NHL Predictions: 5 Bold Projections – The Western Conference’s Pacific Division is Coming off a Down Year Overall, But at Least Managed to Produce a Stanley Cup Finalist. With Every Team Looking to Improve in the Upcoming Campaign, Expect the Pacific Race to be Much More Exciting.
Following a Puck Prose tradition, it’s about time for another edition of our five bold NHL predictions. We typically release these in anticipation of important dates, such as the trade deadline, All-Star break, start of playoffs, free agency, etc. Now, with a new season set to begin on Wednesday, it’s time to settle in for another long, exciting nine months or so of hockey.
At the beginning of 2015-16, we released a league-wide edition for our five bold NHL predictions. It’s tricky to make accurate projections this early in the year, but we managed to hit on the Dallas Stars being a powerhouse team in the West emerging as a Stanley Cup contender. We also got lucky with our prediction that Connor McDavid would match/or exceed a point-per-game pace in his rookie season – luckily we made sure to protect ourselves to an injury opposed to making an actual point estimate.
We’re shifting gears a bit for 2016-17. Instead of five league-wide predictions, we’ve decided to split it up into a divisional series. Lastly, we finish in the Western Conference looking at the Pacific Division.
Anaheim finished atop the division in 2015-16 with 103 points – the same point total as third-place Chicago in the Central, although the Blackhawks had a better ROW record. The Ducks had a strong second half last year leading into the postseason, but fell short to the Preds in a hard-fought seven game series in round one. Second place Los Angeles (102 points) matched up with third place San Jose (98 points) in the opening round. As we know, the Sharks carried their momentum all the way to their first Stanley Cup Finals appearance.
On the outside looking in was Arizona (78 points), Calgary (77 points), Vancouver (75 points), and Edmonton (70 points). All four of these teams have taken steps to ensure they improve in 2016-17. Will this division be able to provide more than three playoff participants? That remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure; the race in the Pacific will be a lot more exciting in the upcoming campaign.