NHL Power Rankings: Reviewing preseason predictions
By Jeremy Tuch
The Elite Tier
This tier was going to be pretty easy. The good teams were easily identifiable, and have proven such with winning many games. So we were mostly right here.
Boston Bruins
Original Prediction – Elite, Steady
Were we right? Yes and Yes
The Bruins were always going to be a playoff team this year, and sure enough, they are. As we predicted, their core remained potent offensively. However, their offense is still top heavy, and they are going through a myriad of injuries to key players, really testing their depth.
David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, Patrice Bergeron, Torey Krug, and even Zdeno Chara missed time. Even a player they acquired at the trade deadline barely lasted a week before getting hurt (Marcus Johansson). Despite all that, they are a lock to play the Maple Leafs in a first-round series come playoff time that’ll get the playoff hockey nerves tingling early. They’ll be fine.
Nashville Predators
Original Prediction – Elite, Steady
Were we right? Yes and Yes
Coming into the season, everyone thought the Central Division would be the controlling power in the Western Conference, with the Predators as one of the main contenders. However, the Preds also have suffered through injuries to key players, such as Filip Forsberg, Viktor Arvidsson, and PK Subban.
As a result, their offense isn’t as good as it could be, and their “elite” status can come into question. However, they’re still very solid defensively, and their goaltending is still very above average, both of which are key come playoff time.
Pittsburgh Penguins
Original Prediction – Elite, Steady
Were we right? Yes and Yes
This seems to happen on a yearly basis. The Penguins start off slowly, and everyone thinks the era of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin is finally reaching its endpoint. Then the Pens go on a crazy streak of some kind, win lots of games, and secure a playoff spot and play against the Capitals at some point.
Looking past the conspiracy theory of NBC ratings, this is happening yet again, and the Penguins are just where we expected them to be, only this time from a Wild Card spot. This is possibly due to other teams becoming better than them, but either way, you’ll see the Pens in the playoffs, for sure.
San Jose Sharks
Original Prediction – Elite, Up
Were we right? Yes and Unclear
Things were looking very rosy when the Sharks traded for Erik Karlsson over the summer. With a monster of a defense corps between Karlsson, Brent Burns, and Marc-Edouard Vlasic, a fantastic offense, and solid goaltending from Martin Jones, the Sharks became an instant favorite to win the Cup. What happened? Karlsson kept getting hurt, and Jones has had a bumpy year.
The offense is fantastic, with the breakout campaigns of Tomas Hertl and Timo Meier, which has carried the Sharks to the elite tier. But looking beyond this year, things get murky. Expiring contracts galore, not a lot of draft picks or prospects in the pipes, the Sharks have work to do if they don’t win this year.
Tampa Bay Lightning
Original Prediction – Elite, Steady
Were we right? Yes and Yes (Mostly)
I’ll qualify us being right on the Lightning by virtue of us predicting they’d be near the top of the league. We just didn’t know how ridiculously good they’d actually be. It’s nigh impossible to predict a team to just flat out dominate the league like the mid-90’s Red Wings did.
Nikita Kucherov by himself scores more than many team’s top two, sometimes three players combined. He, along with Steven Stamkos, Brayden Point, and pretty much everyone else, have been scoring at will, and the defense isn’t half bad either. Oh, throw on top Andrei Vasilevskiy, who could get Vezina votes. We were right they’d be really good but we weren’t thinking legendarily good.
Toronto Maple Leafs
Original Prediction – Elite, Up
Were we right? Yes and Unclear
Toronto landed their homecoming king, John Tavares, and in an instant, the media predicted that this would be the year for the Leafs to finally win the Cup again. It actually started looking that way for half the season, but for some reason, they’ve cooled off for a while and haven’t really regained their stride.
Yes, Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner are still potting goals. However, one might think that the whole William Nylander debacle may have put the Leafs back a step, as they haven’t been as dominant since he returned from his holdout.
This year will be very tough for them to make it far in the playoffs, as they’ll likely have the Bruins and Lightning to get through to even sniff the finals, and after that, they’ll have to pay Marner. Who knows what would result of that?
Washington Capitals
Original Prediction – Elite, Steady
Were we right? Yes and Yes
The defending champion Washington Capitals are in almost the same position as they were last year. Regular season not as dominant as it used to be in the earlier half of this decade, but they’ll be ready come playoffs again.
Alex Ovechkin is still scoring all the goals, Braden Holtby is looking just fine, and the addition of Nick Jensen and Carl Hagelin are both excellent reinforcing acquisitions to their depth. The Capitals will have one of the easier paths to the promised land this year, so look for them to make a deep run again.
Winnipeg Jets
Original Prediction – Elite, Up
Were we right? Yes and Yes
Though they haven’t shown us pure dominance yet this year, there’s every indication that the Jets are indeed that good. Connor Hellebuyck isn’t as great as he was last year, but the Jets are still scoring in front of him.
Patrik Laine has been pretty cold since scoring five against the Blues a few months ago, but there’s enough support that his struggles are muted somewhat. Mark Scheifele and Blake Wheeler are both having strong years again, and the team is still very young and has more coming through the pipes.
This year isn’t a must-win year for the Jets, but it’s looking like they could still win it all anyway. We thought they would at the start the year, after all.