Vasicek), 3rd liners and depth defensemen. And poor Dipietro, who is stuck in hockey purgatory for another 13 years.
15.) Washington - Ovi, Semin and Nylander will no doubt score some goals, but that's the Caps can look forward to. No real defense beyond Tom Poti and Kolzig ain't getting any younger.
That was harder than I thought, the 9-15 selections in particular (excepting Phoenix). Looking at the list now, I think I'm going to very wrong at the end of the year in a couple of instances. Oh well. That's why the games are played.
